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 Cornell University Library 
 PR 4795.A4 1906 
 
 The complete poetical works of Thomas Ho 
 
 3 1924 014 154 235 
 
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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014154235 
 
OXFORD EDITION 
 
 THE COMPLETE 
 
 POETICAL WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS HOOD 
 
 EDITED, WITH NOTES 
 
 WALTER JERROLD 
 
 HENRY FROWDE 
 
 LONDON, EDll'^IB.URGjI^/ GLASGOW 
 
 NEW YORK AND TORONTO 
 
 1906 y 
 
OXFORD : HORACE HART 
 PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In this volume is given a fuller collection of the poetical writings of 
 Thomas Hood than has hitherto been pubUshed ; many as have been 
 the editions they have varied in the way in which pieces have been over- 
 looked or omitted from considerations of space or carelessness. Besides 
 bringing together all that is available from earlier collections, the Editor 
 has recovered from the periodicals for which Hood wrote a few poems 
 which have hitherto escaped notice ; in such cases, however, he has only 
 taken pieces that were indubitably Hood's — resisting the temptation to 
 swell their numbers by others for which the only evidence for ascription 
 is internal. In addition he has had the good fortune to obtain 
 half a dozen new poems from manuscript — one of these, it is true, had 
 been given before, but only in an incomplete form. 
 
 A few words should be said about the arrangement of the poems in 
 this edition, an arrangement which has been the result of careful con- 
 sideration consequent upon the inconsistencies met with in other collec- 
 tions. It has for sixty years been the custom to divide Hood's poetical 
 writings into ' comic ' and ' serious ', or into ' serious poems ' and ' poems 
 of wit and humour '. This was done in Moxon's' editions shortly after 
 Hood's death, it was done by Samuel Lucas twenty years later, and the 
 arbitrary differentiation was maintained by Canon Ainger in the two 
 volumes of selections which he issued in the Eversley Series in 1897. 
 That it is an arbitrary form of classification may be seen by comparing 
 some of those earUer editions, in which we find that one editor includes 
 poems in the ' serious ' section which another allots to the ' comic ', 
 and vice versa. Lucas, to cite but one example, puts ' Miss Kilmansegg ' 
 in the latter, while Ainger puts it in the former. Certain of Hood's poems 
 are definitely comic and others are definitely serious in both thought 
 and treatment, but many of them while deeply serious in intent are pre- 
 sented with all the machinery of wit and humour at his command. It has 
 seemed therefore best to break away from this traditional and unsatis- 
 factory method of classification, and to give the poems in a certain chrono- 
 logical order. That order is as follows : those poems which the author 
 issued in collected forms are given fiftt, and are given in the order of 
 publication of the various volumes, ranging from the Odes and A ddresses to 
 Great People of 1 825 to the Whimsicalities of 1 844. These are followed by 
 the miscellaneous poems published from time to time, but which were not 
 
iv PREFACE 
 
 reprinted in any collection during his lifetime ; these pieces are arranged 
 chronologically in the order of their pubUcation or of their writing, so 
 far as that can be ascertained with certainty, and range from July 1821, 
 when the poet joined the staff of the London Magazine, to the time when 
 he lay on his deathbed. After these are given the few poems the original 
 appearance of which has not been traced, those which are now printed 
 from manuscript for the first time, and those published posthumously, 
 including the poetical play oi Lamia, which is probably an early work. 
 In the supplementary pages devoted to Juvenile work is given for the 
 first time in any collection of Hood's poems his youthful romance in 
 verse 'The Bandit', and in this section there should be the few existing 
 passages from a boyish ' Guide to Dundee ' written in the manner of 
 Anstey's New Bath Guide, and portions Of two addresses written for 
 a Literary Society to which he belonged — those passages however, first 
 published in the revised edition of The Memorials of Thomas Hood by 
 his son and daughter, are still copyright. In the appendix are given 
 those portions of the Odes and Addresses to Great People which were 
 written by John Hamilton Reynolds and another piece by the same 
 writer. 
 
 The texts followed in preparing these poems have been wherever 
 possible those as printed by the poet himself ; where he reprinted pieces 
 with any alterations the latter text is given with the changes noted. 
 The only alterations made have been in correcting occasional obvious 
 errors of the press. In the ' Notes ' an attempt has been made to give 
 elucidatory information which many readers might need and which they 
 would not find in ordinary works of reference. 
 
 In conclusion very cordial and sincere thanks are due, and are hereby 
 rendered, to Mr. Alex. Elliot for his ready permission to include in this 
 collection 'The Bandit', first given to the world in 1885 in his very 
 interesting volume Hood in Scotland; to Mr. John FuUeylove, R.I., for 
 his kindness in permitting the use of manuscript poems of Hood's included 
 among the papers of the late Townley Green, R.I. ; and to Mr. W. A. 
 Longmore, nephew of Mrs. Hood's, for allowing reference to his copies of 
 the first edition of the Odes and Addresses to Great People in which Hood 
 and Reynolds had respectively initialled their own contributions. 
 
 W. J. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LIFE OF THOMAS HOOD 
 
 This Table shows the chief events of the poet's life, with the dates of the 
 publication of his principal works, and his chronological relations to certain 
 of his predecessors and contemporaries. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 I7S9 
 
 1765 
 
 1772 
 1774 
 1775 
 1779 
 
 1783 
 1784 
 
 1785 
 
 1786 
 1788 
 
 1791 
 1792 
 1793 
 1794 
 1795 
 
 Thomas Hood born. The son of a farmer at Errol, in the Carse of 
 Gowrie, he was apprenticed to a bookseller in Dundee. Later 
 came to London and joined a publishing firm. Married 
 Elizabeth Sands ; their children, born on unascertained dates, 
 were : 
 
 (i) James (died Dec. 10, 181 1). 
 
 (2) Elizabeth. 
 
 (3) Anne. 
 
 (4) Jessie. 
 
 (5) Catherine. 
 
 George Reynolds born (died 1853). Writing master at Christ's 
 Hospital. 
 
 [Coleridge born (died 1834).] 
 
 [Southey born (died 1843). Edward Dubois born (died 1850).] 
 
 [Lamb born (died 1834).] 
 
 [Moore born (died 1852). Horace Smith born (died 1849).] 
 
 [Crabbe's Village. Blake's Poetical Sketches.] 
 
 [Johnson died. Leigh Hunt born (died 1859). Allan Cunning- 
 ham born (died 1842).] 
 
 [Peacock born (died i866). De Quincey born (died 1859). 
 Cowper's Task.'] 
 
 [Burns's Poems. Blake's Songs of Innocence.] 
 
 [Byron born (died 1824). Theodore Hook born (died 1841). 
 Barham born (died 1845).] 
 
 [Boswell's Life of Johnson.] 
 
 [Rogers's Pleasures of Memory. Shelley born (died 1822).] 
 
 [Wordsworth's Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches.] 
 
 Jane Reynolds born (died 1847). 
 
 [Keats born (died 1821). Carlyle born (died 1881). George 
 Darley born (died 1846). Talfourd born (died 1854). Lander's 
 Poems.] 
 
VI 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 9 
 
 lO 
 
 [I 
 
 12 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 [John Hamilton Reynolds born (died 1852). Burns died. Cole- 
 ridge's Poems. Southey's Joan of Arc.1 
 (Poems of Coleridge, Lamb, and Lloyd.] 
 
 [Wordsworth's and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads. Lander's Geftic] 
 (6) Thomas Hood born, May 23, at 31 Poultry, City of London. 
 
 [Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.'] 
 [Macaulay born (died 1859). Cowper died.] 
 [William Barnes born (died 1886). Leigh Hunt's Juvenilia. 
 
 Lewis's Tales of Wonder. Southey's Thalaba.1 
 [Darwin died. Harriet Martineau born (died 1876). Hugh 
 
 Miller born (died 1856). Edinburgh Review started.] 
 [Emerson born (died 1882). Douglas Jerrold born (died 1857). 
 
 T. L. Beddoes born (died 1849). Beattie died.] 
 [Disraeli born (died 1881 ). Hawthorne born (died 1864).] 
 [Paley died. Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.] 
 [Mrs. Browning born (died 1861). Lever born (died 1872). 
 
 Moore's Poetical Works of Thomas Little.] 
 [Longfellow born (died 1882). Whittier born (died 1892). Words- 
 worth's Poems. Crabbe's Poems. Lamb's Tales from Shake- 
 speare. Sydney Smith's Plymley Letters.] 
 [PorsOn died. Lamb's Specimens. Scott's Marmion. Mrs. He- 
 
 mans's Poems.] 
 [Byron's English Bards. Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming. 
 
 Tennyson born (died 1892). O. W. Holmes born (died 1894). 
 
 Monckton Milnes born (died 1895). Frances A. Kemble born 
 
 (died 1893). Mark Lemon born (died 1870). Foe born (died 
 
 1849). Paine died.] 
 [Scott's Lady of the Lake. Crabbe's Borough. Southey's Curse 
 
 of Kehama.] 
 H.'s father died August 20 ; his brother died December 11. Family 
 
 living at Lower Street, Islington. [Thackeray born (died 1863). 
 
 A'Beckett, born (died 1856).] 
 [Browning born (died 1889). Eliza Cook born (died 1889). 
 
 Dickens born (died 1870). Henry Mayhew born (died 1887). 
 
 Wolcot's IFocAs. Smith's Rejected Addresses. Byron's Childe 
 
 Harold, i, ii. Crabbe's Tales.] 
 About this time H. had a brief period as clerk in a, city house. 
 
 Smith's Horace in London (reprinted from the Monthly Mirror, 
 
 published by H.'s father and edited by Edward Dubois). 
 
 [Shelley's Queen Mab. Byron's Giaour and Bride of A bydos.] 
 About this tiine H. took up engraving. [Byron's Corsair. Scott's 
 
 Waverley. Charles Reade born (died 1884).] 
 In the auturiin H. went on a visit for his health's sake to relatives 
 
 at Dundee. Began writing a rhymed satirical Dundee Guide. 
 Dundee. PJ-obably wrote The Bandit. Made first contributions 
 
 (unideiitified) to local periodicals. [Coleridge's Christabel, &c. 
 
 Leigh Hunt's Story of Rimini. Peacock's Headlong Hall. 
 
 Scott's Old Mortality. Shelley's Alastor. Charlotte Bronte 
 
 born (died 1855). Sheridan died.] 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 , JET, 
 ,I8 
 
 19 
 20 
 
 23 
 
 24 
 
 25 
 26 
 
 27 
 28 
 
 29 
 30 
 31 
 
 Dundee. Returned to London in the autumn. Probably appren- 
 ticed as engraver. [Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. Keats's 
 Poems. Mooie's Lalla Rookh. Blackwood's Magazine a.nd The 
 Literary Gazette started. Jane Austen died. Tom Taylor born 
 (died 1880).] 
 [harnh's Works. Keats's Endymion. Peacock's Nightmare Abbey, 
 Scott's Rob Roy. Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein.] 
 
 H. busy as engraver ; joins a Literary Society. [Wordsworth's 
 Peter Bell. Byron's Don Juan. Irving's Sketch Book. Hazlitt's 
 Comic Writers. Shelley's Cenci. Barry Cornwall's Dramatic 
 Scenes. Scott's Ivanhoe. Lowell born (died 1891). Wolcot 
 died.] 
 
 H. submits an instrument for use in copying drawings to the Society 
 of Arts. The Dundee Guide lost. Engaged in engraving a 
 plate for Neale's Views of Seats. [J. H. Reynolds's Peter 
 Corcoran. Keats's Lamia. Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. 
 Wordsworth's River Duddon. London Magazine started.] 
 
 In the summer H. becomes sub-editor of the London Magazine, and 
 frequent contributor to it. [Keats died. Shelley's Adonais. 
 Beddoes' Improvisatore. Pierce Egan's Life in London.] 
 
 In August Gil Bias by H. and Reynolds produced at the English 
 Opera House. In the autumn H. becomes engaged to Jane 
 Reynolds. [De Quincey's Opium Eater. Peacock's Maid 
 Marian. Cunningham's Traditional Tales. Beddoes' Bride's 
 Tragedy. Shelley died.] 
 
 H. probably ceased to sub-edit the London Magazine. Visited 
 Norfolk. [Lamb's Essays of Elia. Hazlitt's Liber Amoris. 
 Barry Cornwall's Flood of Thessaly, &c. (with poem dedicated to 
 H).] 
 [Colman appointed Examiner of Plays. Hook's Sayings and Doings. 
 Landor's Imaginary Conversations. Mitford's Our Village.] 
 
 H.'s 'Hogarthian' plate, The Progress of Cant, and his and Reynolds's 
 Odes and Addresses to Great People published. H. married to 
 Jane Reynolds, May 5. Honeymoon at Hastings. Settled 
 down at 2 Robert St., Adelphi. [Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age.] 
 
 H. published first series of Whims and Oddities. Appointed dramatic 
 critic of the Atlas. [Scott's Woodstock. Mrs. Shelley's Last 
 Man. Gifford died.] 
 
 First daughter born and died in May ; giving occasion for Lamb's 
 poem On an Infant Dying as soon as Born. Whims and Oddities, 
 second series. Plea of the Midsummer Fairies and other Poems, 
 and National Tales. [Blake died. Poe's Tamerlane. Tenny- 
 sons' Poems by Two Brothers.] 
 
 H. at. Brighton after severe attack of rheumatic fever. Projects 
 a Brighton Guide. 
 
 Winchmore Hill. Edits the Gem, and contributes to it The Dream 
 of Eugene A ram. Publishes The Epping Hunt. 
 
 Daughter, Frances Freeling, born (died 1878). Comic Annualhegan. 
 [Hazlitt died. Tennyson's Poems, chiefly Lyrical.] 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 32 
 33 
 
 34 
 
 35 
 
 36 
 
 37 
 
 38 
 
 39 
 
 40 
 
 41 
 
 42 
 
 43 
 44 
 
 45 
 
 46 
 
 Dream of Eugene Aram published separately. [Peacock's Crotchet 
 Castle. Lamb's Satan in Search of a Wife. Poe's Poems.] 
 
 Removes to Lake House, Wanstead. [Crabbe died. Scott died. 
 Lytton's Eugene Aram.] 
 [Lamb's Last Essays of Elia. Browning's Pauline.] 
 
 Publishes Tylney Hall, and suffers serious financial loss through 
 failure of a firm. Only son, Tom, born January 19 (died 1874). 
 [Coleridge died. Lamb died. Southey's Doctor. Cunning- 
 ham's History of British Literature (with notice of H.).] 
 
 At Coblentz (372 Castor Hof) early in the year ; joined there by his 
 family. [Browning's Paracelsus. Dickens's Bo2.] 
 
 Coblentz (752 Alten Graben). [Colman died. Godwin died. 
 O. W. Holmes's Poems. Hook's Gilbert Gurney.] 
 
 Ostend (39 Rue Longue). Publishes in the Athenaeum the Ode to 
 Rae Wilson. [Dickens's Pickwick. Carlyle's French Revolution. 
 Lamb's Letters.] 
 
 Ostend. [Dickens's Oliver Twist. Thackeray's Yellow-Plush. Car- 
 lyle's Sartor. Whittier's Poems.] 
 
 Ostend (La Rhetorique, Rue St. Franyois). Publishes Hood's Own. 
 [Dickens's Niohleby. Longfellow's Hyperion and Voices of the 
 Night. Lover's Songs and Ballads.] 
 
 Returns to London. Camberwell (2 Union Road, High Street). 
 Begins Miss Kilmansegg in the New Monthly Magazine. Pnb- 
 lishes Up the Rhine. [Ba,rha,m.'s Ingoldsby Legends. Thackeray's 
 Paris Sketch Book. Poe's Tales.] 
 
 Becomes editor of the New Monthly Magazine on Hook's death. 
 Removes to 17 Elm Tree Road, St. John's Wood. [Dickens's 
 Barnaby Rudge and Old Curiosity Shop. Punch started.] 
 [Macaulay's Lays. Tennyson's Poems.] 
 
 Removes to Devonshire Lodge, New Finchley Road. Ceases 
 editing the New Monthly Magazine, The Song of the Shirt 
 published in the Christmas number of Punch. [Home's Orion. 
 Thackeray's Irish Sketch Book. Macaulay's Essays. Ruskin's 
 Modern Painters.] 
 
 Starts Hood's Magazine in January. Seriously ill for months. 
 Publishes Whimsicalities. Civil List pension granted to his 
 wife in November. [Horae's New Spirit of the Age. Thackeray's 
 Barry Lyndon. Mrs. Browning's Poems.] 
 Thomas Hood dies after lingering illness. May 3. Buried at Kensal 
 Green. [Barham died. Sydney Smith died.] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 ODES AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE (1825) 
 
 Ode to Mr. Graham, the Aeronaut 
 A Friendly Address to Mrs. Fry 
 
 in Newgate 
 Ode to Richard Martin, Esquire, 
 
 M.P. for Galway 
 Ode to the Great Unknown 
 Ode to Joseph Grimaldi, senior 
 
 An Address to the Steam Wash- 
 ing Company 
 
 Ode to Captain Parry 
 
 Ode to W. Kitchener, M.D. 
 
 Ode to H. Bodkin, Esq. 
 
 Address to Maria Darlington, on 
 her return to the Stage 
 
 19 
 24 
 27 
 32 
 
 33 
 
 WHIMS AND ODDITIES. FIRST SERIES (1826) 
 
 To the Reviewers 
 
 Moral Reflections on the Cross of 
 
 St. Paul's . 
 A Valentine 
 Love 
 
 A Recipe — for Civilization 
 The Last Man . 
 Faithless Sally Brown 
 Backing the Favourite 
 The Mermaid of Margate 
 ' As it fell upon a Day ' 
 A Fairy Tale 
 The Fall of the Deer . 
 
 35 
 
 35 
 36 
 37 
 38 
 41 
 44 
 45 
 45 
 47 
 48 
 50 
 
 December and May . 
 
 A Winter Nosegay 
 
 Equestrian Courtship . 
 
 She is far from the Land 
 
 The Stag-eyed Lady. A Moorish 
 Tale 
 
 Remonstratory Ode from the 
 Elephant at Exeter Change, 
 to Mr. Mathews at the Eng- 
 lish Opera-House 
 
 The Irish Schoolmaster 
 
 The Sea-Spell . . . . 
 
 Faithless Nelly Gray . 
 
 51 
 
 52 
 52 
 53 
 
 54 
 
 57 
 60 
 66 
 68 
 
 WHIMS AND ODDITIES. SECOND SERIES (1827) 
 
 Bianca's Dream . 
 Mary's Ghost 
 The Progress of Art 
 A Legend of Navarre , 
 The Demon-Ship 
 A True Story 
 Tim Turpin 
 The Monkey-Martyr 
 ■ Death's Ramble 
 Craniology 
 
 
 ■ 70 
 
 A Parthian Glance 
 
 , 
 
 
 • 77 
 
 A Sailor's Apology for Bow-legs 
 
 
 ■ 78 
 
 Jack Hall 
 
 
 • 79 
 
 The Wee Man . 
 
 
 
 • 83 
 
 A Butcher . 
 
 
 
 ■ 8s 
 
 ' Don't you smell Fire ? ' 
 
 
 
 ■ 87 
 
 The Volunteer . 
 
 
 
 ■ 89 
 
 The Widow 
 
 
 
 . 92 
 
 John Trot . 
 
 
 
 • 93 
 
 Ode to the Caraeleopard 
 
 
 95 
 96 
 
 98 
 
 lOI 
 
 102 
 103 
 104 
 105 
 107 
 108 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES, HERO AND LEANDER, 
 LYCUS THE CENTAUR, AND OTHER POEMS (1827) 
 
 The Plea of the Midsummer 
 
 Fairies . . . .110 
 Hero and Leander . . • 1 39 
 Lycus, the Centaur . . . 161 
 The Two Peacocks of Bedfont . 170 
 
 Minor Poems 
 
 A Retrospective Review . . 1 76 
 
 Fair Ines 177 
 
 The Departure of Summer . 178 
 
 Song: ' A lake and a faicy boat ' 180 
 O'de : Autumn . . . .180 
 Ballad : ' Spring it is cheery ' .182 
 Hymn to the Sun . . .182 
 To a Cold Beauty . . .182 
 
 Autumn 183 
 
 Ruth 183 
 
 The Sea of Death . . .183 
 Ballad : ' She 's up and gone, the 
 
 graceless Girl ' . . .184 
 I remember, I remember . .185 
 Ballad: ' Sigh on, sad heart ' . 185 
 The Water Lady . . .186 
 
 The Exile 186 
 
 To an Absentee . . . .186 
 
 Song ; ' The stars are with the 
 
 voyager ' . . . .187 
 Ode to the Moon . .187 
 
 To .... 189 
 
 The Forsaken . . . -190 
 
 Autumn '9° 
 
 Ode to Melancholy . . .190 
 
 Sonnets 
 
 On Mistress Nicely, a pattern 
 
 for Housekeepers . . .192 
 Sonnet written in a volume of 
 
 Shakespeare . . .192 
 
 To Fancy 193 
 
 To an Enthusiast . . -193 
 ' It is not death, that sometime 
 
 in a sigh ' . . . . 194 
 ' By ev'ry sweet tradition of true 
 
 hearts ' . . . . 194 
 On receiving a Gift . . -194 
 ' The curse of Adam, the old-curse 
 
 of all ' 195 
 
 ' Love, dearest Lady, such as I 
 
 would speak ' . . -195 
 Silence ..... 196 
 
 THE EPPING HUNT (1829) 
 
 197 
 
 COMIC MELODIES (1830) 
 
 Lieutenant Lufif . 
 
 . 204 
 
 Valentine's Day . 
 
 . 206 
 
 The Ship Launch 
 
 . 20s 
 
 Love has not Eyes 
 
 . 206 
 
 Gog and Magog . 
 
 . 205 
 
 The Lord Mayor's Show 
 
 207 
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM, THE MURDERER 
 
 . 209 
 
 VERSES FROM TYLNEY HALL (1834) 
 
 [Play on, ye timid rabbits] . . 212 
 [A Declaration] . . . .212 
 
 [The Streamlet] 
 
 Tom Tatters' Birthday Ode 
 
 213 
 
 213 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 HOOD'S OWN : OR, LAUGHTER FROM YEAR TO YEAR (1839) 
 
 An Ancient Concert . . .214 
 Sonnet on Steam . . .215 
 A Report from Below . .216 
 
 Ode to M. Brunei . . .217 
 Over the Way .... 218 
 A Nocturnal Sketch . . .221 
 Domestic Asides ; or, Truth in 
 
 Parentheses . . . 222 
 
 Epigrams ..... 222 
 The Devil's Album . . . 223 
 The Lost Heir .... 223 
 John Day ..... 226 
 Number One . . . .227 
 The Drowning Ducks . . . 228 
 Sally Simpkin's Lament . .230 
 
 The Fall 230 
 
 Sonnet : ' Along the Wdodford 
 
 road there comes a noise ' . 231 
 The Steam Service . . .232 
 A Lay of Real Life . . . 233 
 A Valentine : The Weather . 233 
 Poem, — From the Polish . . 234 
 Conveyancing . . . .235 
 Sonnet : ' I had a Gig-Horse, and 
 
 I called him Pleasure ' .236 
 
 I'm not a Single Man . . . 238 
 The Burning of the Love-Letter . 239 
 The Apparition .... 240 
 Little O'P. — An African Fact . 240 
 The Angler's Farewell . , . 242 
 Sea Song ..... 243 
 Stanzas on Coming of Age . . 243 
 A Singular Exhibition at Somer- 
 set House .... 24s 
 I'm going to Bombay . . . 247 
 Ode to the Advocates for the 
 Removal of Smithfield 
 Market .... 248 
 Ode for St. Cecilia's Eve . .250 
 
 A Blow-up 253 
 
 The Ghost 256 
 
 , Ode to Madame Hengler . .257 
 
 f The Double Knock . . .259 
 
 f Bailey Ballads .... 260 
 
 '• French and English . . . 262 
 
 Our Village. — By a Villager . 263 
 
 A True Story .... 265 
 
 The Carelesse Nurse Mayd . . 367 
 
 To Fanny ..... 267 
 Poems, by a Poor Gentleman : 
 Stanzas written under the Fear 
 
 of Bailiffs .... 268 
 Sonnet written in a Work- 
 house .... 268 
 Sonnet. — A Somnambulist . 269 
 Fugitive Lines on Pawning my 
 Watch .... 269 
 The Compass, with Variations . 270 
 Pair'd, not Match'd . . . 272 
 
 The Duel 273 
 
 Sonnet to Vauxhall . . . 274 
 Ode to Mr. Malthus . . .275 
 A Good Direction . . . 277 
 There 's no Romance in that . 277 
 A Waterloo Ballad . . . 279 
 Shooting Pains .... 280 
 The Boy at the Nore . . .'281 
 Ode to St. Swithin . . .282 
 The Schoolmaster's Motto . . 284 
 The Supper Superstition . .285 
 A Storm at Hastings . . . 287 
 
 Lines to a Lady on her Departure 
 
 for India .... 292 
 Sonnet to a Scotch Girl, washing 
 linen after her country 
 fashion . . . . 293 
 ■ Sonnet to a Decayed Seaman . 294 
 Huggins and Duggims . . 294 
 Domestic Didactics by an Old 
 Servant : 
 The Broken Dish . . . 295 
 Ode to Peace .... 296 
 A few Lines on completing 
 
 Forty-seven . . . 296 
 
 To Mary Housemaid . . 297 
 
 Pain in a Pleasure-Boat . . 297 
 
 Literary and Literal . . . 299 
 
 Sonnet to Lord WharnclifEe, on 
 
 his Game Bill . . . 303 
 Literary Reminiscences . . 303 
 Ode to Perry .... 304 
 The Undying One . . . 307 
 Cockle V. Cackle .... 309 
 The Sweep's Complaint . .312 
 The Sub-marine . . . .314 
 Dog-grel Verses, by a Poor Blind 315 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Kangaroos . . . .316 
 Ode for the Ninth of November . 317 
 Sonnet : ' The sky is glowing in 
 
 one ruddy sheet ' . . 320 
 Rondeau . . . . .320 
 Symptoms of Ossification . .321 
 The Poacher . . . .321 
 I cannot bear a Gun . '. . 322 
 Trimmer's Exercise . . . 324 
 The Fox and the Hen . -325 
 
 The Comet ..... 326 
 
 Love and Lunacy 
 
 Those Evening Bells . 
 
 Lines to a Friend at Cobham . 
 
 The Quakers' Conversazione : 
 
 1. Sonnet . . • ■ 
 
 2. Lines on the Celebration of 
 
 Peace . . . • 
 The Lament of Toby, the Learned 
 
 Pig 
 
 To a Bad Rider .... 
 My Son and Heir 
 
 POEMS FROM • UP 
 
 To ***** 352 
 
 [Ye Tourists and Travellers] . 353 
 To *****, with a Flask of Rhine 
 
 Water .... 354 
 
 The Romance of Cologne . .354 
 
 THE RHINE ' (1840) 
 
 [Epigram] 
 
 The Knight and the Dragon 
 Our Lady's Chapel 
 Love Language of aMerry Young 
 Soldier .... 
 
 WHIMSICALITIES : A PERIODICAL GATHERING (1844) 
 
 Anacreontic for the New Year . 363 
 A Morning Thought . . . 364 
 
 No ! 364 
 
 To my Daughter on her Birthday 364 
 Epigram on Mrs. Parkes's Pam- 
 phlet 36s 
 
 The Forge 365 
 
 Sonnet : ' The world is with me, 
 
 and its many cares ' . . 372. 
 The Flower . . . .372 
 Epigram : On the Art Unions . 372 
 A Black Job . . . .373 
 On Lieutenant Eyre's Narrative 
 
 of the Disasters at Cabul . 377 
 Epigram on a late Cattle-Show in 
 
 Smithfield . . . .377 
 More Hullah-baloo . . . 377 
 On a Certain Locality . .380 
 Laying down the Law . .380 
 
 Epigram : The Superiority of 
 
 Machinery - . 
 
 A Custom-House Breeze 
 Party Spirit 
 Etching Moralised 
 A Reflection on New Year's Eve 
 Spring .... 
 A First Attempt in Rhyme 
 Epigram on the Chinese Treaty 
 The Season 
 The University Feud : a Row at 
 
 the Oxford Arms 
 On the Portrait of a Lady taken 
 
 by the Daguerreotype 
 The Lee Shore . 
 Epigram : On the Depreciated 
 
 Money 
 The Turtles 
 Epigram .... 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS UNCOLLECTED POEMS (1821-1845) 
 
 To Hope . 
 
 Ode to Dr. Kitchener 
 
 To a Critic . 
 
 ToCelia . 
 
 Fare Thee Well . 
 
 Midnight . 
 
 399 
 400 
 401 
 401 
 402 
 402 
 
 On a Sleeping Child . 
 
 Sonnet written in Keats 's Endy- 
 
 mion ..... 
 Epigram written on a Picture in 
 
 the Exhibition, called ' The 
 
 Doubtful Sneeze ' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Song : ' O Lady, leave thy silken 
 
 thread ' . . . . 404 
 The Two Swans .... 404 
 Ode on a Distant Prospect of 
 
 Clapham Academy . .411 
 Address to Mr. Cross, of Exeter 
 
 'Change . . . .412 
 [In Hemoriam] . . . .414 
 Ode to the late Lord Mayor, on 
 the publication of his Visit 
 to Oxford .... 404 
 Ode to Edward Gibbon Wake- 
 field, Esq. . . . .417 
 
 Vauxhall 418 
 
 To Mr. Wrench at the English 
 
 Opera House . . .419 
 To Miss Kelly of the English 
 
 Opera House . . . 420 
 Hints to Paul Pry . . .421 
 To Thomas Bish, Esq. . . 422 
 Time, Hope, and Memory . .423 
 Flowers ..... 424 
 I love thee .... 424 
 
 Ballad 424 
 
 Elegy on David Laing, Esq. . 425 
 
 Ode 426 
 
 A Lament for the Decline of 
 
 Chivalry .... 427 
 Ode ; Imitated from Horace . 428 
 Stanzas to Tom Woodgate, of 
 
 Hastings .... 429 
 The Logicians . . . . . 43 1 
 Death in the Kitchen . . .433 
 [Epistle to Miss Charlotte Rey- 
 nolds] 434 
 
 On the Death of the Giraffe -435 
 On the Removal of a Menagerie . 435 
 Birthday Verses . . .435 
 
 The Farewell . . . .435 
 On a Picture of Hero and Leander 436 
 For the Fourteenth of February 436 
 
 A Bunch of Forget-me-nots 
 The Poet's Portion . 
 
 - ' I'm not a Single Man ' 
 
 I Playing at Soldiers 
 
 f The Sweets of Youth . 
 Ode to N. A. Vigors, Esq 
 The Painter Puzzled . 
 The Death-bed . 
 
 I Anticipation 
 
 436 
 438 
 438 
 439 
 440 
 441 
 443 
 444 
 444 
 
 The Stage-struck Hero . . 445 
 Ode to Joseph Hume, Esq., M.P. 446 
 The Ballad . . . .448 
 
 To a Child embracing his Mother 448 
 Epigram on a Picture . . 449 
 
 Answer to Pauper . . . 449 
 Jarvis and Mrs. Cope . . . 449 
 Miss Fanny's Farewell Flowers . 450 
 The China-mender . . .451 
 Ode to Spencer Perceval, Esq., 
 
 M.P 453 
 
 On the Death of Sir Walter 
 
 Scott 435 
 
 A Public Dinner . . . 454 
 
 Ode to Admiral Lord Gambler, 
 
 G.C.B. . '. . .456 
 
 The Cigar 458 
 
 A Charity Sermon . . . 459 
 A Happy New Year . . . 460 
 Ode to Miss Kelly . . . 462 
 Ode to Sir Andrew Agnew, Bart. 463 
 Ode to J. S. Buckingham, Esq., 
 
 M.P 465 
 
 The United Family . . . 473 
 Sonnet to Ocean . . . 476 
 
 Sonnet. — ' Think, sweetest ' . 476 
 Lines on seeing my Wife and two 
 
 Children sleeping in the 
 
 same chamber . . . 477 
 Poetry, Prose, and Worse . . 477 
 Song for the Nineteenth . . 479 
 
 A Toast 480 
 
 Drinking Song, by a Member of a 
 
 Temperance Society . 480 
 
 Domestic Poems : 
 
 1. Hymeneal Retrospections . 482 
 
 2. The sun was slumbering in 
 
 the West . . .483 
 
 3. A Parental Ode to my Son, 
 
 aged three years and five 
 months . . . .483 
 
 4. A Serenade . . . 484 
 John Jones : a Pathetic Ballad . 485 
 Ode to Messrs. Green, Hollond, 
 
 and Monck Mason on their 
 late balloon expedition . 486 
 The Blue Boar .... 489 
 Ode to Doctor Hahnemann . 492 
 
 The Dead Robbery . . .495 
 The Desert-born . . . 499 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Agricultural Distress . . . 504 
 Love Lane ..... 506 
 Ode to Rae Wilson, Esq. . . 507 
 ' Napoleon's Midnight Review ' 518 
 Hit or Miss . . . ..519 
 The Old Poler's Warning . ,.524 
 Stanzas composed in a Shower- 
 bath 525 
 
 Clubs, turned up by a Female 
 
 Hand .... 526 
 
 A Rise at the Father of Angling . 527 
 The Forlorn Shepherd's Com- 
 plaint . . . . 529 
 Morning Meditations . . .531 
 The Beadle's Annual Address . 533 
 A Table of Errata . , .533 
 All Round my Hat . . .534 
 
 Ben Bluff 535 
 
 A Plain Direction . . .537 
 The Bachelor's Dream . .539 
 Rural Felicity .... 540 
 A Flying Visit ..... 543 
 The Doves and the Crows . . 547 
 
 The Doctor 548 
 
 The Vision 549 
 
 The Assistant Drapers' Petition 5 50 
 Lord Durham's Return .. .551 
 Verses mistaken for an Incendiary 
 
 Song 552 
 
 The Green Man .... 553 
 
 Pompey's Ghost . . .558 
 
 An Open Question . . . 560 
 Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious 
 
 Leg . . ... . 563 
 
 On a Late Immersion . . 600 
 
 A Tale of a Trumpet . . . 600 
 
 A Bull 614 
 
 A Reflection .... 614 
 On a Royal Demise . . .614 
 ' Up the Rhine ' ... 614 
 
 The Pursuit of Letters . .614 
 Epigram . . . . .615 
 On a Native Singer . . .615 
 To C. Dickens, Esq., on his de- 
 parture for America . .615 
 Night-Song — written at Sea .615 
 The Elm Tree .... 616 
 Rondeau ,. ,. . .. . 622 
 Epigram on a certain Hero and 
 
 Heroine .... 622 
 
 Address delivered at the Hayr 
 market Theatre by Mrs. 
 Warner . . . • 622 
 Sonnet : ' My heart is sick with 
 
 longing ' . . . .623 
 A Drop oi Gin .... 623 
 The Song of the Shirt . .625 
 
 The Pauper's Christmas Carol . 626 
 The Mary: a Sea-side Sketch . 627 
 The Haunted House , . .629 
 A Discovery in Astronomy . 635 
 
 A Song for the Million . '635 
 Skipping. A Mystery . . 637 
 A Tale of Temper . . .638 
 Epigram on the arrangement of 
 the Statues in Trafalgar 
 Square . . . ^ 640 
 Heiiections on New Year's Day . 640 
 The Lady's Dream . . . 641 
 Magnetic Musings . . . 642 
 
 A Dream 643 
 
 Epigram on a Picture (407) in the 
 
 British Institution . . 644 
 The Key : a Moorish Romance . 644 
 The Captain's Cow . . . 646 
 The Workhouse Clock . . 648 
 
 An Explanation .... 649 
 The Bridge of Sighs . . . 649 
 Epigram on Dr. Robert Elliot of 
 
 Camber well . . .651 
 
 Epigram on a certain Equestrian 
 
 Statue . . . .651 
 Epigram on the new Half-farth- 
 ings 651 
 
 Epigram 651 
 
 The Lay of the Labourer . . 65 1 
 Sonnet to a Sonnet . . .652 
 Epigram on Her Majesty's Visit 
 
 to the City .... 653 
 
 Epigram on the Queen's Visit to 
 
 the City .... 653 
 
 Epigram ... . . .653 
 
 The Sausage-maker's Ghost . 653 
 The Lark and the Rook . .655 
 Suggestions by Steam . . 656 
 Anacreontic .... 656 
 
 Epigram . . . . | 555 
 
 Stanzas : ' Farewell, Life ! ' . 657 
 
 The Surplice Question 
 Epigram 
 
 657 
 
 657 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Ballad (with an old burthen) . 657 
 To my dear Marianne . . 660 
 
 [Song] ' The Summer — the Sum- 
 mer ' . . . . . 660 
 [Fragment] ' Mary, I believ'd you 
 quick ' . . . . 661 
 
 Serenade 661 
 
 False Poets and True . .661 
 
 Sonnet : ' Love, I am jealous of 
 
 a worthless man ' . . 662 
 [' Love, see thy Lover '] . . 662 
 
 Lear 663 
 
 Stanzas : ' Is there a bitter 
 
 pang ' 663 
 
 Song : ' There is dew for the 
 
 flow'ret ' . . . . 664 
 
 Verses in an Album . . . 664 
 
 To a False Friend . . . 664 
 
 Stanzas : ' With the good of our 
 
 country before us ' . . 664 
 
 Song : To my Wife . . .665 
 
 Suggested by a Bunch of English 
 Grapes .... 
 
 Lines : ' Let us make a leap, my 
 dear ' 
 
 Song : ' My mother bids me spend 
 my smiles ' . 
 
 Youth and Age .... 
 
 Sir John Bowring 
 
 To Henrietta, on her departure 
 for Calais .... 
 
 Queen Mab .... 
 
 Epigrams 
 
 To Minerva 
 
 Fragment, probably written dur- 
 ing illness .... 
 
 Guido and Marina : a Dramatic 
 Sketch .... 
 
 Fragments .... 
 
 Lamia : a Romance . 
 
 665 
 
 665 
 
 666 
 666 
 666 
 
 667 
 668 
 668 
 669 
 
 669 
 
 669 
 672 
 674 
 
 JUVENILIA: THE BANDIT (?i8is-i7) 700 
 
 APPENDIX : J. H. REYNOLDS'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ' ODES 
 AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE' (1825) 
 
 Ode to Mr. M'Adam . . .718 
 Address to Mr. Dymoke, the 
 
 Champion of England . . 721 
 Address to Sylvanus Urban, Esq., 
 Editor of the Gentleman's 
 Magazine . . , .723 
 
 Address to R. W. Elliston, Esq. . 725 
 An Address to the Dean and 
 
 Chapter of Westminster . 728 
 Lines to Miss F. Kemble on 
 the Flower Scuffle at Covent 
 Garden Theatre . . .730 
 
 NOTES 732 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 767 
 
ODES AND ADDRESSES TO 
 GREAT PEOPLE 
 
 (1825. Third edition 1826.) 
 
 ' Catching all the oddities, the whimsies, the .absurdities, and the littlenesses of conscious great- 
 ness by the way.' — Citisen of the World, 
 
 Address. 
 
 The present being the first appearance of this little Work, some sort of Address 
 seems to be called for from the Author^ Editor, and Compiler,— and we come foiward 
 in prdse, totally overcome, like a flurried manager, in his evei^'-day clothes, to solicit 
 publit indulgence — ^protest an indelible feeling of reverence — bow, beseech, promise — 
 and 'all that.' 
 
 To the persons addressed in the Poems, nothing need be said, as it would be only 
 swelling the book, (a custom which we detest,) to recapitulate in prose what we have 
 said in veise. To those unaddressed, an apology is due ; — and to them it is very 
 respectftllly ofTeredi Mr. Hunt for his Permanent Ink, deserves :to have his name 
 recorded in his own composition— Mr. Colman, the amiable King's Jei'ter, and Oath- 
 blaster of Vhe modern Stage, meiits a line — Mr. Accum, whose fame is potted — Mr. 
 Biidgman, Ihe maker of Patent Safety Coffins, — Mr. Kean, the great Lustre of the 
 Boxes — Sir Humphry Davy, the great Lamplighter of the Pits — Sir William Congreve, 
 one of the proprietors of the Portsmouth Rocket — yea, several others call for the Muse's 
 approbation ; — but our little Volume, like the Adelphi House, is easily filled, ard those 
 who are disappointed of places are requested to wait until the next performance. 
 
 Having said these few words to the uninitiated, we leave our Odes and Addresses, 
 like Gentlemen of the Green Isle, to hunt their own fortunes; — and, by » modest 
 assurance, to make their way to the hearts of those to whom they have addressed 
 themselves, 
 
 ODE TO MR. GRAHAM 
 
 THE AERONAUT 
 ' Up with me !— up with me into the sky ! '— WoRDSWORTH— (7» a Lark ! 
 
 Dear Graham, whilst the busy crowd , 
 The vain, the wealthy, and the proud. 
 
 Their meaner flights pursue. 
 Let us cast off the foolish ties 
 That bind us to the earth, and rise 
 Vnd. take a bird's-eye view! — 
 
 Bf 
 
 A few more whiffs of my segar 
 And then, in Fancy's airy car, 
 
 Have with thee for the skies : — 9 
 How oft this fragrant smoke upcurl'd, 
 Hath borne me from this little world, 
 
 And all that in it lies !— 
 
ODE TO MR. GRAHAM 
 
 Away ! — away ! — the bubble fills — 
 Farewell to earth and all its hills ! — 
 
 We seem to cut the wind ! — 
 So high we mount, so swift we go, 
 The chimney tops are far below, 
 
 The Eagle 's left behind I— 
 
 Ah me 1 my brain begins to swim ! — 
 The world is growing rather dim ; 20 
 
 The steeples and the trees — 
 My wife is getting very small ! 
 I cannot see my babe at all ! — 
 
 The DoUond, if you please 1 
 
 Do, Graham, let me have a quiz. 
 Lord ! what a Lilliput it is. 
 
 That little world of Mogg's !— 
 Are those the London Docks ? — that 
 
 channel, 
 The mighty Thames ? — a proper ken- 
 nel 
 For that small Isle of Dogs ! — 30 
 
 What is that seeming tea-urn there ? 
 That fairy dome, St. Paul's ! — I 
 swear, 
 
 Wren must have been a Wren ! — 
 And that small stripe ? — it cannot be 
 The City Road ! — Good lack ! to see 
 
 The little ways of men ! 
 
 7 
 Little, indeed ! — my eyeballs ache 
 To find a turnpike. — I must take 
 
 Their tolls upon my trust ! — 39 
 And where is mortal labour gone ? 
 Look, Graham, for a little stone 
 
 Mac Adamized to dust I 
 
 Look at the horses ! — less than flies ! — 
 Oh, what a waste it was of sighs 
 
 To wish to be a Mayor ! 
 What is the honour ? — none at all, 
 One's honour must be very small 
 
 For such a civic chair ! — 
 
 And there 's Guildhall !— 'tis far 
 
 aloof — 
 Methinks, I fancy thro' the roof 50 
 
 Its little" guardian Gogs, 
 Like penny dolls — a tiny show! — 
 Well, — I must say they're ruled below 
 
 By very little logs ! — 
 
 10 
 Oh ! Graham, how the upper air 
 Alters the standards of compare ; 
 
 One of our silken flags 
 Would cover London all about — 
 Nay then — ^let 's even empty out 
 
 Another brace of bags ! 60 
 
 II 
 Now for a glass of bright champagne 
 Above the clouds ! — Come, let us drain 
 
 A bumper as we go ! — 
 But hold ! — for God's sake do not cant 
 The cork away — unless you want 
 
 To brain your friends below. 
 
 12 
 Think ! what a mob of little men 
 Are crawling just within our ken, 
 
 Like mites upon a cheese ! — 
 Pshaw ! — how the foolish sight re- 
 bukes 70 
 Ambitious thoughts ! — can there be 
 Dukes 
 Of Gloster such as these ! — 
 
 13 
 Oh ! what is glory ? — what is fame ? 
 Hark to the little mob's acclaim, 
 
 'Tis nothing but a hum ! — 
 A few near gnats would trump as loud 
 As all the shouting of a crowd 
 
 That has so far to come ! — 
 
 14 
 Well — they are wise that choose the 
 
 near, 
 A few small buzzards in the ear, 8a 
 
 To organs ages hence ! — 
 Ah me, how distance touches all ; 
 It makes the true look rather small, 
 But murders poor pretence. 
 
ODE TO MR. GRAHAM 
 
 IS 
 ' The world recedes — it disappears ! 
 Heav'n opens on my eyes — my ears 
 
 With buzzing noises ring I ' — 
 A fig for Southey's Laureat lore ! — 
 What 's Rogers here ? — ^Who cares 
 for Moore 
 That hears the Angels sing ! — 90 
 
 16 
 
 A fig for earth, and all its minions ! — 
 
 We are above the world's opinions, 
 
 Graham 1 we'll have our own ! — 
 
 Look what a vantage height we've 
 
 got— 
 
 Now do you think Sir Walter Scott 
 
 Is such a Great Unknown ? 
 
 17 
 Speak up, — or hath he hid his name 
 To crawl thro' ' subways ' unto fame. 
 
 Like WilUams of Cornhill ? — 
 Speak up, my lad ! — when men run 
 small 100 
 
 We'll show what 's little in them all, 
 Receive it how they will ! — 
 
 Think now of Irving ! — shall he preach 
 The princes down, — shall he impeach 
 
 The potent and the rich. 
 Merely on ethic stilts, — and I 
 Not moralize at two miles high — 
 
 The true didactic pitch ! 
 
 19 
 Come: — what d'ye think of Jeffrey, sir? 
 Is GifEord such a Gulliver 110 
 
 In Lilliput's Review, 
 That like Colossus he should stride 
 Certain small brazen inches wide 
 
 For poets to pass through ? 
 
 Look down ! the world is but a spot. 
 Now say — Is Blackwood's low or not. 
 
 For all the Scottish tone ? 
 It shall not weigh us here — not where 
 The sandy burden 's lost in air — 
 
 Our lading — where is't iiown ? 120 
 
 Now, — like you Croly's verse indeed — • 
 In heaven — where one cannot read 
 
 The ' Warren ' on a wall ? 
 What think you here of that man's 
 
 fame ? 
 Tho' Jerdan magnified his name, 
 
 To me 'tis very small ! 
 
 22 
 And, truly, is there such a spell 
 In those three letters, L. E. L., 
 To witch a world with song ? 
 On clouds the Byron did not sit, 130 
 Yet dar'd on Shakspeare's head to 
 spit. 
 And say the world was wrong ! 
 
 23 
 And shall not we ? Let's think aloud ! 
 Thus being couch'd upon a cloud, 
 
 Graham, we'll have our eyes 1 
 We felt the great when we were less, 
 But we'll retort on littleness 
 
 Now we are in, the skies. 
 
 24 
 
 Graham, Graham, how I blame 
 The bastard blush, — the petty shame, 
 
 That used to fret me quite, — 141 
 The little sores I cover' d then. 
 No sores on earth, nor sorrows when 
 
 The world is out of sight ! 
 
 25 
 
 My name is Tims. — I am the man 
 That North's unseen, diminish'd clan 
 So scurvily abused ! 
 
 1 am the very P. A. Z. 
 
 The London Lion's small pin's head 
 So often hath refused 1 150 
 
 26 
 - (you cannot 
 
 see him 
 
 Campbell - 
 
 here) — 
 
 Hath scorn'd my lays : — do his ap- 
 pear 
 Such great eggs from the sky ? — 
 And Longman, and his lengthy Co. 
 Long, only, in a little Row, 
 Have thrust my poems by ! 
 
ODE TO MR. GRAHAM 
 
 27 
 What else? — I'm poor, and much beset 
 With damn'd small duns — that is — 
 in debt 
 Some grains of golden dust ! 159 
 But only worth, above, is worth. — 
 What 's all the credit of the earth? 
 An inch of cloth on trust ! 
 
 28 
 What 's Rothschild here, that wealthy- 
 man ! 
 Nay, worlds of wealth? — Oh, if you can 
 
 Spy out, — the Golden Ball ! 
 Sure as we rose, all money sank : 
 What 's gold or silver now ? — the 
 Bank 
 Is gone — the 'Change and all ! 
 
 29 
 What 's all the ground-rent of the 
 globe ? — 169 
 
 Oh, Graham, it would worry Job 
 
 To hear its landlords prate ! 
 But after this survey, I think 
 I'll ne'er be bullied more, nor shrink 
 From men of large estate ! 
 
 30 
 And less, still less, will I submit 
 To poor mean acres' worth of wit:-^ 
 
 I that have heaven's span — 
 I that like Shakspeare's self may 
 
 dream 
 Beyond the very clouds, and seem 
 An Universal Man ! 180 
 
 31 
 Oh, Graham, mark those gorgeous 
 
 crowds ! 
 Like Birds of Paradise the clouds 
 
 Are winging on the wind ! 
 But what is grander than their range ? 
 More lovely than their sun-set 
 change ? — 
 The free creative mind ! 
 
 32 
 Well ! the Adults' School 's in the air ! 
 The greatest men are lesson'd there 
 As well as the Lessee ! 189 
 
 Oh could Earth's EUistons thus small 
 Behold the greatest stage of all, 
 How humbled they would be ! 
 
 33 
 ' Oh would some God the giftie gie 'em. 
 To see themselves as others see 'em,' 
 
 'Twould much abate their fuss ! 
 If they could think that from the 
 
 skies 
 They are as little ia our eyes 
 As they can think of us ! 
 
 34 
 Of us ? are we gone out of sight ? 
 Lessen'd! diminish'd! vanish'd quite ! 
 
 Lost to the tiny town ! zoi 
 
 Beyond the Eagle's ken — the grope 
 Of DoUond's longest telescope ! 
 
 Graham ! we're going down ! 
 
 35 
 Ah me ! I've touch'd a string that 
 
 opes 
 The airy valve ! — the gas elopes — 
 
 Down goes our bright Balloon ! — 
 Farewell the skies ! the clouds ! I 
 
 smell 
 The lower world ! Graham, farewell, 
 Man of the silken moon ! 21a 
 
 36 
 
 The earth is close ! the City nears — 
 Like a burnt paper it appears. 
 
 Studded with tiny sparks ! 
 Methinks I hear the distant rout 
 Of coaches rumbling all about — 
 
 We're close above the Parks ! 
 
 37 
 I hear the watchmen on their beats. 
 Hawking the hour about the streets. 
 
 Lord ! what a cruel jar 
 It is upon the earth to light ! 220 
 Well — there 's the finish of our 
 flight ! 
 I've smoked my last segar ! 
 
A FRIENDLY ADDRESS' 
 
 TO MRS. FRY AV NEWGATE 
 
 ' Sermons in stones/ — As You Like ii. 
 'Outl out! damned spot.* — Macbeth. 
 
 I LIKE you, Mrs. Fry 1 I like your name ! 
 
 It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressing 
 In daily act round Charity's great flame — 
 
 I like the crisp Browne way you have of dressing, 
 Good Mrs. Fry ! I like the placid claim 
 
 You make to Christianity, — professing 
 Love, and good works — of course you buy of Barton, 
 Beside the young jry's bookseller, Friend Darton ! 
 
 I like, good Mrs. Fry, your brethren mute — 
 Those serious, solemn gentlemen that sport — 
 
 I should have said, that wear, the sober suit 
 
 Shap'd like a court dress — but for heaven's court. 
 
 I like your sisters too, — sweet Rachel's fruit — 
 Protestant nuns ! I like their stiff support 
 
 Of virtue — -and I like to see them clad 
 
 With such a, difference — just like good from bad ! 
 
 3 
 I like the sober colours — not the wet ; 
 
 Those gaudy manufactures of the rainbow — 
 Green, orange, crimson, purple, violet — • 
 
 In which the fair, the flirting, and the vain, go — 
 The others are a chaste, severer set, 
 
 In which the good, the pious, and the plain, go — 
 They're moral standards, to know Christians by — 
 In short, they are your colours, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 4 
 As for the naughty tinges of the prism — 
 
 Crimson 's the cruel uniform of war — 
 Blue — hue of brimstone ! minds no catechism ; 
 
 And green is young and gay — not noted for 
 Goodness, or gravity, or quietism, 
 
 Till it is sadden'd down to tea-green, or 
 Olive — and purple 's giv'n to wine, I guess ; 
 And yellow is a convict by its dress ! 
 
 ' [Altered from ' Epistle' to 'Address' in the second edition.] 
 
A FRIENDLY ADDRESS 
 
 S 
 They're all the devil's liveries, that men 
 
 And women wear in servitude to sin — 
 But how will they come off, poor motleys, when 
 
 Sin's wages are paid down, and they stand in 
 The Evil presence ? You and I know, then 
 
 How all the party colours will begin, 
 To part — the Pittite hues will sadden there, 
 Whereas the Foxite shades will all show fair ! 40 
 
 6 
 Witness their goodly labours one by one ! 
 
 Russet makes garments for the needy poor — 
 Dove-colour preaches love to all^and dun 
 
 Calls every day at Charity's street-door — 
 Brown studies scripture, and bids woman shun 
 
 All gaudy furnishing — olive doth pour 
 Oil into wounds : and drah and slate supply 
 Scholar and book in Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 7 
 Well 1 Heaven forbid that I should discommend 
 
 The gratis, charitable, jail-endeavour ! 50 
 
 When all persuasions in your praises blend — 
 
 The Methodist's creed and cry are. Fry for ever ! 
 No — I will be your friend — and, like a friend, 
 
 Point out your very worst defect — Nay, never 
 Start at that word ! — But I must ask you why 
 You keep your school in Newgate, Mrs. Fry? 
 
 Too well I know the price our mother Eve 
 
 Paid for her schooling : but must all her daughters 
 
 Commit a petty larceny, and thieve — 
 
 Pay down a, crime for 'entrance' to your 'quarters'? 60 
 
 Your classes may increase, but I must grieve 
 Over your pupils at their bread and waters ! 
 
 Oh, tho' it cost you rent — (and rooms run high !) 
 
 Keep your school out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 9 
 O save the vulgar soul before it 's spoil'd 1 
 
 Set up your mounted sign without the gate — 
 And there inform the mind before 'tis soil'd I 
 
 'Tis sorry writing on a greasy slate ! 
 Nay, if you would not have your labours foil'd, 
 
 Take it inclining tow'rds a virtuous state, 70 
 
 Not prostrate and laid flat — else, woman meek! 
 The upright pencil will but hop and shriek I 
 
A FRIENDLY ADDRESS 
 
 Ah, who can tell how hard it is to drain 
 The evil spirit from the heart it preys in, — 
 
 To bring sobriety to life again, 
 
 Chok'd with the vile Anacreontic raisin, — 
 
 To wash Black Betty when her black 's ingrain,- 
 To stick a moral lacquer on Moll Brazen, 
 
 Of Suky Tawdry's habits to deprive her ; 
 
 To tame the wild-fowl-ways of Jenny Diver 1 
 
 Ah, who can tell how hard it is to teach 
 Miss Nancy Dawson on her bed of straw — 
 
 To make Long Sal sew up the endless breach 
 
 She made in manners — to write heaven's own law 
 
 On hearts of granite. — Nay, how hard to preach, 
 In cells, that are not memory's — to draw 
 
 The moral thread, thro' the immoral eye 
 
 Of blunt Whitechapel natures, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 In vain you teach them baby-work within : 
 'Tis but a clumsy botchery of crime ; 
 
 'Tis but a tedious darning of old sin — 
 
 Come out yourself, and stitch up souls in time — 
 
 It is too late for scouring to begin 
 
 When virtue 's ravell'd out, when all the prime 
 
 Is worn away, and nothing sound remains ; 
 
 You'll fret the fabric out before the stains ! 
 
 13 
 I like your chocolate, good Mistress Fry 1 
 
 I like your cookery in every way ; 
 I like your shrove-tide service and supply ; 
 
 I like to hear your sweet Pandeans play ; 
 I like the pity in your fuU-brimm'd eye ; 
 
 I like your carriage and your silken grey. 
 Your dove-like habits, and your silent preaching ; 
 But I don't like your Newgatory teaching. 
 
 Come out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! Repair 
 Abroad, and find your pupils in the streets. 
 
 O, come abroad into the wholesome air. 
 
 And take your moral place, before Sin seats 
 
 Her wicked self in the Professor's chair. 
 
 Suppose some morals raw 1 the true receipt 's 
 
 To dress them in the pan, but do not try 
 
 To cook them in the fire, good Mrs. Fry ! 
 
A FRIENDLY ADDRESS 
 
 ■15 
 Put on your decent bonnet, and come out ! 
 
 Good lack ! the ancients did not set up schools 
 In jail — but at the Porch I hinting, no doubt. 
 
 That Vice should have a lesson in the rules 
 Before 'twas whipt by law. — O come about. 
 
 Good Mrs. Fry ! and set up forms and stools 
 All down the Old Bailey, and thro' Newgate-street, 
 But not in Mr. Wontner's proper seat ! 
 
 16 
 Teach Lady Barrymore, if, teaching, you 
 
 That peerless Peeress can absolve from dolour ; 
 Teach her it is not virtue to pursue 
 
 Ruin of blue, or any other colour ; 
 Teach her it is not Virtue's crown to rue. 
 
 Month after month, the unpaid drunken dollar ; 
 Teach her that ' flooring Charleys ' is a game 
 Unworthy one that bears a Christian name. 
 
 17 
 O come and teach our children — that ar'n't ours — 
 
 That heaven's straight pathway is a narrow way. 
 Not Broad St. Giles's, where fierce Sin devours 
 
 Children, like Time — or rather they both prey 
 On youth together — meanwhile Newgate low'rs 
 
 Ev'n like a black cloud at the close of day. 
 To shut them out from any more blue sky : 
 Think of these hopeless wretches, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 18 
 You are not nice — go into their retreats. 
 
 And make them Quakers, if you will. — 'Twere best 
 They wore straight collars, and their shirts sans pleats ; 
 
 That they had hats with brims, — that they were drest 
 In garbs without lappels — than shame the streets 
 
 With so much raggedness. — You may invest 
 Much cash this way — but it will cost its price. 
 To give a good, round, real cheque to Vice ! 
 
 19 
 In brief, — Oh teach the child its moral rote. 
 
 Not in the way from which it won't depart, — 
 But out — out — out ! Oh, bid it walk remote ! 
 
 And if the skies are clos'd against the smart, 
 Ev'n let him wear the single-breasted coat, 
 
 For that ensureth singleness of heart. — 
 Do what you will, his every want supply, 
 Keep him — but out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry ! 
 
ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQUIRE, 
 
 M.P. FOR GALWAY 
 ' Martin, in this, has proved himself a very good Man 1 '—Boxiana. 
 
 I 
 
 How many sing of wars, 
 
 Of Greek and Trojan jars — 
 
 The butcheries of men ! 
 The Muse hath a ' Perpetual Ruby Pen I ' 
 Dabbling with heroes and the blood they spill ; 
 
 But no one sings the man 
 
 That, like a pelican, 
 Nourishes Pity with his tender Bill I 
 
 Thou Wilberforce of hacks I 
 
 Of whites as well as blacks, 
 
 Pyebald and dapple gray. 
 Chestnut and bay — 
 No poet's eulogy thy name adorns ! 
 
 But oxen, from the fens. 
 
 Sheep — in their pens, 
 Praise thee, and red cows with their winding horns ! 
 Thou art sung on brutal pipes I 
 
 Drovers may curse thee, 
 
 Knackers asperse thee, 
 And sly M.P.'s bestow their cruel wipes ; 
 
 But the old horse neighs thee. 
 
 And zebras praise thee. 
 Asses, I mean — that have as many stripes ! 
 
 3 
 Hast thou not taught the Drover to forbear. 
 In Smithfield's muddy, murderous, vile environ, — 
 Staying his lifted bludgeon in the air 1 
 
 Bullocks don't wear 
 
 Oxide of iron ! 
 The cruel Jarvy thou hast summon'd oft, 
 Enforcing mercy on the coarse Yahoo, 
 That thought his horse the courser of the two— 
 
 Whilst Swift smiled down aloft !— 
 O worthy pair ! for this, when ye inhabit 
 Bodies of birds— (if so the spirit shifts 
 From flesh to feather) — when the clown uplifts 
 His hand against the sparrow's nest, to grab it — • 
 He shall not harm the Martins and the Swifts I 
 B 3 
 
10 ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQUIRE 
 
 4 
 Ah ! when Dean Swift was quick, how he enhanc'd 
 The horse ! — and humbled biped man like Plato ! 
 But now he 's dead, the charger is mlschanc'd — 4^ 
 
 Gone backward in the world — and not advanc'd — 
 
 Remember Cato ! 
 Swift was the horse's champion — not the King's, 
 
 Whom Southey sings. 
 Mounted on Pegasus — would he were thrown ! 
 He'll wear that ancient hackney to the bone. 
 Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things ! 
 Ah well-a-day ! the ancients did nof use 
 
 Their steeds so cruelly ! — let it debar men 
 From wanton rowelling and whip's abuse — 5= 
 
 Look at the ancients' Muse t 
 
 Look at their Carmen ! 
 
 O, Martin ! how thine eye — 
 That one would think had put aside its lashes, — 
 
 That can't bear gashes 
 Thro' any horse's side, must ache to spy 
 That horrid window fronting Fetter-lane — 
 For there 's a, nag the crows have picked for victual. 
 Or some man painted in a bloody vein — 
 Gods ! is there no Horse-spital ! 
 That such raw shows must sicken the humane ! 
 Sure Mr. Whittle 
 Loves thee but little, 
 To let that poor horse linger in his pane ! 
 
 O build a Brookes's Theatre for horses ! 
 O wipe away the national reproach — 
 
 And find a decent Vulture for their corses ! 
 And in thy funeral track 
 Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach ! 
 
 Steeds that confess ' the luxury of wo ! ' 70 
 
 True mourning steeds, in no extempore black, 
 
 And Many a wretched hack 
 Shall sorrow for thee, — sore with kick and blow 
 And bloody gash — it is the Indian knack — 
 (Save, that the savage is his own tormentor) — 
 Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf — 
 The biped woe the quadruped shall enter. 
 
 And Man and Morse go half and half. 
 As if their griefs met in a common Centaur ! 
 
ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN 
 
 'O breathe not his name!' — Moore. 
 
 Thou Great Unknown ! 
 I do not mean Eternity nor Death, 
 
 That vast incog ! 
 For I suppose thou hast a living breath, 
 Howbeit we know not from whose lungs 'tis blown, 
 
 ^Thou man of fog ! 
 Parent of many children — child of none ! 
 
 Nobody's son ! 
 Nobody's daughter — but a parent still ! 
 Still but an ostrich parent of a batch 
 Of orphan eggs, — left to the world to hatch. 
 
 Superlative Nil ! 
 A vox and nothing more, — yet not Vauxhall ; 
 A head in papers, yet without a curl ! 
 
 Not the Invisible Girl ! 
 No hand — but a hand-writing on a wall — 
 
 A popular nonentity. 
 Still call'd the same, — without identity ! 
 
 A lark, heard out of sight, — 
 A nothing shin'd upon, — invisibly bright, 
 
 ' Dark with excess of light 1 ' 
 Constable's literary John-a-nokes — 
 The real Scottish wizard — to no which. 
 
 Nobody — in a niche ; 
 
 Every one's hoax ! 
 
 Maybe Sir Walter Scott — 
 
 Perhaps not ! 
 Why dost thou so conceal and puzzle curious folks ? 
 
 Thou, — whom the second-sighted never saw. 
 The Master Fiction of fictitious history ! 
 
 Chief Nong tong paw ! 
 No mister in the world — and yet all mystery ! 
 The ' tricksy spirit ' of a Scotch Cock Lane — 
 A novel Junius puzzling the world's brain — 
 A man of magic — ^yet no talisman ! 
 A man of clair obscure — not he o' the moon ! 
 
 A star — at noon. 
 A non-descriptus in a caravan, 
 A private — of no corps — a. northern light 
 In a dark lantern,— Bogie in a crape — 
 
 A figure — but no shape ; 
 
 A vizor — and no knight ; 
 
12 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN 
 
 The real abstract hero of the age ; 
 
 The staple Stranger of the stage ; 
 A Some One made in every man's presumption, 
 Frankenstein's monster — but instinct with gumption ; 
 Another strange state captive in the north, 
 
 Constable-guarded in an iron mask — 
 Still let me ask, 
 Hast thou no silver platter, Jo 
 
 No door-plate, or no card — or some such matter. 
 To scrawl a name upon, and then cast forth ? 
 
 3 
 Thou Scottish Barmecide, feeding the hunger 
 Of Curiosity with airy gammon ! 
 
 Thou mystery-monger. 
 Dealing it out like middle cut of salmoii. 
 That people buy and can't make head or tail of it ; 
 (Howbeit that puzzle never hurts the sale of it ;) 
 Thou chief of authors mystic and abstractical, 
 
 That lay their proper bodies on the shelf — 60 
 
 Keeping thyself so truly to thyself, 
 
 Thou Zimmerman made practical I 
 Thou secret fountain of a Scottish style, 
 
 That, like the Nile, 
 Hideth its source wherever it is bred. 
 But still keeps disemboguing 
 (Not disembroguing) 
 Thro' such broad sandy mouths without a head 1 
 Thou disembodied author — not yet dead, — 
 
 The whole world's literary Absentee ! 70 
 
 -. Ah ! wherefore hast thou fled, 
 
 Thou learned Nemo — wise to a degree. 
 Anonymous L.L.D. ! 
 
 Thou nameless captain of the nameless gang 
 That do — and inquests cannot say who did it ! 
 
 Wert thou at Mrs. Donatty's death-pang ? 
 Hast thou made gravy of Wear's watch — or hid it ? 
 Hast thou a Blue-Beard chamber ? Heaven forbid it ! 
 
 I should be very loth to see thee hang ! 
 I hope thou hast an alibi well plann'd, 80 
 
 An innocent, altho' an ink-black hand. 
 
 Tho' thou hast newly turn'd thy private bolt on 
 The curiosity of all invaders — 
 
 1 hope thou art merely closeted with Colton, 
 Who knows a little of the Holy Land, 
 
 Writing thy next new novel— The Crusaders ! 
 
ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN 13 
 
 5 
 Perhaps thou wert even born 
 To be Unknown. — Perhaps hung, some foggy morn, 
 At Captain Coram' s charitable wicket, 
 
 Pinn'd to a ticket 99 
 
 That Fate had made illegible, foreseeing 
 The future great unmentionable being. — 
 
 Perhaps thou hast ridden 
 A scholar poor on St. Augustine's Back, 
 Like Chatterton, and found a dusty pack 
 
 Of Rowley novels in an old chest hidden ; 
 A little hoard of clever simulation, 
 
 That took the town — and Constable has bidden 
 Some hundred pounds for a continuation — 
 To keep and clothe thee in genteel starvation. 100 
 
 I liked thy Waverley — first of thy breeding ; 
 
 I like its modest ' sixty years ago,' 
 As if it was not meant for ages' reading. 
 
 I don't like Ivanhoe, 
 Tho' Dymoke does — it makes him think of clattering 
 
 In iron overalls before the king, 
 Secure from battering, to ladies flattering, 
 
 Tuning his challenge to the gauntlet's ring — 
 Oh better far than all that anvil clang 
 
 It was to hear thee touch the famous string 
 Of Robin Hood's tough bow and make it twang, 
 Rousing him up, all verdant, with his clan. 
 Like Sagittarian Pan 1 
 
 7 
 I like Guy Mannering — but not that sham son 
 Of Brown. — I like that literary Sampson, 
 Nine-tenths a Dyer, with a smack of Porson. 
 I like Dirk Hatteraick, that rough sea Orson 
 
 That slew the Ganger ; 
 And Dandie Dinmont, like old Ursa Major ; 
 And Merrilies, young Bertram's old defender. 
 
 That Scottish Witch of Endor, 
 That doom'd thy fame. She was the Witch, I take it, 
 To tell a great man's fortune — or to make it ! 
 
 8 
 I like thy Antiquary. With his fit on, 
 
 He makes me think of Mr. Britton, 
 Who has — or had — within his garden wall, 
 A miniature Stone Henge, so very small 
 
 The sparrows find it difficult to sit on ; 
 
14 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN 
 
 And Dousterswivel, like Poyais' M'Gregor ; 
 
 And Edie Ochiltree, that old Blue Beggar, 13a 
 
 Painted so cleverly, 
 I think thou surely knowest Mrs. Beverly ! 
 I like thy Barber — him that fir'd the Beacon — 
 But that 's a tender subject now to speak on ! 
 
 9 
 I like long-arm'd Rob Roy. — His very cha.rms 
 
 Fashion'd him for renown !— In sad sincerity, 
 
 The man that robs or writes must have long arms, 
 
 If he 's to hand his deeds down to posterity ! 
 
 Witness Miss Biffin's posthumous prosperity. 
 
 Her poor brown crumpled mummy (nothing more) 14° 
 
 Bearing the name she bore, 
 
 A thing Time's tooth is tempted to destroy ! 
 
 But Roys can never die — why else, in verity. 
 
 Is Paris echoing with ' Vive le Roy ! ' 
 
 Aye, Rob shall live again, and deathless Di 
 
 Vernon, of course, shall often live again — 
 
 Whilst there 's a stone in Newgate, or a chain. 
 Who can pass by 
 
 Nor feel the Thief 's in prison and at hand ? 
 
 There be Old Bailey Jarvys on the stand ! 150 
 
 10 
 
 I like thy Landlord's Tales 1 — I like that Idol 
 Of love and Lammermoor — the blue-eyed maid 
 That led to church the mounted cavalcade. 
 
 And then puU'd up with such a bloody bridal ! 
 Throwing equestrian Hymen on his haunches— 
 I like the family — not silver, branches 
 That hijld the tapers 
 
 To light the serious legend of Montrose. — 
 I like M'Aulay's second-sighted vapours. 
 
 As i| he could not walk or talk alone, 160 
 
 Without the devil — or the Great Unknown, — 
 
 Palgetty is the dearest of Ducrows ! 
 
 II 
 I like St. Leonard's Lily — drehch'd with dew ! 
 I like thy Vision of the Covenanters, 
 That bloody-minded Graham shot and slew. 
 I like the battle lost and won. 
 The hurly burly 's bravely done. 
 The warlike gallops and the warUke cancers ! 
 I like that girded chieftain of the ranters. 
 
 Ready to preach down heathens, or to grapple, 170 
 
 With one eye on his sword 
 And one upon the Word, — 
 
ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN 15 
 
 How he would cram the Caledonian Chapel ! 
 I like stern Claverhouse, though he doth dapple 
 
 His raven steed with blood of many a corse — 
 I like dear Mrs. Headrigg, that unravels 
 
 Her texts of Scripture on a trotting horse — 
 She is so like Rae Wilson when he travels 1 
 
 I like thy Kenilworth — but I'm not going 
 
 To take a Retrospective Re-Review 180 
 
 Of all thy dainty novels — merely showing 
 
 The old familiar faces of a few, 
 The question to renew, 
 How thou canst leave such deeds without a name, 
 Forego the unclaim'd dividends of fame. 
 Forego the smiles of literary houris — ■ 
 Mid Lothian's trump, and Fife's shrill note of praise, 
 
 And all the Ckrse of Cowrie's, 
 When thou might' st have thy statue in Cromarty — 
 
 Or see thy image on Italian trays, 199 
 
 Betwixt Queen Caroline and Buonaparte, 
 
 Be painted by the Titian of R. A.'s, 
 Or vie in sign-boards with the Royal Guelph ! 
 
 Perhaps have thy bust set cheek by jowl with Homer's, 
 Perhaps send out plaster proxies of thyself 
 
 To other Englands with Australian roamers — 
 Mayhap, in Literary Owhyhee 
 Displace the native wooden gods, or be 
 The China-Lar of a Canadian shelf ! 
 
 13 
 
 It is not modesty that bids thee hide — 
 She never wastes her blushes out of sight : 
 It is not to invite 
 
 The world's decision, for thy fame is tried, — 
 
 And thy fair deeds are scatter'd far and wide, 
 Even royal heads 'are with thy readers reckon'd, — 
 
 From men in trencher caps to trencher scholars 
 In crimson collars. 
 And learned sergeants in the forty-second ! 
 Whither by land or sea art thou not beckon'd ? 
 Mayhap exported from the Frith of Forth, 
 Defying distance and its dim control ; 
 
 Perhaps read about Stromness, and reckon'd worth 
 A brace of Miltons for capacious soul — 
 
 Perhaps studied in the whalers, further north. 
 And set above ten Shakspeares near the pole ! 
 
i6 ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN 
 
 14 
 Oh, when thou writest by Aladdin's lamp, 
 With such a giant genius at command, 
 
 For ever at thy stamp, 
 To fill thy treasury from Fairy Land, 
 
 When haply thou might'st ask the pearly hand 220 
 
 Of some great British Vizier's eldest daughter, 
 
 Tho' princes sought her. 
 And lead her in procession hymeneal, 
 Oh, why dost thou remain a Beau Ideal ! 
 Why stay, a ghost, on the Lethean Wharf, 
 Envelop' d in Scotch mist and gloomy fogs? 
 Why, but because thou art some puny Dwarf, 
 Some hopeless Imp, like Riquet with the Tuft, 
 Fearing, for all thy wit, to be rebufi'd. 
 Or bullied by our great reviewing Gogs ? 230 
 
 15 
 
 What in this masquing age 
 Maketh Unknowns so many and so shy ? 
 
 What but the critic's page ? 
 One hath a cast, he hides from the world's eye ; 
 Another hath a wen, — he won't show where ; 
 
 A third has sandy hair, 
 A hunch upon his back, or legs awry, 
 Things for a vile reviewer to espy ! 
 Another has a mangel-wurzel nose, — 
 
 Finally, this is dimpled, 240 
 
 Like a pale crumpet face, or that is pimpled. 
 Things for a monthly critic to expose — 
 Nay, what is thy own case — that being small, 
 Thou choosest to be nobody at all ! 
 
 16 
 
 Well, thou art prudent, with such puny bones — 
 E'en like Elshender, the mysterious elf. 
 That shadowy revelation of thyself — 
 To build thee a small hut of haunted stones — 
 For certainly the first pernicious man 
 
 That ever saw thee, would quickly draw thee 250 
 
 In some vile literary caravan — 
 
 Shown for a shilling 
 
 Would be thy killing. 
 Think of Crachami's miserable span 1 
 No tinier frame the tiny spark could dwell in 
 
 Than there it fell in — 
 But when she felt herself a show, she tried 
 To shrink from the world's eye, poor dwarf ! and died ! 
 
ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN 
 
 17 
 
 17 
 Oh, since it was thy fortune to be born 
 A dwarf on some Scotch Inch, and then to fiinch 
 From all the Gog-like jostle of great men, 
 
 Still with thy small crow pen 
 Amuse and charm thy lonely hours forlorn — 
 Still Scottish story daintily adorn. 
 
 Be still a shade — and when this age is fled, 
 When we poor sons and daughters of reality 
 Are in our graves forgotten and quite dead. 
 And Time destroys our mottoes of morality — 
 The lithographic hand of Old Mortality 
 Shall still restore thy emblem on the stone, 
 
 A featureless death's head, 
 And rob Oblivion ev'n of the Unknown ! 
 
 270 
 
 ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI, SENIOR 
 
 'This fellow's wise enough to play the fool, 
 And to do that well craves a kind of wit.' — Twelfth NtghL 
 
 Joseph ! they say thou'st left the 
 stage, 
 To toddle down the hill of life. 
 And taste the flannell'd ease of age. 
 
 Apart from pantomimic strife — 
 ' Retir'd — (for Young would call it 
 
 so) — 
 The world shut out ' — in Pleasant 
 Row! 
 
 2 
 And hast thou really wash'd at last 
 From each white cheek the red 
 half moon ? 
 And all thy public Clownship cast. 
 To play the private Pantaloon ? 
 All youth— all ages — yet to be, 11 
 Shall have a heavy miss of thee ! 
 
 Thou didst not preach to make us 
 wise — 
 Thou hadst no finger in our school- 
 ing— 
 Thou didst not ' lure us to the skies ' — 
 Thy simple, simple trade was — 
 Fooling ! 
 
 And yet, Heav'n knows ! we could — 
 
 we can 
 Much ' better spare a better man ! ' 
 
 Oh, had it pleas' d the gout to take 
 The reverend Croly from the stage. 
 
 Or Southey, for our quiet's sake, 21 
 Or Mr. Fletcher, Cupid's sage. 
 
 Or, damme ! namby pamby Poole, — 
 
 Or any other clown or fool-! 
 
 Go, Dibdin — all that bear the name, 
 Go Byeway Highway man ! go! go! 
 
 Go, Skeffy — man of painted fame, 
 But leave thy partner, painted Joe 1 
 
 I could bear Kirby on the wane. 
 
 Or Signor Paulo with a sprain 1 30 
 
 6 
 Had Joseph Wilfred Parkins made 
 His grey hairs scarce in private 
 peace — 
 Had Waithman sought a rural shade — 
 Or Cobbett ta'en a turnpike lease — 
 Or Lisle Bowles gone to Balaam Hill — 
 I think I could be cheerful still 1 
 
ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI, SENIOR 
 
 Had Medwin left off, to his praise, 
 Dead lion kicking, like — a friend ! 
 
 Had long, long Irving gone his ways. 
 
 To muse on death at Pander's 
 
 End — 40 
 
 Or Lady Morgan taken leave 
 
 Of Letters — still I might not grieve ! 
 
 8 
 But, Joseph — everybody's Jo ! — 
 
 Is gone — and grieve I will and must ! 
 As Hamlet did for Yorick, so 
 
 Will I for thee, (tho' not yet dust,) 
 And talk as he did when he miss'd 
 The kissing-crust that he had kiss'd ! 
 
 9 
 Ah, where is now thy rolling, head ! 
 Thy winking, reeling, drunken eyes, 
 (As old Catullus would have said,) 
 Thy oven-mouth, that swallow'd 
 pies — 52 
 
 Enormous hunger — monstrous 
 
 drowth ! 
 Thy pockets greedy as thy mouth ! 
 
 10 
 Ah, where thy ears, so often cuff'd ! — 
 Thy funny, flapping, filchihg 
 hands ! — 
 Thy partridge body, always stufif'd 
 With waifs, and strays, and contra- 
 bands ! — 
 Thy foot — like Berkeley's Foote — 
 for why ? 39 
 
 'Twas often made to wipe an eye ! 
 
 II 
 Ah, where thy legs — that witty pair ! 
 For ' great wits j ump ' — and so did 
 they! 
 Lord ! how they leap'd in lamp-light 
 air ! 
 Caper' d — and bounc'd — and strode 
 away ! — 
 That years should tame the legs — 
 
 alack ! 
 I've seen spring thro' an Almanack ! 
 
 But bounds will have their bound — 
 the shocks 
 Of Time will cramp the nimblest 
 toes ; 
 And those that frisk' d in silken clocks 
 May look to limp in fleecy hose — 
 One only — (Champion of the ring) 71 
 Could ever; make his Winter, — 
 Spring! •, 
 
 '3 
 And gout, that owns no odds between 
 The toe of Czar- and toe of Clown, 
 Will visit — but I did not mean 
 
 To moralize, though I am grown 
 Thus sad, — Thy going seem'd to beat 
 A muffled drum for Fun's retreat I 
 
 14 
 And, may be — 'tis no time to smother 
 A sigh, when two prime wags of 
 London, 8a 
 
 Are gone — thou, Joseph, one — the 
 other, 
 A Joe! — 'sic transit gloria Mun- 
 denV 
 A third departure some insist on, — 
 Stage-apoplexy threatens Liston !^- 
 
 iS 
 Nay, then, let Sleeping Beauty sleep 
 With ancient ' Dozey ' to the 
 dregs — 
 Let Mother Goose wear mourning 
 deep. 
 And put a hatchment o'er her eggs ! 
 Let Farley weep — for Magic's man 89 
 Is gone,— ^his Christmas -Caliban I 
 
 16 
 Let Kemble, Forbes, and Willet rain, 
 As tho' they walk'd behind thy 
 bier, — 
 For since thou wilt not play again, 
 What matters, — if in heav'n or 
 here ! 
 Or in thy grave, or in thy bed !^— 
 There 's Quick ', might just as well be 
 dead I 
 
 ' One of the old actors :— still a performer (but in private) of Old Rapid. 
 
ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI, SENIOR 
 
 19 
 
 17 
 Oh, how will thy departure cloud 
 
 The lamp-light of the little breast ! 
 
 The Christmas child will grieve aloud 
 
 To miss his broadest friend and 
 
 best, — 100 
 
 Poor urchin ! what avails to him 
 
 The cold New Monthly's Ghost of 
 
 Grimm ? 
 
 18 
 
 For who like thee could ever stride 
 Some dozen paces to the mile ! — 
 
 The motley, medley coach provide — 
 Or like Joe Frankenstein com- 
 pile 
 
 The vegetable man complete ! — ■ 
 
 A proper Covent Garden feat ! 
 
 19 
 
 Oh, who like thee could ever drink. 
 
 Or eat — swill, swallow — bolt — and 
 
 choke ! no 
 
 Nod, weep, and hiccup — sneeze and 
 
 wink ? — 
 Thy very yawn was quite a. joke ! 
 Tho' Joseph, Junior, acts not ill, 
 ' There 's no Fool like the old Fool ' 
 still I 
 
 20 
 Joseph, farewell ! dear funny Joe ! 
 We met with mirth, — we part in 
 pain ! 
 For many a long, long year must go. 
 Ere Fun can see thy like again — 
 For Nature does not keep great stores 
 Of perfect Clowns — that are not 
 Boors ! 120 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY 
 
 ^Archer. How many are \\iexz. Scrub} 
 Scrub. Five and forty, Sir,' — Beaux Stratagem. 
 
 ' For shame — let the linen alone/ — M. W. of Windsor, 
 
 Mr. Scrub — Mr. Slop — or whoever you be ! 
 
 The Cock of Steam Laundries, — the head Patentee 
 
 Of Associate Cleansers, — Chief founder and prime 
 
 Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime^- 
 
 Co-partners and dealers, in linen's propriety — 
 
 That make washing public — and wash in society — 
 
 O lend me your ear ! if that ear can forego. 
 
 For a moment, the music that bubbles below, — 
 
 From your new Surrey Geisers ^ all foaming and hot, — 
 
 That soft ' simmer's sang ' so endear'd to the Scot — 
 
 If your hands may stand still, or your steam without danger- 
 
 If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger. 
 
 Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub, — 
 
 O wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub, — 
 
 And lend me your ear, — Let me modestly plead 
 
 For a, race that your labours may soon supersede — 
 
 For a race that, now washing no living affords — 
 
 Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards. 
 
 Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease. 
 
 Not with bread in the funds — or investments of cheese, — 
 
 ' Geisers : — the boiling springs in Iceland. 
 
20 AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY 
 
 But to droop like sad willows that liv'd by a stream, 
 Which the sun has suck'd up into vapour and steam.' 
 Ah, look at the laundress, before you begrudge 
 
 Her hard daily bread to that laudable drudge 
 
 When chanticleer singeth his earliest matins. 
 She slips her amphibious feet in her pattens. 
 And beginneth her toil while the morn is still grey, 
 As if she was washing the night into day — 
 Not with sleeker or rosier fingers Aurora 
 Beginneth to scatter the dew-drops before her; 
 Not Venus that rose from the billow so early, ' 
 
 Look'd down on the foam with a forehead more pearly • 
 
 Her head is involv'd in an aerial mist, 
 And a bright-beaded bracelet encircles her wrist • 
 Her visage glows warm with the ardour of duty • 
 She's Industry's moral— she 's all moral beauty '< 
 Growing brighter and brighter at every rub- 
 Would any man ruin her ?— No, Mr. Scrub ! 
 No man that is manly would work her mishap- 
 No man that is manly would covet her cap— 
 Nor her apron— her hose— nor her gown made of stuff— 
 Nor her gm— nor her tea— nor her wet pinch of snuff i 
 Alas ! so she thought— but that slippery hope 
 Has betrayed her-as tho' she had trod on her soap ! 
 And she,— whose support,— like the fishes that fly 
 Was to have her fins wet, must now drop from her sky— 
 bhe whose hvmg it was, and a part of her fare 
 
 Wfh\^^'^^''!,°r? ^ '^^^' "•'^ *^^ ^'^^ ^l'"^ sea bear. 
 With her hands like a sponge, and her head like a mop-L 
 Quite a hvmg absorbent that revell'd in slop— 
 She that paddled in water, must walk upon sand 
 And sigh for her deeps like a turtle on land 1 
 
 Tn^f»',i^^°' ^^^ P?"" laundress, all wretched she stands, 
 
 instead of a counterpane wringing her hands ! 
 
 A^ haggard and pinch'd, going down in life's vale, 
 
 With no faggot for burning, like AUan-a-dale I 
 
 No smoke from her flue-and no steam from her pane 
 
 Where once she watch'd heaven, fearing God and the rain - 
 
 ?m^fh r°'" ^'' bleach-field so fairly fngross^ 
 
 Till the lines wander'd idle from pillar tS post > 
 
 Ah, where are the playful young pinners-ah, where 
 
 The harlequin quilts that cut capers in air- 
 
 The brisk waltzing stockings-the white and the black 
 
 Se li^h?' vlnhlfw' ''^""'-'T' °' ^"""S °" the slickl 
 
 t!?^. £ sylph-hke garments so tenderly pinn'd 
 
 That blew into shape, and embodied the wind l * 
 
 There was white on the grass-there was white on the sorav 
 
 Her garden-It look'd like a garden of May ! spray— 
 
 ■ Query, ;S«r/j,?_Pri„ter's Devil [omitted in second edition]. 
 
AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY 21 
 
 But now all is dark — not a shirt 's on a shrub — 
 
 You've ruin'd her prospects in life, Mr. Scrub ! 70 
 
 You've ruin'd her custom — now families drop her — 
 
 From her silver reduc'd — nay, reduc'd from her copper I 
 
 The last of her washing is done at her eye, 
 
 One poor little kerchief that never gets dry ! 
 
 From mere lack of linen she can't lay a cloth, 
 
 And boils neither barley nor alkaline broth — 
 
 But her children come round her as victuals grow scant, 
 
 And recal, with foul faces, the source of their want — 
 
 When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed. 
 
 And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead, 80 
 
 And even its pearlashes laid in the grave — 
 
 Whilst her tub is a dry rotting, stave after stave. 
 
 And the greatest of Coopers, ev'n he that they dub 
 
 Sir Astley, can't bind up her heart or her tub, — 
 
 Need you wonder she curses your bones, Mr. Scrub ? 
 
 Need you wonder, when steam has depriv'd her of bread. 
 
 If she prays that the evil may visit your head — 
 
 Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee, — 
 
 If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the city— 
 
 In short, not to mention all plagues without number, 90 
 
 If she wishes you all in the Wash at the Humber ! 
 
 Ah, perhaps, in some moment of drowth and despair, 
 When her linen got scarce, and her washing grew rare — 
 When the sum of her suds might be summ'd in a, bowl, 
 And the rusty cold iron quite enter'd her soul — 
 When, perhaps, the last glance of her wandering eye 
 Had caught ' the Cock Laundresses' Coach ' going by. 
 Or her lines that hung idle, to waste the fine weather. 
 And she thought of her wrongs and her rights both together. 
 In a lather of passion that froth'd as it rose, 100 
 
 Too angry for grammar, too lofty for prose. 
 On her sheet — if a sheet were still left her — to write, 
 Some remonstrance like this then, perchance, saw the light — 
 
 LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE FROM BRIDGET JONES 
 
 TO THE NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN FORMING 
 
 THE WASHING COMMITTEE 
 
 Ix 's a shame, so it is — men can't Let alone 
 Jobs as is Woman's right to do — and go about there Own — 
 Theirs Reforms enuff Alreddy without your new schools 
 For washing to sit Up— and push the Old Tubs from their stools ! 
 But your just like the Raddicals,— for upsetting of the Sudds 
 When the world wagged well enuff— and Wommen washed your old dirty 
 duds. 
 
22 LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE 
 
 I'm Certain sure Enuff your Ann Sisters had no stream Ingins, that 's Flat,— 
 But I Warrant your Four Fathers went as Tidy and gentlemanny for all 
 
 that— 
 I suppose your the Family as lived in the Great Kittle 
 I see on Clapham Commun, some times a very considerable period back 
 
 when I were little, - '" 
 
 And they Said it went with Steem, — But that was a joke ! 
 For I never see none come of it,— that 's out of it — but only sum Smoak— 
 And for All your Power of Horses about your Ingins you never had but Two 
 In my time to draw you About to Fairs — and curse you, you know that 's 
 
 true ! 
 And for All your fine Perspectuses — ^howsomever you bewhich 'em. 
 Theirs as Pretty ones off Primerows Hill, as ever a one at Mitchum, 
 Thof I cant sea What Prospectives and washing has with one another to 
 
 Do- 
 lt aant as if a Bird'seye Hankicher can take a Birdshigh view ! 
 But Thats your look out — I've not much to do with that — But pleas God to 
 
 hold up fine. 
 Id show you caps and pinners and small things as lilliwhit as Ever crosst 
 
 the Line, 20 
 
 Without going any Father off then Little Parodies Place, 
 And Thats more than you Can — and 111 say it behind your face- 
 But when Folks talks of washing, it ant for you too Speak — 
 As kept Dockter Pattyson out of his Shirt for a Weak ! 
 Thinks I, when I heard it — Well, thear 's a Pretty go ! 
 That comes o' not marking of things or washing out the marks, and Huddling 
 
 em' up so ! 
 Till Their friends comes and owns them, like drownded corpeses in a Vault, 
 But may Hap you havint Larn'd to spel — and_ That ant your Fault, 
 Only you ought to leafe the Linnins to them as has Larn'd, — 
 For if it warnt for Washing, — and whare Bills is concarn'd 30 
 
 What 's the Yuse, of all the world, for a Wommans Edication, 
 And Their Being maid SchoUards of Sundays — fit for any Cityation. 
 
 Well, what I says is This — when every Kittle has its spout, 
 Theirs no nead for Companys to puff steam about ! 
 To be sure its very Well, when Their ant enuff Wind 
 For blowing up Boats with, — but not to hurt human kind 
 Like that Pearkins with his Blunderbush, that 's loaded with hot water, 
 Thof a Sherrif might know Better, than make things for slaughtter. 
 As if War warnt Cruel enuff^ — wherever it befalls. 
 
 Without shooting poor sogers, with sich scalding hot washing balls, — ■ 40 
 But thats not so Bad as a Sett of Bear Faced Scrubbs 
 As joins their Sopes . together, and sits up Stream rubbing Clubs. 
 For washing Dirt Cheap, — and eating other Peple's grubs ! 
 Which is all verry Fine for you and your Patent Tea, 
 But I wonders How Poor Wommen is to get Their Bo He ! 
 They must drink Hunt wash (the only wash God nose there will be !) 
 And their Little drop of Somethings as they takes for their Goods, 
 When you and your Steam has ruined (G — d forgive mee) their lively Hoods, 
 
LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE 23 
 
 Poor Wommen as was born to Washing in their youth ! 
 
 And now must go and Larn other Buisnesses Four Sooth ! S" 
 
 But if so be They leave thieir Lines what are they to go at — 
 
 They won't do for Angell's — nor any Trade like That, 
 
 Nor we cant Sow Babby Work — for that 's all Bespoke, — 
 
 For the Queakers in Bridle ! and a. vast of the confind Folk 
 
 Do their own of Themselves — even the bettermost of em — aye, and evn 
 
 them of middling degrees — 
 Why God help you Babby Linen ant Bread and Cheese ! 
 Nor we can't go a hammering the roads into Dust, 
 But we must all go and be Bankers, — [like Mr. Marshes and Mr. Cham- 
 
 berses] ' — and that 's what we must ! 
 God nose you oght to have more Concern for our Sects, 
 When you nose you have suck'd us and hanged round our Mutherly necks, 60 
 And remembers what you Owes to Wommen Besides washing — ^ 
 You ant, curse you, like Men to go a slushing and sloshing 
 In mob caps, and pattins, adoing of Females Labers 
 And prettily jear'd At you great Horse God Meril things, ant you now by 
 
 you next door neighbours — 
 Lawk I thinks I see you with your Sleaves tuckt up 
 No more like Washing than is drownding of a Pupp — 
 And for all Your Fine Water Works going round and round. 
 They'll scruntch your Bones some day — I'll be bound. 
 And no more nor be a gudgement, — for it cant come to good 
 To sit up agin Providince, which your a doing, — nor not fit It should, 70 
 For man warnt maid for Wommens starvation, 
 Nor to do away Laundrisses as is Links of Creation — 
 And cant be dun without in any Country But a [naked] ' Hottinpot Nation. 
 Ah, I wish our Minister would take one of your Tubbs 
 And preach a Sermon in it, and give you some good rubs — 
 But I warrants you reads (for you cant spel we nose) nayther Bybills or 
 
 Good Tracks, 
 Or youd no better than Taking the close off one's Backs — 
 And let your neighbours oxin and Asses alone, — 
 And every Thing thats hern, — and give every one their Hone ! 
 
 Well, its God for us All, and every Washer Wommen for herself, 80 
 
 And so you might, without shoving any on us off the shelf, 
 But if you warnt Noddis youd Let wommen abe 
 And pull of Your Pattins, — and leave the washing to we 
 That nose what 's what — Or mark what I say, 
 Youl make a fine Kittle of fish of Your Close some Day— 
 When the Aulder men wants Their Bibs, and their ant nun at all, 
 And Crist mass cum — and never a Cloth to lay in Gild Hall, 
 Or send a damp shirt to his Woship the Mare 
 Till hes rumatiz Poor Man, and cant set uprite in his Chare- 
 Besides Miss-Matching Larned Ladys Hose, as is sent for you not to wash 
 (for you dont wash) but to stew 9° 
 
 And make Peples Stockins yeller as oght to be Blew, 
 
 ' [Added in the second edition.] 
 
24 
 
 LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE 
 
 With a vast more like That,— and all along o£ Steam, 
 
 Which warnt meand by Nater for any sich skeam — 
 
 But thats your Losses and youl have to make It Good, 
 
 And I cant say I'm Sorry afore God if you shoud, 
 
 For men mought Get their Bread a great many ways 
 
 Without taking ourn— aye, and Moor to your Prays 
 
 [You might go and skim the crfeme off Mr. Muck- Adams milky ways— that 's 
 
 what you might. 
 Or bete Carpets— or get into Parleamint,— or drive Crabrolays from morning 
 
 to night, 
 Or, if you must be of our sects, be Watchmen, and slepe upon a poste 1 loo 
 (Which is an od way of sleping, I must say — and a very hard pillow at most,) 
 Or you might be any trade, as we are not on that I'm awares, 
 Or be Watermen now, (not Water-wommen,) and roe peple up and down 
 
 Hungerford stares. 
 Or] ''■ If You Was even to Turn Dust Men a dry sifting Dirt ! 
 But you oughtint to Hurt Them as never Did You no Hurt 1 
 
 Yourn with Anymocity, 
 
 Bridget Jones. 
 
 ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY 
 
 ' By the North Pole, I do challenge thee ! ' — Love's Labour's Lost. 
 
 Parry, my man ! has fhy brave leg 
 Yet struck its foot against the peg 
 
 On which the world is spun ? 
 Or hast thou found No Thoroughfare 
 Writ by the hand of Nature there 
 
 Where man has never run ! 
 
 Hast thou yet trac'd the Great Un- 
 known 
 Of channels in the Frozen Zone, 
 
 Or held at Icy Bay, 
 Hast thou still miss'd the proper 
 track 10 
 
 For homeward, Indian men that lack 
 A bracing by the way ? 
 
 3 
 Still hast thou wasted toil and trouble 
 On nothing but the North-Sea Bubble 
 
 Of geographic scholar ? 
 Or found new ways for ships to shape. 
 Instead of winding round the Cape, 
 
 A short cut thro' the collar I 
 
 Hast found the way that sighs were 
 
 sent to ^ 
 The Pole — tho' God knows whom 
 they went to ! 20 
 
 That track reveal' d to Pope — 
 Or if the Arctic waters sally. 
 Or terminate in some blind alley, 
 A chilly path to grope ? 
 
 S 
 Alas ! tho' Ross, in love with snows, 
 Has painted them couleur de rose. 
 
 It is a dismal doom, 
 As Claudio saith, to Winter thrice, 
 ' In regions of thick-ribbed ice ' — 
 
 All bright, — and yet all gloom ! 30 
 
 6 
 'Tis well for Gheber souls that sit 
 Before the tire and worship it 
 
 With pecks of Wallsend coals, 
 With feet upon the fender's front, 
 Roasting their corns — ^like Mr. Hunt — 
 
 To speculate on poles. 
 
 * [The lines in brackets were added in the second edition.] 
 
 " ' And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.'— £7<7ija io Abelard^ 
 
ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY 
 
 25 
 
 'Tis easy for our Naval Board — 
 'Tis easy for our Civic Lord 
 
 Of London and of ease, 
 That lies in ninety feet of down, 40 
 With fur on his nocturnal gown, 
 
 To talk of Frozen Seas I 
 
 'Tis fine for Monsieur Ude to sit, 
 And prate about the mundane spit, 
 
 And babble of Cook's track — 
 He'd roast the leather off his toes, 
 Ere he would trudge thro' polar 
 snows. 
 
 To plant a British Jack I 
 
 Oh, not the proud licentious great. 
 That travel on a carpet skate, so 
 
 Can value toils like thine ! 
 What 'tis to take a Hecla range, 
 Through ice unknown to Mr. Grange, 
 
 And alpine lumps of brine ! 
 
 But we, that mount the Hill o' 
 
 Rhyme, 
 Can tell how hard it is to climb 
 
 The lofty slippery steep. 
 Ah ! there are more Snow Hills than 
 
 that 
 Which doth black Newgate, like a 
 hat. 
 Upon its forehead, keep. 60 
 
 Perchance thou'rt now — while I am 
 
 writing- 
 Feeling a bear's wet grinder biting 
 
 About thy frozen spine ! 
 Or thou thyself art eating whale. 
 Oily, and underdone, and stale, 
 
 That, haply, cross'd thy line ! 
 
 i ■ 
 12 
 
 But I'll not dream such dreams of 
 
 ill— 
 Rather will I believe thee still 
 Safe cellar'd in the snow, — 
 
 Reciting many a gallant story, 70 
 Of British kings and British glory, 
 To crony Esquimaux — 
 
 13 
 Cheering that dismal game where 
 
 Night 
 Makes one slow move from black to 
 white 
 Thro' all the tedious year, — 
 Or smitten by some fond frost fair, 
 That comb'd out crystals from her 
 hair, 
 Wooing a seal-skin Dear ! 
 
 14 
 So much a long communion tends. 
 As Byron says, to make us friends 80 
 
 With what we daily view — 
 God knows the daintiest taste may 
 
 come 
 To love a nose that 's like a plum. 
 In marble, cold and blue I 
 
 15 
 To dote on hair, an oily fleece ! 
 As the' it hung from Helen o' 
 Greece — 
 They say that love prevails 
 Ev'n in the veriest polar land — 
 And surely she may steal thy hand 
 That used to steal thy nails ! 90 
 
 16 
 But ah, ere thou art fixt to marry, 
 And take a polar Mrs. Parry, 
 
 Think of a six months' gloom — 
 Think of the wintry waste, and hers, 
 Each furnish'd with a dozen furs, 
 
 Think of thine icy dome ! 
 
 17 
 Think of the children born to blubber ! 
 Ah me ! hast thou an Indian rubber 
 
 Inside ! — to hold a, meal 95 
 
 For months, — about a stone and half 
 Of whale, and part of a sea calf — 
 
 A fillet of salt veal ! — 
 
26 
 
 ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY 
 
 1 8. 
 
 Some walrus ham — no trifle but 
 A decent steak — a solid cut 
 
 Of seal — no wafer slice 1 
 A rein-deer's tongue and drink 
 
 beside ! 
 Gallons of Sperm — not rectified ! 
 
 And pails of water-ice 1 
 
 19 
 
 Oh, 
 
 canst thou fast and then feast 
 thus? 
 Still come away, and teach to us no 
 
 Those blessed alternations — 
 To-day to run our dinners fine. 
 To feed on air and then to dine 
 With Civic Corporations — 
 
 To save th' Old Bailey daily 
 
 shilling, 
 And then to take a half-year's 
 
 filling 
 In P. N.'s pious Row — 
 When ask'd to Hock and haunch o' 
 
 ven'son. 
 Thro' something we have worn our 
 
 pens on 
 For Longman and his Co. 120 
 
 O come and tell us what the Pole 
 
 is — 
 Whether it singular and sole is, — 
 
 Or straight, or crooked bent, — 
 If very thick or very thin, — 
 Made of what wood — and if akin 
 
 To those there be in Kent. 
 
 There 's Combe, there 's Spurzheim, 
 
 and there 's Gall, 
 Have talk'd of poles — ^yet, after all. 
 
 What has the public learn' d ? 
 And Hunt's account must still 
 defer, — 130 
 
 He sought the poll at Westminster — 
 And is not yet reiurn'd I 
 
 23 
 
 Alvanly asks if whist, dear, soul, 
 Is play'd in snow-towns near the 
 Pole, 
 
 And how the fur-man deals ? 
 And Eldon doubts if it be true', 
 That icy Chancellors really do 
 
 Exist upon the seals I 
 
 24 
 
 Barrow, by well-fed ofifice grates, 
 Talks of his own bechristen'd Straits, 
 
 And longs that he were there; 141 
 And Croker, in his cabriolet, 
 Sighs o'er his brown horse, at his 
 Bay, 
 
 And pants to cross the mer I 
 
 25 
 
 O come away, and set us right. 
 And, haply, throw a northern light 
 
 On questions such as these : — 
 Whether, when this drown'd world 
 
 was lost. 
 The surflux waves were lock'd in 
 frost. 
 And turn'd to Icy Seas ! 150 
 
 26 
 
 Is Ursa Major white or black ? 
 Or do the Polar tribes attack 
 
 Their neighbours — and what for ? 
 Whether they ever play at cuffs. 
 And then, if they take off their muffs 
 
 In pugilistic war ? 
 
 27 
 
 Tell us, is Winter champion there, 
 As in our milder fighting air ? 
 
 Say, what are Chilly loans ? 
 What cures they have for rheums 
 beside, 160 
 
 And if their hearts get ossified 
 
 From eating bread of bones ? 
 
ODE TO CAPTAIN PARRY 
 
 27 
 
 28. 
 Whether they are such dwarfs— the 
 
 quicker 
 To circulate the vital liquor ^, — 
 
 And then, from head to heel— 
 Howshort the Methodists must choose 
 Their dumpy envoys not to lose 
 Their toes in spite of zeal ? 
 
 29 
 Whether 'twill soften or sublime it 
 To preach of Hell in such a climate — 
 Whether may Wesley hope 171 
 Towin their souls — orthat old function 
 Of seals — with the extreme of unc- 
 tion — 
 Bespeaks them for the Pope ? 
 
 30 
 Whether the lamps will e'er be 
 
 ' learned ' 
 Where six months' ' midnight oil ' 
 is burned, 
 Or Letters must defer 
 
 With people that have never conn'd 
 An A, B, C, but live beyond 
 
 The Sound of Lancaster I 180 
 
 31 
 O come away at any rate — 
 Well hast thou earn'd a downier 
 state — 
 With all thy hardy peers — 
 Good lack, thou must be glad to 
 
 smell dock, 
 And rub thy feet with opodeldock. 
 After such frosty years. 
 
 32 
 
 Mayhap, some gentle dame at last, 
 Smit by the perils thou hast pass'd. 
 
 However coy before, 189 
 
 Shall bid thee now set up thy rest 
 In that Brest Harbour, Woman's 
 breast. 
 
 And tempt the Fates no more ! 
 
 ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE COOK's ORACLE — OBSERVATIONS ON VOCAL MUSIC — 
 THE ART OF INVIGORATING AND PROLONGING LIFE — PRACTICAL 
 OBSERVATIONS ON TELESCOPES, OPERA GLASSES, AND SPECTACLES 
 — THE housekeeper's LEDGER — AND THE PLEASURE OF MAKING 
 A WILL. 
 
 ' I rule the roast, as Milton says ! ' — Caleb Quotem. 
 
 Oh ! * multifarious man ! 
 Thou Wondrous, Admirable Kitchen Crichton : 
 
 Born to enlighten 
 The laws of Optics, Peptics, Music, Cooking — 
 Master of the Piano — and the Pan — 
 As busy with the kitchen as the skies I 
 
 Now looking 
 At some rich stew thro' Galileo's eyes — 
 Or boiling eggs — timed to a metronome — 
 
 As much at home 
 In spectacles as in mere isinglass — 
 
 ' Buffon. 2 [In first edition, ' Hail ! 
 
28 ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 
 
 In the art of frying, brown— as a digression 
 On music and poetical expression, — 
 Whereas, how few of all our cooks, alas ! 
 Could tell Calliope from ' Calliopee ! ' 
 
 How few there be 
 Could leave the lowest for the highest stories, 
 
 (Observatories,) 
 And turn, like thee, Diana's calculator. 
 However cook 's synonymous with Kater ! ' 
 
 Alas ! still let me say, 
 How few could lay 
 The carving knife beside the tuning fork. 
 Like the proverbial Jack ready for any work ! 
 
 2 
 
 Oh, to behold thy features in thy book ! 
 Thy proper head and shoulders in a plate, 
 
 How it would look ! 
 With one rais'd eye watching the dial's date. 
 And one upon the roast, gently cast down — 
 
 Thy chops — done nicely brown — 
 The garnish'd brow — with ' a few leaves of bay ' — 
 
 The hair — ' done Wiggy's way ! ' 
 And still one studious finger near thy brains, 
 
 As if thou wert just come 
 
 From editing some 
 New soup — or hashing Dibdin's cold remains 1 
 Or, Orpheus-like, — fresh from thy dying strains 
 Of music, — Eppipg luxuries of sound. 
 
 As Milton says, ' in many a bout 
 
 Of linked sweetness long drawn out,' 
 Whilst all thy tame stufi'd leopards listen'd round ! 
 
 3 
 Oh, rather thy whole proper length reveal. 
 Standing like Fortune, — on the jack — thy wheel. 
 (Thou art, like Fortune, full of chops and changes, 
 Thou hast a fillet too before thine eye !) 
 Scanning our kitchen, and our vocal ranges, 
 As tho' it were the same to sing or fry — 
 Nay, so it is — hear how Miss Paton's throat 
 
 Makes ' fritters ' of a note ! 
 [And how Tom Cook (Fryer and Singer born 
 By name and nature) oh ! how night and morn 
 
 He for the nicest public taste doth dish up 
 The good things from that Pan of music. Bishop !] '■' 
 And is not reading near akin to feeding, 
 Or why should Oxford Sausages be fit 
 
 Receptacles for wit ? 
 
 * Captain Kater, the Moon's Surveyor. 
 
 2 [The lines in brackets were added in the second edition.] 
 
ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 29 
 
 Or why should Cambridge put its little, smart, 
 Minc'd brains into a Tart ? 
 Nay, then, thou wert but wise to frame receipts, 
 
 Book-treats, Co 
 
 Equally to instruct the Cook and cram her — 
 Receipts to be devour'd, as well as read, 
 The Culinary Art in gingerbread — 
 The Kitchen's Eaten Grammar ! 
 
 Oh, very pleasant is thy motley page — 
 Aye, very pleasant in its chatty vein — 
 So — in a kitchen — would have talk'd Montaigne, 
 That merry Gascon — humourist, and sage ! 
 Let slender minds with single themes engage. 
 
 Like Mr. Bowles with his eternal Pope, — 70 
 
 [Or Haydon on perpetual Haydon, — or 
 
 Hume on ' Twice three make four,'] • 
 Or Lovelass upon Wills, — Thou goest on 
 Plaiting ten topics, like Tate Wilkinson ! 
 
 Thy brain is like a rich Kaleidoscope, 
 Stuii'd with a brilliant medley of odd bits, . 
 
 And ever shifting on from change to change. 
 Saucepans — old Songs — Pills — Spectacles — and Spits ! 
 
 Thy range is wider than a Rumford Range ! 
 Thy grasp a miracle ! — till I recall 80 
 
 Th' indubitable cause of thy variety— 
 Thou art, of course, th' Epitome of all 
 That spying — frying — singing — mix'd Society 
 Of Scientific Friends, who used to meet 
 Welch Rabbits — and thyself — in Warren Street ! 
 
 5 
 Oh, hast thou still those Conversazioni, 
 Where learned visitors discoursed — and fed ? 
 
 There came Belzoni, 
 Fresh from the ashes of Egyptian dead — 
 
 And gentle Poki— and that Royal Pair, 90 
 
 Of whom thou didst declare — 
 ' Thanks to the greatest Cooke we ever read — 
 They were — what Sandwiches should be — ^half bred I ' 
 There fam'd M'Adam from his manual toil 
 Relax'd — and freely own'd he took thy hints 
 
 On ' making Broth with Flints '— 
 There Parry came, and sljow'd thee polar oil 
 For melted butter — Combe with his medullary 
 
 Notions about the Shullery, 
 And Mr. Poole, too partial to a broil — 100 
 
 1 [The lines in brackets were added in the second edition.] 
 
30 ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 
 
 There witty Rogers came, that punning elf ! 
 
 Who used to swear thy book 
 Would really look 
 A Delphic ' Oracle,' if laid on Delf — 
 There, once a month, came Campbell and discuss'd 
 His own — and thy own — ' Magazine of Taste ' — 
 
 There Wilberforce the Just 
 Came, in his old black suit, till once he trac'd 
 Thy sly advice to Poachers of Black Folks, 
 
 That ' do not break their yolks,'— 
 Which huff'd him home, in grave disgust and haste 1 
 
 There came John Clare, the poet, nor forbore 
 Thy Patties — thou wert hand-and-glove with Moore, 
 Who call'd thee ' Kitchen Addison ' — for why ? 
 
 Thou givest rules for Health and Peptic Pills, 
 Forms for made dishes, and receipts for Wills, 
 ' Teaching us how to live and how to die ! ' 
 There came thy Cousin-Cook, good Mrs. Fry — 
 There Trench, the Thames Projector, first brought on 
 
 His sine Quay non — 
 There Martin would drop in on Monday eves. 
 Or Fridays, from the pens, and raise his breath 
 
 'Gainst cattle days and death, — 
 Answer' d by Mellish, feeder of fat beeves. 
 
 Who swore that Frenchmen never could be eager 
 For fighting on soup meagre — 
 ' And yet, (as thou would'st add,) the French have seen 
 A Marshal Tureen I ' 
 
 Great was thy Evening Cluster ! — often grac'd 
 
 With DoUond — Burgess — and Sir Humphry Davy ! ijo 
 
 'Twas there M'Dermot first inclin'd to Taste, — 
 
 There Colburn learn'd the art of making paste 
 
 For puffs — and Accum analysed a gravy. 
 
 Colman — the Cutter of Coleman Street, 'tis said 
 
 Canje there, — and Parkins with his Ex-wise-head, 
 
 (His claim to letters) — Kater, too, the Moon's 
 
 Crony, — and Graham, lofty on balloons, — 
 
 There Croly stalk'd with holy humour heated, 
 
 (Who wrote a light-horse play, which Yates completed) 
 
 And Lady Morgan, that grinding organ, i^o 
 
 And Brasbridge telling anecdotes of spoons, — 
 Madame Valbr^ue thrice honour'd thee, and came 
 With great Rossini, his own bow and fiddle, — 
 
ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D. 31 
 
 [The Dibdins, — Tom, Charles, Frognall, — came with tuns 
 Of poor old books, old puns !] • 
 And even Irving spar'd a night from fame, — 
 And talk'd — till thou didst stop him in the middle, 
 To serve round Tewah-diddle *. 
 
 8 
 
 Then all the guests rose up, and sighed good-bye ! 
 
 So let them : — thou thyself art still a Host I 150 
 
 Dibdin — Cornaro— Newton — Mrs. Fry ! 
 
 Mrs. Glasse, Mr. Spec ! — Lovelass — and Weber, 
 
 Matthews iii Quotem — ^Moore's fire-worshipping Gheber — 
 Thrice-worthy Worthy ! seem by thee engross'd I 
 Howbeit the Peptic Cook still rules the roast, 
 Potent to hush all ventriloquial snarling, — 
 And ease the bosom pangs of indigestion ! 
 
 Thou art, sans question, 
 The Corporation's love — its Doctor Darling I 
 Look at the Civic Palate — nay, the Bed i«o 
 
 Which set dear Mrs. Opie on supplying 
 ' Illustrations of Lying I ' 
 Ninety square feet of down from heel to head 
 
 It measured, and I dread 
 Was haunted by that terrible night Mare, 
 A monstrous burthen on the corporation ! — 
 Look at the Bill of Fare, for one day's share, 
 Sea-turtles by the score — Oxen by droves, 
 Geese, turkeys, by the flock — fishes and loaves 
 
 Countless, as when the Lilliputian nation 170 
 
 Was making up the huge man-mountain's ration ! 
 
 Oh ! worthy Doctor ! surely thou hast driven 
 
 The squatting Demon from great Garratt's breast — 
 
 (His honour seems to rest ! — ) 
 And what is thy reward ? — Hath London given 
 Thee public thanks for thy important service ? 
 
 Alas ! not even 
 The tokens it bestow'd on Howe and Jervis ! — 
 Yet could I speak as Orators should speak 
 
 Before the worshipful the Common Council, 180 
 
 (Utter my bold bad grammar and pronounce ill,) 
 Thou should'st not miss thy Freedom, for a week. 
 Richly engross'd on vellum : — Reason urges 
 That he who rules our cookery— that he 
 Who edits soups and gravies, ought to be 
 A Citizen, where sauce can make a Burgess ! 
 
 ■ fThe lines in brackets were added in the second edition.] 
 ' The Doctor's composition for a nightcap. 
 
33 
 
 ODE TO H. BODKIN, ESQ. 
 
 SECRETARY TO THE SOCIETY fOR THE SUPPRESSION OF 
 MENDICITY 
 
 ' Tliis is your charge — you shall comprehend all vagrom men.' — Much Ado About Nothing, 
 
 Hail, King of Shreds and Patches,hail, 
 
 Disperser of the Poor I 
 Thou Dog in office, set to bark 
 
 All beggars from the door ! 
 
 2 
 
 Great overseer of overseers. 
 
 And Dealer in old rags ! 
 Thy public duty never fails, 
 
 Thy ardour never flags ! 
 
 3 
 Oh, when I take my walks abroad, 
 
 How many Poor I miss ! lo 
 
 Had Doctor Watts walk'd now a days 
 
 He would have written this 1 
 
 So well thy Vagrant catchers, prowl, 
 So clear thy caution keeps 
 
 The path — O, Bodkin, sure thou hast 
 ■the eye that never sleeps ! 
 
 No Belisarius pleads for alms, 
 No Benbow, lacking legs ; 
 
 ■fhe pious man in black is now 
 The only man that begs ! 
 
 Street-Handels are disorganiz'd. 
 Disbanded every band ! — 
 
 The silent scraper at the door 
 Is scarce allow'd to stand I 
 
 The Sweeper brushes with his broom, 
 The Carstairs with his chalk 
 
 Retires, — the Cripple leaves his stand. 
 But cannot sell his walk. 
 
 ' [In first edition, ' nurse.'] 
 
 The old Wall-blind resigns the wall. 
 The Camels hide their humps, 30 
 
 The Witherington without a leg 
 Mayn't beg upon his stumps ! 
 
 Poor Jack is gone, that used to doff 
 His batter'd tatter' d hatj 
 
 And show his dangling sleeve, alas ! 
 There seem'd no arm in that ! 
 
 Oh ! it was such a sin to air 
 His true blue naval rags. 
 
 Glory's own trophy, like St. Paul, 
 Hung round with holy flags ! 40 
 
 Thou knowest best. I meditate. 
 
 My Bodkin, no offence ! 
 Let us, henceforth, but guard ' our 
 pounds. 
 
 Thou dost protect our pence ! 
 
 12 
 Well art thou pointed 'gainst the 
 Poor, 
 For, when the Beggar Crew 
 Bring their petitions, thou art paid. 
 Of course, to ' run them through.' 
 
 13 
 Doubtless^ thou art what Hamlet 
 meant — 
 To wretches the last friend : 53 
 What ills can mortals have, they 
 can't 
 With a bare Bodkin end ? 
 
 ' [In first edition, 'Of course.'] 
 
33 
 ADDRESS TO MARIA DARLINGTON,' 
 
 ON HER RETURN TO THE STAGE 
 'It was Maria!— 
 
 And better fate did Maria deserve than to have her banns forbid— 
 
 She had, since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round St. Peter's once 
 and retum'd bick.'—See the tu/iolc story in Slernc and the newspapers. 
 
 Thou art come back again to the stage, 
 
 Quite as blooming as when thou didst leave it ; 
 And 'tis well for this fortunate age 
 
 That thou didst not, by going off, grieve it 1 
 It is pleasant to see thee again — 
 
 Right pleasant to see thee, by Hercle, 
 Unmolested by pea-colour' d Hayne I 
 
 And free from that thou-and-thee Berkeley I 
 
 Thy sweet foot, my Foote, is as light 
 
 (Not my Foote — I speak by correction) zo 
 
 As the snow on some mountain at night. 
 
 Or the snow that has long on thy neck shone. 
 The ^it is in raptures to free thee, 
 
 The Boxes impatient to greet thee. 
 The Galleries quite clam'rous to see thee, 
 
 And thy scenic relations to meet thee 1 
 
 3 
 Ah, where was thy sacred retreat ? 
 
 Maria 1 ah, where hast thou been, 
 With thy two little wandering Feet, 
 
 Far away from all peace and pea-green I 20 
 
 Far away from Fitzhardinge the bold. 
 
 Far away from himself and his lot I 
 I envy the place thou hast stroU'd, 
 
 If a stroller thou art — which thou'rt not ! 
 
 4 
 Sterne met thee, poor wandering thing, 
 
 Methinks, at the close of the day-r 
 When thy Billy had just slipp'd his string, . 
 
 And thy little dog quite gone astray — 
 He bade thee to sorrow no more — 
 
 He wish'd thee to lull thy distress 30 
 
 In his bosom — he couldn't do more. 
 
 And a Christian could hardly do less I 
 
 ' [This was written jointly by Hood and Reynolds. For those pieces by Reynolds alone, see 
 the appendix ] 
 
 C 
 
34 ADDRESS TO MARIA DARLINGTON 
 
 S 
 Ah, me ! for thy small plaintive pipe, 
 
 I fear we must look at thine eye — 
 I would it were my task to wipe 
 
 That hazel orb thoroughly dry ! ^ 
 Oh sure 'tis a barbarous deed 
 
 To give pain to the feminine mind — 
 But the wooer that left thee to bleed 
 
 Was a creature more killing than kind ! 4" 
 
 6 
 The man that could tread on a worm 
 
 Were a brute — and inhuman to boot ; 
 But he merits a much harsher term 
 
 That can wantonly tread on a Foote ! 
 Soft mercy and gentleness blend 
 
 To make up a Quaker — but he 
 That spurn'd thee could scarce be a Friend 
 
 Though he dealt in that Thou-ing of ' thee.' 
 
 7 
 They that lov'd thee, Maria, have flown ! 
 
 The friends of the midsuiiimer hour ! so 
 
 But those friends now in anguish atone. 
 
 And mourn o'er thy desolate bow'r. 
 Friend Hayne, the Green Man, is quite out, 
 
 Yea, utterly, out of his bias ; 
 And the faithful Fitzhardinge, no doubt. 
 
 Is counting his Ave Marias! 
 
 8 
 Ah, where wert thou driven away. 
 
 To feast on thy desolate woe ? 
 We have witness'd thy weeping in play, 
 
 But none saw the earnest tears flow — As 
 
 Perchance thou wert truly forlorn, — , 
 
 Tho' none but the fairies could mark 
 Where they hung upon some Berkeley thorn, 
 
 Or the thistles in Burderop Park ! 
 
 9 
 Ah, perhaps, when old age's white snow 
 
 Has silver'd the crown of Hayne's nob — 
 For even the greenest will grow 
 
 As hoary as ' White-headed Bob ' — 
 He'll wish, in the days of his prime, 
 
 He had been rather kinder to one yo 
 
 He hath left to the malice of Time^^ 
 A woman — so weak and undone ! 
 * [In the first edition these two lines ran : 
 
 .That eye— fprc'd so often to wipe 
 That the handkerchief never got dry.] 
 
WHIMS AND ODDITIES. First Series 
 
 (1826. Fourth edition 1829) 
 
 'O Cicero! Cicero! if to pun be a crime, 'tis a crime I have learned of thee : 
 O Bias! Bias! if to pun be a crime, by thy example I was hiassed.'—Scrililei'US. 
 
 DEDICATION 
 TO THE REVIEWERS .- . 
 
 What is a modem Poet's fate? 
 
 To write his thoughts upon a slate ; — 
 
 The Critic spits on what is done, — 
 Gives it a wipe,— arid all is gone. 
 
 MORAL REFLECTIONS ON THE CROSS OF ST. PAUL'S 
 
 The man that pays his pence, and. 
 goes 
 Up to thy lofty cross, St. Paul, 
 Looks over Londpji's naked nose, 
 Women and men : 
 The world is all beneath his ken, 
 He sits above the Ball. 
 He seems on Mount Oiynipus' top. 
 Among the Gods, by Jupiter 1 and 
 lets drop ■■'■'• 
 
 His eyes from the empyreal clouds 
 On mortal crowds. 10 
 
 Seen from these skies, 
 How small those emmets in our eyes ! 
 Some carry little stiqks — and one 
 His eggs — to warm them in the sun : 
 
 Dear ! what a hustle. 
 
 And bustle ! 
 And there 's my aunt, 
 by her waist. 
 
 So long and thin. 
 
 And so pinch'd in, 
 Just in the pismire taste. 
 
 I know, her 
 
 Oh! what are men? — Beings ?o 
 small, ,•{•! 
 
 That, should, I fall 
 
 Upon their little heads, I must . 
 Crush them by hundreds into dust ! , 
 
 And what is life ? and all its ages — 
 
 There 's seven stages ! 
 Tiirnham Green ! Chelsea ! Putney ! 
 Fulham ! 
 Brentford ! and Kew ! 
 And Tooting, too ! 
 And oh I what very little nags to 
 pull 'em. 30 
 
 Yet each would seem a horse indeed, 
 If here at Paul's tip-top we'd got 
 'em ; 
 Although, like Cinderella's breed. 
 
 They're mice at bottom. 
 Then let me not despise a horse, 
 Though he looks small from Paul's 
 
 high cross ! 
 Since he would be, — as near the sky, 
 — Fourteen hands high. 
 
 5 
 What is this world with London in 
 its lap ? 
 
 Mogg's Map. 40 
 
 The Thames, that ebbs, and flows in 
 its broad channel ? 
 A tidy kennel. 
 The bridges stretching from its banks? 
 
 Stone planks. 
 Oh me ! hence could I read an ad- 
 monition 
 
 To mad Ambition ! 
 But that he would not listen to my call, 
 Though I should stand upon the 
 cross, and hall 1 
 
36 
 A VALENTINE 
 
 Oh ! cruel heart ! ere these posthumous papers 
 Have met thine eyes, I shall be out of breath ; 
 
 Those cruel eyes, like two funereal tapers. 
 Have only lighted me the way to death. 
 
 Perchance, thou wilt extinguish them in vapours, 
 When I am gone, and green grass covereth 
 
 Thy lover, lost ; but it will be in vain — 
 
 It will not bring the vital spark again. 
 
 3 
 
 Ah ! when those eyes, like tapers, burned so blue, 
 
 It seemed an omen that we must expect lo 
 
 The sprites of lovers ; and it boded true, 
 For I am half a sprite — a ghost elect ; 
 
 Wherefore I write to thee this last adieu, 
 ^ With my last pen — before that I effect 
 
 My exit from the stage ; just stopp'd before 
 
 The tombstone steps that lead us to death's door. 
 
 3 
 Full soon these living eyes, now liquid bright, 
 
 Will turn dead dull, and wear no radiance, save 
 They shed a dreary and inhuman light. 
 
 Illumed within by glow-worms of the grave ; so 
 
 These ruddy cheeks, so pleasant to the sight, 
 
 These lusty legs, and all the limbs I have, 
 Will keep Death's carnival, and, foul or fresh. 
 Must bid farewell, a long farewell, to flesh I 
 
 4 
 Yea, and this very heart, that dies for thee. 
 
 As broken victuals to the worms will go ; 
 And all the world will dine again but me — 
 
 For I shall have no stomach ; — and I know. 
 When I am ghostly, thou wilt sprightly be 
 
 As now thou art : but will not tears of woe 30 
 
 Water thy spirits, with remorse adjunct. 
 When thou dost pause, and think of the defunct ? 
 
 S 
 And when thy soul is buried in a sleep, 
 
 In midnight solitude, arid little dreaming 
 Of such a spectre — what, if I should creep 
 
 Within thy presence in such dismal seeming ? 
 Thine eyes will stare themselves awake, and weep. 
 
 And thou wilt cross thyself with treble screaming, 
 And pray with mingled penitence and dread 
 That I were less alive — or not so dead. 40 
 
A VALENTINE ^y 
 
 Then will thy heart confess thee, and reprove 
 
 This wilful homicide which thou hast done : 
 And the sad epitaph of so much love 
 
 Will eat into thy heart, as if in stone : 
 And all the lovers that around thee move, 
 
 Will read my fate, and tremble for their own ; 
 And strike upon their heartless breasts, and sigh, 
 ' Man, born of woman, must of woman die 1 ' 
 
 7 
 
 Mine eyes grow dropsical — I can no more — 
 
 And what is written thou may'st scorn to read, 50 
 
 Shutting thy tearless eyes. — 'Tis done — 'tis o'er — 
 
 My hand is destin'd for another deed. 
 But one last word wrung from its aching core. 
 
 And my lone heart in silentness will bleed ; 
 Alas ! it ought to take a life to tell 
 That one last word — that fare — fare — fare thee well ! 
 
 LOVE 
 
 O Love ! what art thou, Love ? the ace of hearts, 
 Trumping earth's kings and queens, and all its suits ; 
 
 A player, masquerading many parts 
 
 In life's odd carnival ; — a boy that shoots. 
 
 From ladies' eyes, such mortal woundy darts ; 
 A gardener, pulling heart's-ease up by the roots ; 
 
 The Puck of Passion — ^partly false — part real — 
 
 A marriageable maiden's ' beau-ideal.' 
 
 O Love, what art thou, Love ? a wicked thing. 
 Making green misses spoil their work at school ; 
 
 A melancholy man, cross-gartering ? 
 
 Grave ripe-faced wisdom made an April fool ? 
 
 A youngster, tilting at a wedding-ring ? 
 A sinner, sitting on a cuttie stool ? 
 
 A Ferdinand de Something in a hovel. 
 
 Helping Matilda Rose to make a novel ? 
 
 O Love ! what art thou. Love ? one that is bad 
 With palpitations of the heart — like mine — 
 
 A poor bewildered maid, making so sad 
 A necklace of her garters — fell design I 
 
 A poet, gone unreasonably mad. 
 
 Ending his sonnets with a hempen line ? 
 
 O Love ! — but whither now ? forgive me, pray ; 
 
 I'm not the first that Love hath led astray. 
 
38 
 'PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE' 
 
 I'll tell you a story that 's not in Tom Moore : — 
 Young Love likes to knock at a pretty girl's door : 
 So he call'd upon Lucy — 'twas just ten o'clock — 
 Like a spruce single man, with a smart double knock. 
 
 Now, a hand-maid, whatever her fingers be at, 
 Will run like a puss when she hears a rat-tat : 
 So Lucy ran up — and in two seconds more 
 Had questioned the stranger and answer'd the door. 
 
 3 
 The meeting was bliss ; but the parting was woe 
 For the moment will come when such comers must go : 
 So she kiss'd him, and whisper' d — poor innocent thing — 
 ' The next time you come, love, pray come with a ring.' 
 
 A RECIPE— FOR CIVILIZATION 
 
 The following Poem— is from the Pen of DOCTOR KITCHENER !— the most 
 heterogeneous of Authors, but at the same time — in the Sporting Latin of Mr. Egan, — 
 a real Womo-genius, or a Genius of a Man! in the Poem, his CULINARY 
 ENTHUSIASM, as usual, boils over! and makes it seem written, as he describes 
 liimself (see The Cook's Oracle) — With the Spit in one hand ! — and the FVying-Pan in 
 
 the other,— While in the style of the rhymes it is Hiidibraslic, as if in the 
 
 ingredients of Versification, he had been assisted by his BUTLER ! 
 
 As a Head Cook, Optician — Physician, Music Master — Domestic Economist and 
 Death-bed Attorney ! — I have <;elebrated The Author elsewhere with approbation : — 
 
 and cannot now place him upon the Table as a Poet, without still being his 
 
 LAUDER, a phrase which those persons whose course of classical reading recalls the 
 INFAMOUS FORGERY on The Immortal Bard of Avon!}— r-^viW find easy to 
 understand. 
 
 Surely, those sages err who teach 
 That man is known from brutes by 
 
 speech, 
 Which hardly severs man from 
 
 woman, 
 But not th' inhuman from the 
 
 human, — 
 Or else might parrots claim affinity, 
 And dogs be doctors by latinity,— 
 Not t' insist, (as might be shown,) 
 That beasts have gibberish of their 
 
 own, . . 
 
 Which once was no dead tongue, 
 
 tho' we 9 
 
 Since Esop's days have lost the key ; 
 
 Nor yet to hint dumb men, — and, 
 
 still, not 
 Beasts that could gossip though they 
 
 will not. 
 But play at dummy like the monkeys. 
 For fear mankind should make them 
 
 flunkies. 
 Neither can man be known by feature 
 Or form, because so like a creature. 
 That some grave men could never shaps 
 Which is the aped and which the ape, 
 Nor by his gait, nor by his height, 
 Nor yet bep?iuse he 's black or white, 
 But rational, — for so we call 21 
 
 The only Cooking Animal! 
 
 ' [In IbB first edition this was curiously given as ' Kden.'] 
 
A RECIPE-FOR CIVILIZATION 
 
 39 
 
 The only one who brings his bit 
 Of dinner to the pot or spit, 
 For where 's the Hon e'er was hasty, 
 To put his ven'son in a pasty ? 
 Ergo, by logic, we repute, 
 That he who cooks is not a brute, — 
 But Equus brutum est, which means. 
 If a horse had sense he'd boil his 
 
 beans, 30 
 
 Nay, no one but a horse would forage 
 On naked oats instead of porridge,' 
 Which proves, if brutes and Scotch- 
 men vary. 
 The difference is culinary. 
 Further, as man is known by feeding 
 From brutes, — so men from men, in 
 
 breedling, 
 Are still distinguished as they eat, 
 And raw in manners, raw in meat, — 
 Look at the polish'd nations .hight 
 The civilized— the most polite 40 
 Is that which bears the praise of 
 
 nations 
 For dressing eggs two hundred 
 
 fashions, 
 Whereas, at savage feeders look, — 
 The less refined the less they cook ; 
 From Tartar grooms that merely 
 
 straddle 
 Across a steak and warm their saddle; 
 Down to the, Abyssinian squaw, 
 That bolts her chops and collops raw, 
 And, like a wild beast, cares as little' 
 To dress her personas her victual,^ 
 For gowns, and gloves, and caps, and 
 
 tippets, 51 
 
 Are beauty's sauces, spice, and 
 
 sippets, 
 And not by. shamble bodies put on. 
 But those who roast and boil their 
 
 mutton; 
 So Eve and Adam wore no dresses 
 Because they lived on water-cresses, 
 And till they learn'd to cook their 
 
 crudities. 
 Went blind as beetles to their nudities. 
 For niceness comes from th' inner 
 
 side, S9 
 
 (As an ox is drest before his hide,) 
 
 1 Cook to the lati 
 
 And when the entrail loathes vulgarity 
 The outward man will soon cull rarity. 
 For 'tis th' effect of what we eat 
 To make a man look like his meat, 
 As insects show their food's com- 
 plexions ; 
 Thus fopling's clothes are like con- 
 fections. 
 But who, to feed a jaunty coxcomb, 
 Would have an Abyssinian ox come? — 
 Or serve a dish of fricassees. 
 To clodpoles in a coat of frize ? 70 
 Whereas a black would call for buffalo 
 Alive — and, no doubt, eat the offal too. 
 Now, (this premised) it follows then 
 That certain culinary men 
 Should first gof orth with pans and spits 
 To bring the heathens to their wits, 
 (For all wise Scotchmen of our century 
 Know that first steps are alimentary ; 
 And, as we have prov'd, flesh pots 
 
 and saucepans 
 Must pave the way for Wilberforce 
 plans ;) 80 
 
 But Bunyan err'd to think the near 
 
 gate 
 To take man's soul, was battering 
 
 Ear gate, 
 When reason should have work'd her 
 
 course 
 As men of war do^-when their force 
 Can't take a town by open courage, 
 They steal an entry with its forage. 
 What reverend bishop, for example, 
 Could preach horn'd Apis from his 
 
 temple ? 
 Whereas a cook would soon unseat 
 
 him, 
 And make his own churchwardens eat 
 him. 90 
 
 Not Irving could convert those ver- 
 min, 
 Th' Anthropophages, by a sermon ; 
 Whereas your Osborne ', in a trice, 
 Would ' take a shin of beef and 
 
 spice,' — 
 And raise them such a savoury 
 
 smother, 
 No Negro would devour his brother. 
 Sir Joseph Banks. 
 
40 
 
 A RECIPE— FOR CIVILIZATION 
 
 But turn his stomach round as loth 
 As Persians, to the old black broth, — 
 For knowledge oftenest makes an 
 
 entry, 
 As well as true love, thro' the 
 
 pantry, loo 
 
 Where beaux that came at first for 
 
 feeding 
 Grow gallant men and get good 
 
 breeding ; — 
 Exempli gratia — in the West, 
 Ship-traders say there swims a nest 
 Lin'd with black natives, like a 
 
 rookery. 
 But coarse as carrion crows at 
 
 cookery. — 
 This race, though now call'd O. Y. E. 
 
 men, 
 (To show they are more than A; B. C. 
 
 men,) 
 Was once so ignorant of our knacks 
 They laid their mats upon their 
 
 backs, 110 
 
 And grew their quartern loaves for 
 
 luncheon 
 On trees that baked them in the sun • 
 
 shine. 
 As for their bodies, they were coated, 
 (For painted things are so denoted ;) 
 But, the naked truthis,stark primevals, 
 That said their prayers to timber 
 
 devils, 
 AUow'd polygamy — dwelt in wig- 
 wams, — 
 And, when they meant a feast, ate 
 
 big yams. — 
 And why? — because their savage 
 
 nook H9 
 
 Had ne'er been visited by Cook, — 
 And so they fared till our great chief 
 Brought them, not methodists, but 
 
 beef. 
 In tubs, — and taught them how to live. 
 Knowing it was too soon to give, 
 
 Just then, a homily on their sins, 
 (For cooking ends ere grace begins) 
 Or hand his tracts to the untractable 
 Till they could keep a more exact 
 
 table — 
 For nature has her proper courses, 
 And wild men must be back'd like 
 horses, 130 
 
 Which, jockeys know, are never fit 
 For riding till they've had a bit 
 I' the mouth ; but then, with proper 
 
 tackle. 
 You may trot them to a tabernacle. 
 Ergo (I say) he first made changes 
 In the heathen modes, by kitchen 
 
 ranges, 
 And taught the king's cook, by con- 
 vincing 
 Process, that chewing was not mincing, 
 And in her black fist thrust a bundle 
 Of tracts abridg'd from Glasse and 
 Rundell, 140 
 
 Where, ere she had read beyond 
 
 Welsh rabbits, 
 She saw the spareness of her habits, 
 And round her loins put on a striped 
 Towel, where fingers might be wiped, 
 And then her breast clothed like her 
 
 ribs, 
 (For aprons lead of course to bibs) 
 And, by the time she had got a meat- 
 Screen, veil'd her back, too, from the 
 
 heat — 
 As for her gravies and her sauces, 149 
 (Tho' they reform'd the royal fauces,) 
 Her forcemeats and ragouts, — I praise 
 
 not. 
 Because the legend further says not. 
 Except, she kept each Christian high- 
 day. 
 And once upon a fat good Fry-day 
 Ran short of logs, and told the Pagan 
 That turn'd the spit, to chop up 
 Dagon 1 
 
41 
 
 THE LAST MAN 
 
 'TwAS iti the year two thousand and 
 
 one, 
 A pleasant morning of May, 
 I sat on the gallows-tree all alone, 
 A chaunting a merry lay, — 
 To think how the p6st had spared my 
 
 life. 
 To sing witt the larks that day I 
 
 When up the heath came a jolly knave, 
 Like a scarecrow, all in rags : 
 It made me crow to see his old' duds 
 All abroad in the wind, like flags : — lo 
 So up he came to the timbers' foot . 
 And pitch'd down his grea:sy bags.— 
 
 Good Lord ! how bly the the old beg- 
 gar was ! 
 At pulling out his scraps, — 
 The very sight of his broken orts 
 Made a work in his wrinkled chaps : 
 ' Come down,' says he, ' you Newgate 
 
 bird. 
 And have a taste of my snaps 1 ' 
 
 Then down the rope, like a tar from 
 
 the mast, 
 I slided, and by him stood ; 20 
 
 But I wished myself on the gallows 
 
 again 
 When I smelt that beggar's food, 
 A foul beef-bone and a mouldy crust ; 
 ' Oh ! ' quoth he, ' the heavens are 
 
 good ! ' 
 
 Then after this grace he cast him down : 
 
 Says I, ' You'll get sweeter air 
 
 A pace or two off, on the windward 
 
 side/ 
 For the felons' bones lay there. 
 But he only laugh' d at the empty 
 
 skulls. 
 And offered them part of his fare. 36 
 
 ' I never harm'd ihem, and they won't 
 
 harm me : 
 Let the proud and the rich be cravens ! ' 
 I did not like that strange beggar man, 
 He look'd so up at the heavens. 
 
 Anon he shook Out his empty old poke; 
 ' There 's the crumbs,' saith he, ' for 
 the ravens ! ' 
 
 It made me angry to see his face. 
 It had such a jesting look ; 
 But while I made up my mind to speak, 
 A small case-bottle he took : 40 
 
 Quoth he, ' though I gather the green 
 
 wa,ter-cress, 
 My drink is not of the brook ! ' 
 
 Full manners-like he tender'd the 
 
 dram ; 
 Oh, it came of a dainty cask ! 
 But, whenever it came to his turn to 
 
 pull, 
 ' Your leave, good sir, I must ask ■; 
 But I always wipe the brim with my 
 
 sleeve, 
 When a hangman sups at my flask ! ' 
 And then he laugh'd so loudly and 
 
 long, 
 The churl was quite out of breath ; 50 
 I thought the very Old One was come 
 To mock me before my death. 
 And wish'd I had buried the dead 
 
 men's bones 
 That were lying about the heath ! 
 But, the beggar gave me a jolly cla,p — 
 ' Come, let us pledge each other, 
 For all the wide world is dead beside, 
 And we are brother and brother — 
 I've a yearning for thee in my heart. 
 As if we had come of one mother. 60 
 
 ' I've a yearning for thee in my heart 
 That almost makes me weep. 
 For as I pass'd from town to town 
 The folks were all stone-asleep, — 
 But when I saw thee sitting aloft. 
 It made me both laugh and leap ! ' 
 Now a curse (I thought) be on his love. 
 And a curse upon his mirth,— 
 An' if it were not for that beggar man 
 I'd be the King of the earth, — 70 
 But I promis'd myself an hour should 
 
 come 
 To make him rue his birth — ■ 
 
 c 3 
 
42 
 
 THE LAST MAN 
 
 So down we sat and bous'd again 
 
 Till the sun was in mid-sky, 
 
 When, just when the gentle west-wind 
 came, 
 
 We hearken'd a dismal cry ; 
 
 ' Up, up, on the tree,' quoth the beg- 
 gar man, 
 
 ' Till these horrible dogs go by ! ' 
 
 And, lo ! from the forest's far-off skirts. 
 They came all yelling for gore, 80 
 
 A huiidred hounds pursuing at once, 
 And a panting hart before. 
 Till he sunk down at the gallows' foot. 
 And there his haunches they tore ! 
 
 His haunches they tore, without a 
 
 horn . 
 
 To tell when the chase was done ; 
 And there was not a single scarlet coat 
 To flaunt it in the sun ! — 
 I turn' d, and look'd at the beggar man, 
 And his tears dropt one by one ! 90 
 
 And with curses sore he chid at the 
 
 hounds, 
 Till the last dropt out of sight, 
 Anon, saith he, ' Let's down again. 
 And ramble for our delight. 
 For the world 's all free, and we may 
 
 choose 
 A right cozie barn for to-night ! ' 
 
 With that, he set up his staff on end; 
 And it fell with the point due West ; 
 So we far'd that way to a city great, 
 Where the folks had died of the pest — 
 It was fine to enter in house and hall 
 Wherever it liked me best ; 102 
 
 For the porters all were stiff and cold. 
 And could not lift their heads ; 
 And when we came where their mas- 
 ters lay. 
 The rats leapt out of the beds ; 
 The grandest palaces in the land 
 Were as free as workhouse sheds. 
 
 But the beggar man made a mumping 
 
 face, 
 And knocked at every gate : i«o 
 
 It made me curse to hear how he 
 
 whined, 
 So our fellowship turned to hate, 
 And I bade him walk the world by 
 
 himself, 
 For I scorn' d so humble a mate ! 
 
 So he turn'd right, and / turn'd left, 
 
 As if we had never met ; 
 
 And I chose a fair stone house for my- 
 self. 
 
 For the city was all to let ; 
 
 And for three brave holidays drank 
 my fill 
 
 Of the choicest that I could get. 120 
 
 And because myjerkin was coarse and 
 
 worn, 
 I got me a properer vest ; • 
 It was purple velvet, stitch'd o'er with 
 
 gold. 
 And a shining star at the breast ! — 
 'Twas enough to fetch old Joan from 
 
 her grave 
 To see me so purely drest ! 
 
 But Joan was dead and under the 
 
 mould. 
 And every buxom lass ; 
 In vain I watch' d, at the window pane 
 For a Christian soul to pass ! 130 
 
 But sheep and kine wander'd up the 
 
 street, 
 And browz' d on the new -come grass. — 
 
 When lo ! 1 spied the old beggar man. 
 And lustily he did sing ! — 
 His rags were lapp'd in a scarlet cloak, 
 And a crown he had like a King ; 
 So he stept right up before my gate 
 And danc'd me a saucy fling ! 
 
 Heaven mend us all ! — but, within my 
 
 mind, 
 1 had killed him then and there ; 140 
 To see him lording so braggart-like 
 That was born to his beggar's fare. 
 And how he had stolen the royal crown 
 His betters were meant to wear. 
 
 But God forbid that a thief should die 
 Without his share of the laws ! 
 
THE LAST MAN 
 
 43 
 
 So I nimbly whipt my tackle out, 
 And soon tied up his claws, — 
 I was judge myself, and jury, and all. 
 And solemnly tried the cause. . 150 
 
 But the beggar man would not plead, 
 
 but cried 
 Like a babe without its corals, 
 For he knew how hard it is apt to go 
 When the law and a thief have quar- 
 rels, — 
 There was not a Christian soul alive 
 To speak a word for his morals. 
 
 Oh, how gaily I doff'd my costly gear, 
 And put on my work-day clothes ; 
 Iwastired of suchalong Sunday life, — 
 And never was one of the sloths ; 160 
 But the beggar man grumbled a weary 
 
 deal. 
 And made many crooked mouths. 
 
 So I haul' d him off to the gallovirS' foot. 
 And blinded him in his "bags ; 
 'Twas a weary job to heave him up, 
 For a doom'd man always lags ; 
 But by ten of the clock he was off his 
 
 legs 
 In the wind, and airing his rags 1 
 
 So there he hung, and there I stood, 
 The LAST MAN left alive, 170 
 
 To have my own will of all the earth : 
 Quoth I, now I shall thrive! 
 But when was ever honey made 
 With one bee in a hive ? 
 
 Myconscience began to gnaw my heart. 
 
 Before the day was done, 
 
 For other men's lives had all gone out. 
 
 Like candles in the sun ! — 
 
 But it seem'd as if I had broke, at last, 
 
 A thousand necks in one ! iSo 
 
 So I went and cut his body down 
 
 To bury it decentlie ; — 
 
 God send there were any good soul 
 
 alive 
 To do the like by me I 
 But the wild dogs came with terrible 
 
 speed. 
 And bade me up the tree I 
 
 My sight was like a drunkard's sight. 
 And my head began to swim, 
 To see their jaws all white with foam. 
 Like the ravenous ocean brim ; — 190 
 But when the wild dogs trotted away 
 Their jaws were bloody and grim ! 
 
 Their jaws were bloody and grim, 
 
 good Lord ! 
 But the beggar man, where was he ? — • 
 There was naught of him but some 
 
 ribbons of rags 
 Below the gallows' tree ! — 
 I know the Devil, when I am dead, 
 Will send his hounds for me ! — 
 
 I've buried my babies one by one. 
 And dug the deep hole for Joan, 200 
 And covered the faces of kith and kin. 
 And felt the old churchyard stone 
 Go cold to my heart, full many a time. 
 But I never felt so lone 1 
 
 For the lion and Adam were company. 
 And the tiger him beguiled : 
 But the simple kine are foes to my life. 
 And the household brutes are wild. 
 If the veriest cur would lick my hand, 
 I could love it like a child ! 210 
 
 And the beggar man's ghost besets 
 
 my dream, 
 At night to make me madder, — 
 And my wretched conscience within 
 
 my breast, 
 Is like a stinging adder ; — 
 I sigh when I pass the gallows' foot. 
 And look at the rope and ladder ! — 
 
 For hanging looks sweet,^but, alas ! 
 
 in vain 
 My desperate fancy begs, — 
 I must turn my cup of sorrows quite 
 
 up. 
 And drink it to the dregs,^- 220 
 
 For there is not another man alive. 
 In the world, to pull my legs ! 
 
44 
 FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN 
 
 AN OLD BALLAD 
 
 Young Ben he was a nice young man, 
 A carpenter by trade ; "' 
 
 And he fell in love with Sally Brown, 
 That was a lady's maid. 
 
 But as they ietch'd a walk one day, 
 They met a press-gang crew ; 
 
 And Sally she did faint away, 
 
 Whilst Ben he was brought to. ' 
 
 The Boatswain swore with wicked 
 words; ' 
 
 Enough to shook a saint, lo 
 
 That though she did seem in a fit, 
 
 'Twas nothing but a feint, 
 
 ' Come, girl,' said he, ' hold up your 
 head. 
 
 He'll be as good as me ; 
 For when your swain is in our boat, 
 
 A boatswain he will be.' 
 
 So when they'd made their game of 
 her, I • 
 
 And taken off her elf, ' 
 She roused, and found she only was 
 
 A coming to herself. zo 
 
 ' And is he gone, and is he gone ? ' 
 She cried, and wept outright : 
 
 ' Then I will to the water side. 
 And see him out of sight.' 
 
 A waterman came up to her, — 
 ' Now, young woman,' said he, 
 
 ' If you weep on so, you will make 
 Eye -water in the sea.' 
 
 ' Alas ! they've taken iny beau Ben 
 To sail with old Benbow ; ' 30 
 
 And her woe began to run afresh. 
 As if she'd said Gee woe 1 
 
 Says he, ' They've only taken him 
 To the Tender ship, you see ; ' 
 
 ' The Tender-ship;' cried Sally Brown, 
 ' What a hard-ship that must be ! ' 
 
 ' O ! would I were a mermaid now, , 
 
 For then I'd follow him ; 
 But Oh ! — I'm not a fish-woman. 
 
 And so 1 cannot swim. 40 
 
 ' Alas ! I was not born beneath 
 
 The virgin and the scales, 
 So I must curse my cruel stars, 
 
 And walk about in Wales.' 
 
 Now Ben had sail'd to many a place 
 That 's underneath the world ; 
 
 But in two years the ship came home. 
 And all her sails were furl'd. 
 
 But when he call'd on Sally Brown, 
 To see how she went on, 50 
 
 He found she'd got another Ben, 
 Whose Christian-name'was John. 
 
 ' O Sally BrowH, O Sally Brown, 
 How could you serve me so ? 
 
 I've met with many a breeze before. 
 But never such a blow : ' 
 
 Then reading on his 'bacco box 
 
 He heaved .a bitter sigh, 
 And then began to eye his pipe. 
 
 And then to pipe his eye. 60 
 
 And then he tried to sing 'AH 's Well,' 
 But could not though he tried ; 
 
 His head was turn'd, and so he chew' d 
 His pigtail till he died. 
 
 His death, which happen'd in his berth. 
 
 At forty-odd befell : 
 They went and told the sexton, and 
 
 The sexton toU'd the bell. 
 
45 
 
 BACKING THE FAVOURITE! 
 
 Oh a pistol, or a knife ! 
 For I'm weary of my life, — 
 My cup has nothing sweet left to 
 flavour it ; 
 My estate is out at nurse. 
 Arid my heart is like my pucse, — ■ 
 And all through backing of the Fa- 
 vourite ! 
 
 At dear O' Neil's first start, 
 I sported all my heart, 7— 
 Oh, Becher, he never marr.'d a 
 braver hit ! 
 For he cross'd her in her race, 10 
 
 And made her lose her place. 
 And there was an end of that Fa- 
 vourite ! I 
 
 Anon, to mend my chance. 
 For the Goddess of the Dance ' 
 
 I pin'd) and told my enslaver it ! — 
 But she wedded in a canter. 
 And made me a Levanter, 
 
 In foreign lands to sigh for the 
 Favourite ! 
 
 Then next Miss M. A. Tree 
 I adored, so sweetly she j. 20 
 
 Could warble like a nightingale ;and 
 ' quaver it ; — • 
 But she left that course of life 
 To be Mr. Bradshaw's wife> 
 
 And all the world lost on the- Fa- 
 vourite ! 
 
 But out ofsorrow's surf 
 Soon I leap'd upon the turf, 
 
 Where fortune loves to wanton it 
 and waver it ;-r 
 But standing oii the pet, 
 ' O my bonny, bonny Bet ! ' 
 
 Black and yellow pull'd short up 
 . with the Favourite ! ■• 30 
 
 Thus flung by all the crack, 
 I resolv'd to cut the pack, — 
 The second-raters seemed then a 
 sjifer hit ! , , 
 So I laid my little odds 
 Against Memnon ! , Oh, ye Gpds ! 
 , Am i always to, I3? floored by the 
 Favourite ! 
 
 THE MERMAID OF MARGATE 
 
 ' Alas ! what perils do environ , , , 
 
 That man who meddles with a siren ! '—Hudibras. 
 
 On Margate beach, where the sick one 
 roams. 
 And the sentimental reads ; 
 Where the maiden flirts,and the widow 
 comes — 
 Like the ocean — to casther weeds, — 
 
 Where urchins wander to pick up 
 shells. 
 And the Cit to spy at the ships, — 
 Like' the water gala at Sadler's 
 Wells,— ' 
 
 And the Chandler for watery dips ; — 
 
 ' The late favourite of the King's Theatre, who left the pas seal of life for a perpetual Ball. Is 
 not that her efBiry now commonly borne about by the Italian image vendors--an ethereal lorm 
 holding a wreath with both hands above her head— and lier husband, in emblem, beneath her loot .' 
 
46 
 
 THE MERMAID OF MARGATE 
 
 There 's a maiden sits by the ocean 
 brim, 
 
 As lovely and fair as sin ! to 
 
 But woe, deep water and woe to him, 
 
 That she snareth like Peter Fin ! 
 
 Her head is crown' d with piretty sea- 
 wares, 
 And her locks are golden and loose : 
 And seek to her feet, like other folks' 
 heirs, 
 To stand, of course, in her shoes I 
 
 And, all day long, she combeth them 
 well, 
 With a sea-shark's prickly jaw ; 
 And her mouth is just like a rose- 
 lipp'd shell. 
 The fairest that man e'er saw ! 20 
 
 And the Fishmonger, humble as love 
 
 may be. 
 
 Hath planted his seat by her side ; 
 
 ' Good even, fair maid ! Is thy lover 
 
 at sea. 
 
 To make thee so watch the tide ? ' 
 
 She turn'd about with her pearly 
 
 brows, ■ 
 
 And clasp'd him by the hand :■ — 
 
 ' Come, love, with me ; I've a bonny 
 
 house 
 
 On the golden Goodwin Sand.' 
 
 And then she gave him a siren kiss, 29 
 No honeycomb e'er was sweeter ; 
 
 Poor wretch ! how little he dreamt 
 for this 
 That Peter should be salt-Peter : 
 
 And away with her prize to the wave 
 she leapt. 
 Not walking, as damsels do. 
 With toe and heel, as she ought to 
 have stept. 
 But she hopt like a Kangaroo; 
 
 One plunge, and then the victim was 
 
 blind, 
 
 Whilst they galloped across the tide; 
 
 At last, on the bank he waked in his 
 
 mind. 
 
 And the Beauty was by his side. 40 
 
 One half on the sand, and half in the 
 sea, 
 But his hair began to stiffen ; 
 For when he look'd where her feet 
 should be. 
 She had no more feet than Miss 
 Biffen ! 
 But a scaly tail, of a dolphin's growth, 
 
 In the dabbling brine did soak : 
 At last she open'd her pearly mouth, 
 Like an oyster, and thus she 
 spoke : — 
 ' You crimpt my father, who was a 
 skate ; — 
 And my sister you sold — a maid ; 50 
 So here remain foir a fish'ry fate. 
 
 For lost you are, and betray' d 1 ' 
 And away she went, with a seagull's 
 scream. 
 And a splash of her saucy tail ; 
 In a moment he lost the silvery gleam 
 
 That shone on her splendid mail ! 
 The sun went down with a blood-red 
 flaime, 
 And the sky grew cloudy and black, 
 And the tumbling billows like leap- 
 frog came, 
 Each over the other's back ! 60 
 Ah, me ! it had been a beautiful scene. 
 
 With a safe terra-firma round ; 
 But the green water-hillocks allseem'd 
 to him 
 Like those in a church-yard ground ; 
 
 And Christians love in the turf to lie, 
 
 Not in watery graves to be ; 
 Nay, the very fishes will sooner die 
 
 On the land than in the sea. 
 And whilst he stood, the watery strife 
 
 Encroached on every hand, 70 
 
 And the. ground decreased — his mo- 
 ments of life 
 
 Seem'd measur'd, like Time's, by 
 sand ; 
 
 And still the waters foam'd in, like ale, 
 In front, and on either flank. 
 
 He knew that Goodwin and Co. must 
 fail. 
 There was such a run on the bank. 
 
THE MERMAID OF MARGATE 
 
 47 
 
 A little more, and a little more, 
 The surges came tumbling in ; 
 
 He sang the evening hymn twice o'er, 
 And thought of every sin 1 80 
 
 Each flounder and plaice lay cold at 
 his heart, 
 
 As cold as his marble slab ; 
 And he thought he felt, in every part. 
 
 The pincers of scalded crab 1 
 
 The squealing lobsters that he had 
 boil'd. 
 And the little potted shrimps, 
 All the horny prawns he had ever 
 spoil'd, 
 Gnawed into his soul, like imps t 
 
 And the billows were wandering to 
 
 and fro, 
 
 And the glorious sun was sunk, 90 
 
 And Day, getting black in the face, as 
 
 though 
 
 Of the night-shade she had drunk I 
 
 Had there been but a smuggler's cargo 
 adrift. 
 
 One tub, or keg, to be seen. 
 It might have given his spirits a lift 
 
 Or an «»*«»■ where fl'o/>e might lean 1 
 
 But there was not a box or a beam 
 
 afloat, 
 
 To raft him from that sad place ; 
 
 Not a skiff, not a yawl, or a mackarel 
 
 boat, 99 
 
 Nor a smack upon Neptune's face. 
 
 At last, his lingering hopes to buoy, 
 He saw a sail and a mast. 
 
 And called 'Ahoy I ' — but it was not 
 a hoy, 
 And so the vessel went past. 
 
 And with saucy wing that flapp'd in 
 his face, 
 The wild bird about him flew. 
 With a shrilly scream, that twitted his 
 case, 
 ' Why, thou art a sea-gull too ! ' 
 
 And lo ! the tide was over his feet ; 
 
 Oh ! his heart began to freeze, no 
 And slowly to pulse : — in another beat 
 
 The wave was up to his knees ! 
 
 He was deaf en'd amidst the mountain- 
 tops. 
 And the salt spray blinded his eyes, 
 And Wash'd away the other salt-drops 
 That grief had caused to arise : — 
 
 But just as his body was all afloat. 
 And the surges above him broke. 
 
 He was saved from the hungry deep 
 by a boat. 
 Of Deal — (but builded of oak.) 120 
 
 The skipper gave him a dram, as he 
 lay, 
 And chafed his shivering skin ; 
 And the Angel return'd that was flying 
 away 
 With the spirit of Peter Fin ! 
 
 'AS IT FELL UPON A DAY' 
 
 Oh! what's befallen Bessy Brown, 
 She stands so squalling in the street ; 
 
 She 's let her pitcher tumble down. 
 And all the water 's at her feet ! 
 
 The little school-boys stood about. 
 And laugh'd to see her pumping, 
 pumping ; 
 
 Now with a curtsey to the spout. 
 And then upon her tiptoes jumping. 
 
 Long time she waited for her neigh- 
 bours. 
 To have their turns : — but she must 
 lose JO 
 
 The watery wages of her labours, — 
 Except a little in her shoes ! 
 
 Without a voice to tell her tale, 
 And ugly transport in her face ; 
 
 All like a jugless nightingale, 
 She thinks of her bereaved case. 
 
48 AS IT FELL UPON A DAY 
 
 At last she sobs^-she cries— she 
 
 screams ! — 
 
 And pours her flood of sorrows out, 
 
 From eyes and mouth, in mingled 
 
 streams. 
 
 Just like the lion on the spout. 20 
 
 For well poor Bessy knows her mother 
 
 Must lose her tea, for water's 
 
 lack, 
 
 That Sukey burns — and baby-brother 
 
 Must be dry-rubb'd with huck-a- 
 
 back ! 
 
 A FAIRY TALE 
 
 On Hounslow Heathy — and close beside the road, 
 As western travellers may oft have seen, — 
 A little house some years ago there stood, , 
 
 A minikin abode ; 
 And built like Mr. Birlcbeck's all of wood : 
 The walls of white, the window shutters green ; — 
 Four wheels it had at North, South, East, and West, 
 
 (Tho' now at rest) 
 On which it used to wander to and fro'. 
 Because its master ne'er maintain'd a rider, 10 
 
 Like those vvho trade in Paternoster Row ; 
 But made his business travel for itself, 
 
 Till he had made his pelf. 
 And then retired — if one may call it so. 
 
 Of a. roadsider. 
 
 Perchance, the very race and constant riot 
 Of , stages, long and short, which thereby ran. 
 Made him more relish the repose and quiet 
 
 Of , his now sedentary ■ caravan ; 
 Perchance, he lov'd the ground because 'twas common, 20 
 
 ; And so he might impale a strip of soil. 
 That- furnish'd, by his toil, 
 Some dusty greens, for him and his old woman ; — 
 And five tall hollyhocks, in dingy flower, 
 Howbeit, the thoroughfare did no ways spoil 
 His peace, unless, in some unlucky hour, 
 A stray horse came and gobbled up his bow'r ! 
 
 But tir'd of always looking at the coaches. 
 
 The same to come, — when they had seen them one day ', 
 
 And, used to brisker life, both man and wife 30 
 
 Began to suffer N U E's approaches, 
 And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday, — 
 So, having had some quarters of school breeding, 
 They turn'd themselves, like other folks, to reading; 
 But setting out where others nigh have done. 
 
 And being ripen' d in the seventh stage, 
 The childhood of old age, 
 Began, as other children have begun, — 
 Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope, 
 
 Or Bard of Hope, •„ 
 
A FAIRY TALE 49 
 
 Or Paley ethical, or learned Porson,- — 
 
 But spelt, on Sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John, 
 
 And then relax'd themselves with Whittington, 
 
 Or Valentine and Orson-^— 
 But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con. 
 And being easily melted in their dotage, 
 
 Slobber' d, — ^and kept 
 
 Readingi — and wept 
 Over the white Cat, in their wooden cottage. 
 
 Thus reading on — the longer 50 
 
 They read, of course, their childish; faith grew- stronger 
 In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and, Giants grim, — • 
 If talking Trees and Birds reveal'd to him, 
 She saw the flight of Fairyland's fly- wagons. 
 
 And magic fishes swim , , : 
 
 In puddle ponds, and, took old crows- for dragons.— 
 Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flagons ; 
 When, as it fell upon a summer's day, 
 
 As the old man sat a feeding ; 1 
 
 On the .old babe-reading, ■ 60 
 
 Beside his open street-and-parlour door, 
 
 A hideous roar 
 Proclaim'd a. drove of beasts was coming by the way. " 
 
 Long-horned, and short, of many a different breed. 
 Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels 
 
 Or Durham feed ; . , ; : 
 
 With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils 
 
 From nether, aide of Tweed, , 
 
 Or Firth of Forth ; 1- 
 
 Looking half wild with joy to leave -the North,-^ 70 
 
 With dusty hides, all mobbing on together, — 
 When, — whether from a fly's malicious comment 
 Upon his tender flank, from which. he shrank; 
 
 Or whether ; ;.. 
 
 Only in some enthusiastic moment, — > 
 However, one brown monster, in a, frisk, 
 Giving his tail a perpendicular whisk, . j 
 Kick'd out a passage thro' the beastly rabble ; 
 And after a pas seul, — or, if you will, a 
 Horn-pipe before ^he Baskett-maker'a villa, • : r 80 
 
 Leapt o'er the tiny pale, — 
 Back'd his beef steaks against the wooden gable, 
 And thrust his brawny bell-rope of a tail 
 
 Right o'er the page. 
 
 Wherein the sage 
 Just then was spelling some romantic fable. 
 
 The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce, 
 
 Could not peruse, — who could ? — two tales at once; 
 
so A FAIRY TALE 
 
 And being huff' d 
 At what he knew was none of Riquet's Tuft ; 
 
 Bang'd-to the door, 
 But most unluckily enclosed a morsel 
 Of the intruding tail, and all the tassel : — 
 
 The monster gave a roar, 
 And bolting off with speed increased by pain, 
 The little house became a coach once more, 
 And, like Macheath, ' took to the road ' again ! 
 
 Just then, by fortune's whimsical decree, 
 The ancient woman stooping with her crupper 
 Towards sweet home, or where sweet home should be. 
 Was getting up some household herbs for supper ; 
 Thoughtful of Cinderella, in the tale, 
 And quaintly wondering if magic shifts 
 Could o'er a common pumpkin so prevail. 
 To turn it to a coach ; — what pretty gifts 
 Might come of cabbages, and curly kale; 
 Meanwhile she never heard her old man's wail, 
 Nor turn'd, till home had turn'd a corner, quite 
 Gone out of sight ! 
 
 At last, conceive her, rising from the ground, 
 Weary of sitting on her russet clothing 
 
 And looking round 
 
 Where rest was to be found. 
 There was no house — no villa there — no nothing ! 
 No house ! 
 
 The change was quite amazing ; 
 It made her senses stagger for a minute. 
 The riddle's explication seem'd to harden ; 
 But soon her superannuated nous 
 Explained the horrid mystery ; — and raising 
 Her hand to heaven, with the cabbage in it, 
 
 On which she meant to sup, — 
 ■' Well ! this is Fairy Work I I'll bet a farden, 
 Little Prince Silverwings has ketch'd me up. 
 And set me down in some one else's garden ! ' 
 
 90 
 
 THE FALL OF THE DEER 
 
 [From an old MS.] 
 
 Now the loud Crye is up, and harke t 
 The barkye Trees give back the Bark ; 
 The House Wife heares the merrie 
 
 rout. 
 And runnes, — and lets the beere run 
 
 out, 
 
 Leaving her Babes to weepe, — for 
 
 why ? 
 She likes to heare the Deer Dogges 
 
 crye, 
 And see the wild Stag how he stretches 
 The naturall Buck-skin of his Breeches, 
 
THE FALL OF THE DEER 
 
 SI 
 
 Running like one of Human kind 
 Dogged by fleet Bailiffes close be- 
 hind 10 
 
 As if he had not payde his Bill 
 For Ven'son, or was owing still 
 For his two Homes, and soe did get; 
 Over his Head and Ears in Debt ; — 
 Wherefore he strives topaye hisWaye 
 With his long Legges the while he 
 
 maye :— 
 But he is chased, like Silver Dish, 
 As well as anye Hart may wish 
 Exceptthatpne whose Heartdothbeat 
 So faste it hasteneth his Feet ; — 20 
 And runninge soe he holdeth Death 
 Four Feet from him, — till his Breath 
 
 Faileth, and slacking Pace at last. 
 From r^ifiiiinge slow he standeth faste. 
 With hornie Bayonettes at baye 
 To baying Dogges around, and they 
 Pushing him sore, he pusheth sore. 
 And goreth them that seek his Gore, — 
 Whatever' Dogge his Home doth rive 
 Is dead — as sure aS; he 's alive ! 30 
 Soe that courageous Hart doth fight 
 With Fate, and calleth up his might, 
 And standeth stout that he maye 
 
 fall 
 Bravelye, and be avenged of all, 
 Nor like a Craven yeeld his Breath 
 Under the Jawes of Dogges and 
 Death ! 
 
 DECEMBER AND MAY 
 
 'Crabbed Age and Youth cannot live together.'— Shaksfeare. 
 
 Said Nestor, to his pretty wife, quite sorrowful one day, 
 ' Why, dearest, will you shed in pearls those lovely eyes away ? 
 You ought to be more fortified ; ' ' Ah, brute, be quiet, do, 
 1 know I'm not so fortyfied, nor fiftyfied, as you ! 
 
 ' Oh, men are vile deceivers all, as I have ever heard. 
 You'd die for me you swore, and I — I took you at your word. 
 I was a tradesman's widow then — a pretty change I've made ; 
 To live, and die the wife of one, a widower by trade 1 ' 
 
 ' Come, come, my dear, these flighty airs declare, in sober truth, 
 You want as much in age, indeed, as I can want in youth ; 
 Besides, you said you liked old men, though now at me you huff.' 
 ' Why, yes,' she said, ' and so I do — but you're not old enough ! ' 
 
 ' Come, come, my dear, let 's make it up, and have a quiet hive ; 
 I'll be the best of men, — I mean, I'll be the best alive I 
 Your grieving so will kill me, for it cuts me to the core.' — 
 ' I thank ye, sir, for telling me— for now I'll grieve the more 1 ' 
 
52 
 
 A WINTER NOSEGAY 
 
 O, wither'd. winter Blossoms, 
 Dowager - flowers, — the December 
 vanity. 
 Inantiquated'visagesand bosoms,^ 
 
 What are ye plann'd for, 
 ' '■ Unless to stand for 
 Emblems, and peevish morals of hu- 
 ■ manity ? 
 
 There is my Quaker Aunt, 
 A : Paper-Flower, — with a formal 
 border i 
 
 No breeze could e'eir disorder. 
 Pouting at that old beau — the Winter 
 Cherry, lo 
 
 A pucker'd berry ; 
 And Box, like a tough-liv'd annui- 
 tant, — 
 Verdant alway — 
 From quarter-day even tb quarter- 
 day ; 
 And poor old Honesty, as thin as want. 
 
 Well named — God-wot ; 
 Under the baptism of the -water-pot, 
 The very apparition of a plant ; 
 
 And why, . 
 -Dost hold thy head so high, so 
 
 Old Winter-Daisy ; — 
 Because thy virtue never was infirm, 
 
 Howe'er thy stalk be crazy ? 
 That never wanton fly; or blighting 
 
 worm. 
 Made holes in thy most perfect in- 
 dentation ? 
 'Tis likely that sour leaf, 
 To garden thief, 
 
 Forcepp'd or wing'd, was never a 
 temptation ; — 
 
 Well, — still uphold thy wintry-repu- 
 tation ; ' ' ■ ' 
 
 Still Shalt thou froxvn upon all lovers' 
 trial? 30 
 
 And when, like Grecian maids; young 
 maids of Ours ' ' 
 Converse with flow'fs, 
 
 Then thou shalt be the token of 
 denial. 
 
 Away ! dull weeds, . : 
 
 Born without beneficial use or needs! 
 Fit only to deck out cold winding- 
 sheets ; 
 And then not for the milkmaid's 
 funeral-bloom, 
 
 , Or fair Fidele's tomb 
 
 To tantalize, — vile cheats ! 
 Some prodigal bee, with hope of after- 
 sweets, 40 
 Frigid and rigid, 
 As if ye never knew 
 One drop of dew. 
 Or the warm sun resplendent ; ' 
 Indifferent of culture and of care. 
 Giving no sweets back to the fostering 
 air. 
 Churlishly independent — 
 I hate ye. Of all breeds ; 
 Yea, all that live so selfishly — to 
 
 self, 
 And not by interchange of kindly 
 deeds — 50 
 
 Hence ! — from my shglf ! 
 
 EQUESTRIAN COURTSHIP 
 
 It was a young maiden went forth to 
 
 ride, 
 And there was a wooer to pace by her 
 
 side ; 
 His horse was so little, and hers so high, 
 He thought his Angel was up in the sky. 
 
 His love was great, tho' his wit was 
 
 small ; 
 He bade her ride easy— and that was all. 
 
 The very horses began to neigh, 
 
 Because their betters had nought to 
 
 say. 
 
EQUESTRIAN COURTSHIP 
 
 '53 
 
 They rode by elifl, and they rode by 
 
 oak, ! 
 
 They rode by a church-yard, and then 
 
 he spoke ; — lo 
 
 ' My pretty maiden, it you'll agre^. 
 You shall always amble through life 
 
 with me.' 
 
 Thedamsel answer'd him never a word, 
 But kick'd the grey mare, and away 
 
 she spurr'd. 
 The wooer still follow' d behind the 
 
 jade, 
 And enjoy'd — like a wooer — the dust 
 
 she made. 
 
 They rode thro' moss, and they rode 
 thro' more,^- 
 
 The gallant behind and the lass 'be- 
 fore : — 
 
 At last they came to a miry placie. 
 
 And there the sad wooer gave up the 
 chase. zo 
 
 Quoth he, ' If my nag was better to 
 
 ride, ; 
 I'd follow her over the world so wide. 
 Oh, it is not my love that begins to 
 
 fail. 
 But I've lost the last glimpse of the 
 
 grey mare's tail ! ' 
 
 SHE IS FAR FROM THE LAND 
 
 Cables entangling her, 
 Shipspars for mangling her. 
 Ropes, sure of strangling her ; 
 Blocks over-dangling her ; 
 Tiller to batter her. 
 Topmast to shatter her. 
 Tobacco to spatter her ; 
 Boreas blustering. 
 Boatswain quite flustering, 
 Thunder-clouds mustering 
 To blast her with sulphur — 
 If the deep don't engulph her ; 
 Sometimes fear's scrutiny 
 Pries out a mutiny, 
 Sniffs conflagration, 
 Or hints at starvation : — 
 All the sea-dangers. 
 Buccaneers, rangers, 
 Pirates and Sallee-men, 
 Algerine galleyraen. 
 Tornadoes and typhons. 
 And horrible sjrphons, 
 And submarine travels 
 Thro' roaring sea-navels. 
 Everything wrong enough. 
 Long-boat not long enough. 
 Vessel not strong enough ; 
 Pitch marring frippery, 
 The deck very slippery, 
 
 And the cabin — built sloping. 
 The Captain a-toping, 
 And the Mate a blasphemer. 
 That names his Redeemer, — ■ 
 With inward uneasiness ; 
 ■The cook known, by greasiness, 
 The victuals beslubber'd, 
 Her bed: — in a cupboard ; 
 Things of strange christening, 
 Sjiatch'd in her listening. 
 Blue lights and red lights 
 And mention of dead-lights, 
 And shrouds made a theme of. 
 Things horrid to dream of, — 
 And buoys- in the watei: 
 To fear all exhort her ; 
 Her friend no Leandef, 
 Herself no sea-gander, 
 And ne'er a cork jacket 
 On. board of the packet ; 
 The breeze still a stiffening, 
 The trumpet quite deafening ; 
 Thoughts of repentance. 
 And doomsday and sentence ; 
 Everything sinister. 
 Not a church minister, — 
 Pilot a blunderer, 
 Coral reefs under her. 
 Ready to sunder her ; 
 
54 SHE IS FAR FROM THE LAND 
 
 Crabs with their hand-vices 
 Punishing land vices ; 
 
 Trunks tipsy-topsy, 
 The ship in a dropsy ; 
 Waves oversurging her, 
 Sirens a-dirgeing her ; 
 Sharks all expecting her, 
 Sword-fish dissecting her. 
 
 Sea-dogs and unicorns. 
 
 Things with no puny horns, 
 
 Mermen carnivorous — 
 
 ' Good Lord deliver us I ' 70 
 
 THE STAG-EYED LADY 
 
 A MOORISH TALE 
 Scheherazade immediately began the following story. 
 
 Ali Ben Ah (did you never read 
 
 His wond'rous acts that chronicles relate, — 
 How there was one in pity might exceed 
 
 The sack of Troy ?) Mag;nificent he sate 
 Upon the throne of greatness — great indeed, 
 
 For those that he had under him were great — 
 The horse he rode on, shod with silver nails, 
 Was a Bashaw — Bashaws have horses' tails. 
 
 Ali was cruel — a most cruel one ! 
 
 'Tis rumour'd he had strangled his own mother — 10 
 
 Howbeit such deeds of darkness he had done, 
 
 'Tis thought he would have slain his elder brother 
 And sister too — ^but happily that none 
 
 Did live within harm's length of one another. 
 Else he had sent the Sun in all its blaze 
 To endless night, and shorten' d the Moon's days. 
 
 Despotic power, that mars a weak man's wit, 
 
 And makes a bad man — al^solutely bad, 
 Made Ali wicked — to a fault : — 'tis fit 
 
 Monarchs should have some check-strings ; but he had 20 
 
 No curb upon his will — no, not a bit — 
 
 Wherefore he did not reign well — and full glad 
 His slaves had been to hang him — but they falter'd, 
 And let him live nnhang'd — and still unalter'd. 
 
 Until he got a sage-bush of a beard, 
 
 Wherein an Attic owl might roost — a trail 
 Of bristly hair — that, honour' d and unshear'd, 
 
 Grew downward like old women and cow's tail : 
 Being a sign of age — some grey appear'd, 
 
 Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale ; 30 
 
 But yet not so poetic as when Time 
 Comes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime. 
 
THE STAG-EYED LADY ^j 
 
 Ben All took the hint, and much did vex 
 
 His royal bosom that he had no son, 
 No living child of the more noble sex. 
 
 To stand in his Morocco shoes — not one 
 To make a negro-pollard^or tread necks 
 
 When he was gone — doom'd, when his days were 4one, 
 To leave the very city of his fame 
 Without an Ali to keep up his name. 40 
 
 Therefore he chose a lady for his love, 
 
 Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dear ; 
 
 So call'd, because her lustrous eyes, above 
 All eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear ; 
 
 Then, through his Muftis piously he strove. 
 
 And drumm'd with proxy-prayers Mohammed's ear, 
 
 Knowing a boy for certain must come of it, 
 
 Or else he was not praying to his Profit. 
 
 Beer will grow mothery, and ladies fair 
 
 Will grow like beer ; so did that stag-eyed dame : so 
 
 Ben Ali hoping for a son and heir, 
 
 Boy'd up his hopes, and even chOse a name 
 Of mighty hero thstt his child should bear ; 
 
 He made so certain ere his chicken came : 
 But oh ! all worldly wit is little worth. 
 Nor knoweth what to-morrow will bring forth. 
 
 To-morrow came, and with to-morrow's sun 
 
 A little daughter to this world of sins, — - 
 ilfiss-fortunes never come alone — so one 
 
 Brought on another, like a pair of twins ! 60 
 
 Twins ! female twins ! — it was enough to stun 
 
 Their little wits and scare them from their skins 
 To hear their father stamp, and curse and swear. 
 Pulling his beard because he had no heir. 
 
 Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm down 
 
 This his paternal rage, and thus addrest : 
 • O ! Most Serene ! why dost thou stamp and frown. 
 
 And box the compass of the royal chest ? 
 Ah ! thou wilt mar that portly trunk, I own 
 
 I love to gaze on ! — Pr'ythee, thou hadst best 70 
 
 Pocket thy fists. Nay, love, if you so thin 
 Your beard, you'll want a wig upon your chin ! ' 
 But not her words, nor e'en her tears, could slack 
 
 The quicklime of his rage, that hotter grew ; 
 He call'd his slaves to bring an ample sack 
 
 Wherein a woman might be poked — a few 
 Dark grimly men felt pity and look'd black' 
 
 At this sad order ; but their slaveships knew 
 When any dared demur, his sword so bending 
 Cut off the • head and front of their offending.' 80 
 
56 THE STAG-EYED LADY 
 
 For Ali had a sword, much like himself, 
 A crooked blade, guilty of human gore — 
 
 The trophies it had lopp'd from many an elf 
 Were stuck at his Aearf-quarters by the score — 
 
 Nor yet in peace he laid it on the shelf. 
 But jested with it, and his wit cut sore ; 
 
 So that (as they of Public Houses speak) 
 
 He often did his dozen butts a week. . ', 
 
 Therefore his slavfes, with most obedient fears, 
 Came with the sack the lady to enclose ; 
 
 In vain from her, stag-eyes ' the big round tears 
 Coursed one another down her innocent nose ; ' 
 
 In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears ; 
 Though there were some felt willitig to oppose, 
 
 Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minute, 
 
 Though 'twas a piteous case, they put her in it. 
 
 And when the sack was tied, some two or three 
 Of these black undertakers slowly brought her 
 
 To a kind of Moorish Serpentine ; for she 
 Was doom'd to have a wmding sheet of water. 
 
 Then farewell, earth — farewell to the green tree — • 
 Farewell, the sun — the moon — each little daughter ! 
 
 She 's shot from off the shoulders of a black. 
 
 Like a bag of Wall's-End from a coalman's back. 
 
 The waters oped, and the wide sack fuU-frU'd 
 All that the waters oped, as down it fell ; 
 
 Then closed the wave, and then the surface rill'd 
 A ring above her, like a water-knell ; 
 
 A moment more, and all its face was still'd, , 
 And not a guilty heave was left to tell 
 
 That underneath its calm and blue transparence 
 
 A dame lay drowned in her sack, like Clarence. 
 
 But Heaven beheld, and ; awful witness- bore, 
 The moon in black eclipse deceased that night. 
 
 Like Desdemona smother'd by the Moor, 
 The lady's natal star with pale affright 
 
 Fainted and fell-i— and what were stars before, 
 Turn'd comets as the tale was brought to light : 
 
 And all look'd downward on the fatal wave, 
 
 And made their own reflections on her grave. 
 
 Next night, a, head — a little lady head, 
 
 Push'd througji ,the waters a most glassy face, 
 
 With weedy tresses, • thrown apart and spread, 
 Comb'd by 'live ivory, to show the space 
 
 Of a pale forehead, and two eyes that shed 
 A soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy grace 
 
 Over their sleepy lids — and so she rais'd 
 
 Her aquahne nose above the stream, and gazed. 
 
THE STAG-EYED LADY 57 
 
 She oped her lips — lips of a gentle blush, 
 
 So pale it seem'd near drowned to a white, — 130 
 
 She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gush 
 
 Of music bubbling through the surface light ; 
 The leaves are motionless, the breezes hush 
 
 To listen to the air — and through the night 
 There come these words of a most plaintive ditty. 
 Sobbing as they would break all hearts with pity ; 
 
 THE WATER PERl's SONG 
 
 Farewell, farewell, to my mother's own daughter. 
 The child that she wet-nursed is lapp'd in the wave ; 
 
 The Mussul-iaa-a coming to fish in this water. 
 
 Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave. 140 
 
 This sack is her coffin, this water 's her bier, 
 
 This greyish bath cloak is her funeral pall ; 
 A^d, stranger, O stranger I this song that you hear 
 
 Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all ! 
 
 Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan, 
 My mother's own daughter — the last of her race — 
 
 She 's a corpse, the poor body ! and lies in this basin, 
 And sleeps in the water that washes her face. 
 
 REMONSTRATORY ODE 
 
 FROM THE ELEPHANT AT EXETER CHANGE, TO MR. MATHEWS 
 AT THE ENGLISH OPERA-HOUSE 
 
 ' See with what courteous action. 
 
 He beckons you to a more removed ground.' — Hamki. 
 
 (WRITTEN BY A FRIEND) 
 
 Oh, Mr. Mathews ! Sir 1 
 (If a plain elephant may speak his 
 
 mind. 
 And that I have a mind to speak I find 
 
 By my inward stir) 
 I long have thought, and wish'd to 
 
 say, that we 
 Mar our well-merited prosperity 
 
 By being such near neighbours, 
 My keeper now hath lent me pen and 
 
 ink, 
 Shov'd in my truss of lunch, and tub 
 of drink, 
 And left me to my labours. 10 
 
 The whole menagerie is in repose, 
 The Coatamundi is in his Sunday 
 
 clothes. 
 Watching the Lynx's most unnatural 
 
 doze ; 
 The Panther is asleep, and theMacaw; 
 The Lion is engaged on something raw ; 
 
 The white bear cools his chin 
 
 'Gainst the wet tin ; - 
 And the confined old Monkey 's in the 
 
 straw. 
 All the nine little Lionets are lying 
 Slumbering in milk, and sighing ; 20 
 
 Miss Cross is sipping ox-tail soup 
 
 In her front coop. 
 
58 
 
 REMONSTRATORY ODE 
 
 So here'sthe happy mid-daymomfent; 
 
 —yes, 
 I seize it, Mr. Mathews, to address 
 A word or two 
 To you 
 On the subject of the ruin which must 
 
 come 
 By both being in the Strand, and both 
 at home 
 On the same nights ; two treats 
 So very near each other, 30 
 
 As, oh iny brother ! 
 To play old gooseberry with both, re- 
 ceipts, 
 
 ' 2 , 
 When you begin 
 Your summer fun, three times a Week, 
 at eight. 
 And carriages roll up, and cits roll in, 
 I feel a change in Exeter 'Change's 
 change. 
 And, dash my trunk! I hate 
 To ring my bell when you ring yours, 
 
 and go 
 With a diminish'd glory through my 
 show ! 
 It is most strange ; ' 40 
 
 But crowds that meant to see me eat 
 
 a stack. 
 And sip a water-butt or so, and crack 
 A root of raangel-wurtzel with 
 
 my foot, 
 Eat little children's fruit. 
 Pick from the floor small coins. 
 And then turn slowly round and' show 
 my India-rubber loins : 
 'Tisstrange — most strange, buttrue, 
 That these same crowds seek you ! 
 Pass my abode and pay at your next 
 door ! 
 It makes me roar 50 
 
 With anguish when I think of this ; 
 
 I go i 
 
 With sad severity my nightly rounds 
 Before one poor front row. 
 My fatal funny foe ! 
 And when I stpop, as duty bids, I sigh 
 And feel that, while poor elephantine I 
 Pick up a sixpence, you pick up the 
 pounds 1 
 
 Could you not go ? 
 Could you not take the Cobourg or 
 
 the Surrey ? 
 Or Sadler's Wells — (I am not in a 
 hurry, 60 
 
 I never am !) for the next season ? — 
 oh! 
 Woe ! woe ! woe ! 
 To both of us, if we remain ; for not 
 In silence will I bear my altered lot. 
 To have you merry, sir, at my ex- 
 pense : 
 No man of any sense, 
 No true great person (and we both are 
 
 great 
 In our own ways) would tempt an- 
 other's fate. *• 
 I would myself depart 
 In Mr. Cross's cart ; 70 
 
 But, like Othello, ' am not easily 
 
 moved,' 
 There 's a nice house in Tottenham 
 
 Court, they say, 
 Fit for a single gentleman's small play ; 
 And more conveniently near 
 
 your home ; 
 You'll easily go and come. 
 Or get a room in the City — in some 
 
 street — 
 Coachmakers' Hall, or the Paul's Head, 
 
 Cateaton Street ; 
 Any large place, in short, in which to 
 get your bread ; 
 But do not stay, and get 80 
 Me into the Gazette I 
 
 Ah ! The Gazette ! • 
 I press my forehead with my trunk, 
 
 and wet 
 My tender cheek with elephantine 
 tears. 
 Shed of a walnut size 
 From my wise eyes, 
 To think of ruin after prosperous 
 years. 
 What a dread case would be 
 For me — large me 1 
 
REMONSTRATORY ODE 
 
 59 
 
 To meet at Basinghall Street, the first 
 and seventh 90 
 
 And the eleventh ! 
 
 To undergo (D n !) 
 
 My last examination ! 
 To cringe, and to surrender. 
 Like a criminal offender. 
 All my effects — my bell-pull, and my 
 
 bell, 
 My bolt, my stock of hay, my new 
 deal cell. 
 To post my ivory. Sir ! 
 And have some curious commissioner 
 Very irreverently search my trunk ! 
 'Sdeath ! I should die loi 
 
 With rage, to find a tiger in possession 
 Of my abode ; up to his yellow 
 knees 
 In my old straw ; and my profound 
 profession 
 Entrusted to two beasts of assignees I 
 
 The truth is simply this, — if you will 
 stay 
 Under my very nose, 
 Filling your rows 
 Just at my feeding time, to see your 
 play. 
 My mind 's made up, r no 
 No more at nine I sup, 
 Except on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, 
 Fridays, Sundays, 
 From eight to eleven. 
 As I hope for heaven. 
 On Thursdays, and on Saturdays, and 
 Mondays, 
 I'll squeak and roar, and grunt with- 
 out cessation, 
 And utterly confound your recita- 
 tion. 
 And, mark me ! all my ifriends of the 
 furry snout 
 Shall join a chorus shout : 
 
 We will be heard — we'll spoil izo 
 Your wicked witty ruination toil. 
 Insolvency must ensue 
 To you, sir, you ; . 
 
 Unless you move your opposition 
 shop. 
 And let me stop. 
 
 I have no more to say: — I donotwrite 
 In anger, but in sorrow ; I must 
 look 
 However to my interests every night. 
 And they detest your ' Memoran- 
 dum-book.' 
 If we could join our forces — I should 
 like it ; 130 
 
 You do the dialogue, and I the 
 
 songs. 
 A voice to me belongs ; 
 (the Editors pf the Globe and Travel- 
 ler ririg 
 With praises of it, when I hourly sing 
 
 God save the Kiiig.) 
 If such a bargain could be schemed 
 I'd strike it ! 
 I think, too, I could do the Welch 
 
 old man 
 In the Youthful Days, if dress'd 
 : upon your pilan ; 
 
 And the attorney in your Paris trip, 
 I'm large about the hip ! 140 
 Now think of this! — for we can not go 
 on 
 As next door rivals, that my mind 
 declares : 
 I must be pennyless, oi: you be gone ! 
 We must live separate, or else have 
 shares. 
 I am a friend or foe 
 As you take this ; 
 Let me your profitable hubbub miss 
 Or be it ' Mathews, Elephant, and 
 Co. ! ' 
 
6o 
 
 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 Alack I 'tis melancholy theme to think 
 How Learning doth in rugged states abide, 
 And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink, 
 In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied ; 
 Not, as in Founders' Halls and domes of pride. 
 Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen. 
 But with one lonely priest compell'd to lude. 
 In midst of foggy moors and mosses green. 
 In that clay cabin hight the College of Kilreen ! 
 
 This College looketh South and West alsoe, lo 
 
 Because it hath a cast in windows twain ; 
 Crazy and crack' d they be, and wind doth blow 
 Thorough transparent holes in every pane. 
 Which Dan, with many paines, makes whole again 
 With nether garments, which his thrift doth teach. 
 To stand for glass, like pronouns, and when rain 
 Stormeth, he puts, ' once more unto the breach,' 
 Outside and in, tho' broke, yet so he mendeth each. 
 
 3 
 And in the midst a little door there is. 
 
 Whereon a board that doth congratulate so 
 
 With painted letters, red as blood I wis, 
 Thus written, 
 
 ' CHILDREN TAKEN IN TO BATE : ' 
 • And oft, indeed, the inward of that gate. 
 Most ventriloque, doth utter tender squeak. 
 And moans of infants that bemoan their fate, 
 In midst of sounds of Latin, French, and Greek, 
 Which, all i' the Irish tongue, he teacheth them to speak. 
 
 4 
 For some are meant to right illegal wrongs. 
 And some for Doctors of Divinitie, 
 
 Whom he doth teach to murder the dead tongues, 30 
 
 And so win academical degree ; 
 But some are bred for service of the sea, 
 Howbeit, their store of learning is but small. 
 For mickle waste he counteth it would be 
 To stock a head with bookish wares at all, 
 Only to be knocked ofi by ruthless cannon ball. 
 
THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER 6i 
 
 5 
 Six babes he sways, — some little and some big, 
 Divided into classes six ; — alsoe, 
 He keeps a parlour boarder of a pig, 
 
 That in the College fareth to and fro, 40 
 
 And picketh up the urchins' crumbs below, — 
 And eke the learned rudiments they scan, 
 And thus his A, B, C, doth wisely know, — 
 Hereafter to be shown in caravan, 
 And raise the wonderment of many a learned man. 
 
 Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls. 
 Whereof, above his head, some two or three 
 Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva's owls, 
 But on the branches of no living tree, 
 
 And overlook the learned family ; 56 
 
 While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch. 
 Drops feather on the nose of Dominie, 
 Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research 
 In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge — now a birch. 
 
 7 
 
 No chair he hath, the awful Pedagogue, 
 Siich as would magisterial hams imbed. 
 But sitteth lowly on a beechen log. 
 Secure in high authority and dread : 
 Large, as a dome for learning, seems his head, 
 And like Apollo's, all beset with rays, fio 
 
 Because his locks are so unkempt and red, 
 And stand abroad in many several ways : — 
 No laurel crown he wears, howbeit his cap is baise. 
 
 8 
 
 And, underneath, a pair of shaggy brows 
 O'erhang as many eyes of gizzard hue. 
 That inward giblet of a fowl, which shows 
 A mongrel tint, that is ne' brown ne blue ; 
 His nose, — it is a coral to the view ; 
 Well nourished with Pierian Potheen, — 
 For much he loves his native mountain dew ; — 70 
 
 But to depict the dye would lack, I ween, 
 A bottle-red, in terms, as well as bottle-green. 
 
 9 
 As for his coat, 'tis such a jerkin short 
 As Spencer had, ere he composed his Tales ; 
 But underneath he hath no vest, nor aught. 
 So that the wind his airy breast assails ; 
 
62 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 Below, he wears the nether garb of males, 
 Of crimson plush, but non-plushed at the knee; — 
 Thence further down the, native red prevails,. 
 Of his own naked fleecy hosiery : — 
 Two sandals, without soles, complete his cap-a-pee. 
 
 Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap 
 His function in a, magisterial gown. 
 That shows more countries in it than a map, — 
 Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet brown, 
 Besides some blots, standing for country-town ; 
 And eke some rents, for streams and rivers wide ; 
 But, sometimes, bashful when he looks adown, 
 He turns the garment of the other side, 
 Hopeful that so the holes may never be espied ! 
 
 And soe he sits, amidst the little pack. 
 That look for shady or for sunny noon. 
 Within his visage, like an almanack,^- 
 His qiiiet smile foretelling gracious boon : 
 But when his mouth droops down, like rainy moon. 
 With horrid chill each little heart uuwarms. 
 Knowing that infant show'rs will follow soon, ■ 
 And with forebodings of near wrath and storms 
 They sit, like timid hares, all trembling on their forms. 
 
 Ah ! luckless wight, who cannot then repeat 
 ' Corduroy Colloquy,' — or ' Ki, Kae, Kod,' — 
 Full soon his tears shall make his turfy seiat 
 More sodden, tho' already made of sod. 
 For Dan shall whip him with the word of God, — 
 Severe by rule, and not by nature mild, 
 He never spoils the child and spares the rod, 
 But spoils the rod and never spares the child. 
 And soe with holy rule deems he is reconcil'd. 
 
 But, surely, the just sky will never wink 
 At men who take delight in childish throe, 
 And stripe the nether-urchin like a pink' 
 Or tender hyacinth, inscribed with woe ; 
 Such bloody Pedagogues, when they shall know, 
 By useless birches, that forlorn recess, 
 Which is no holiday, in Pit below. 
 Will hell not seem designed for their distress, — 
 A melancholy place, that is all bottomlesse ? 
 
THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER 63 
 
 14 
 Yet would the Muse not chide the wholesome use 
 Of needful discipline, in due degree. 
 
 Devoid of sway, what wrongs will time produce, izo 
 
 Whene'er the twig untrainfed grows up a tree. 
 This shall a Carder, that a Whiteboy be. 
 Ferocious leaders of atrocious bands, 
 And Learning's help be used for infamie. 
 By lawless clerks, that, with their bloody hands. 
 In murder'd English write Rock's murderous commands. 
 
 15 
 But ah ! what shrilly cry doth now alarm 
 The sooty fowls that dozed upon the beam, 
 All sudden fluttering from the brandish'd arm, 
 And cackling chorus with the human scream ; 130 
 
 Meanwhile, the scourge plies that unkindly seam. 
 In Phelim's brogues, which bares his naked skin. 
 Like traitor cap in warlike fort, I deem. 
 That falsely lets the fierce besieger in. 
 Nor seeks the Pedagogue by other course to win. 
 
 16 , ,, 
 
 No parent dear he hath to heed his cries ; — 
 Alas ! his parent dear is far aloof. 
 And deep his Seven-Dial cellar lies. 
 Killed by kind cudgel-play, or gin of proof ; 
 Or climbeth, catwise, on some London roof, 140 
 
 Singing, perchance, a lay of Erin's Isle, 
 Or, whilst he labours, weaves a fancy-woof. 
 Dreaming he sees his home,— his Phelim smile ; 
 Ah me ! that luckless imp, who weepeth all the while ! 
 
 17 , 
 
 Ah ! who can paint that hard and heavy time. 
 When first the scholar lists in learning's train. 
 And mounts her rugged steep, enforc'd to climb, 
 Like sooty imp, by sharp posterior paihj 
 From bloody twig, and eke that Indian cane, 
 Wherein, alas ! no sugar'd juices dwell, 'S" 
 
 For this, the while one stripling's sluices drain 
 Another weepeth over chilblains fell. 
 Always upon the heel, yet never to be well ! 
 
 18 
 
 Anon a third, for his delicious root, 
 Late ravish'd firom his tooth by elder chit. 
 So soon is human violence afoot, 
 So hardly is the harmless biter bit ! 
 
64 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit 
 And mouthing face, derides the small one's moan. 
 Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit, iSo 
 
 Alack,^— mischance comes seldomtimes alone, 
 But aye the worried dog must rue more curs than one. 
 
 19 
 For lo ! the Pedagogue, with sudden drub, 
 Smites his scald head, that is already sore, — 
 Superfluous wound,^ — such is Misfortune's rub ! 
 Who straight makes answer with redoubled roar, 
 And sheds salt tears twice faster than before, 
 That still, with backward fist he strives to dry ; 
 Washing, with brackish moisture, o'er and o'er, 
 His muddy cheek, that grows more foul thereby, 170 
 
 Till all his rainy face looks grim as rainy sky. 
 
 So Dan, by dint of noise, obtains a peace, 
 And with his natural untender knack, 
 By new distress, bids former grievance cease. 
 Like tears dried up with rugged huckaback. 
 That sets the mournful visage all awrack ; 
 Yet soon the childish countenance will shine 
 Even as thorough storms the soonest slack. 
 For grief and beef in adverse ways incline. 
 This keeps, and that decays, when duly soak'd in brine. isa 
 
 Now all is hushed, and, with a look profound, 
 The Dominie lays ope the learned page ; 
 (So be it called) although he doth expound 
 Without a book, both Greek and Latjn sage ; 
 Now telleth he of Rome's rude infant age, 
 How Romulus was bred in savage wood. 
 By wet-nurse wolf, devoid of wolfish rage ; 
 And laid foundation-stone of walls of mud, 
 But watered it, alas ! with warm fraternal blood. 
 
 Anon, he turns to that Homeric war. 
 How Troy was sieged like Londonderry town ; 
 And stout Achilles, at his jaunting-car. 
 Dragged mighty Hector with a bloody crown : 
 And eke the bard, that sung of their renown. 
 In garb of Greece most beggar-like and torn. 
 He paints, with colly, wand'ring up and down : 
 Because, at once, in seven cities born ; 
 And so, of parish rights, was, all his days forlorn. 
 
THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER 65 
 
 23 
 
 Anon, through old Mythology he goes, 
 
 Of gods defunct, and all their pedigrees, 200 
 
 But shuns their scandalous amours, and shows 
 How Plato wise, and clear-ey'd Socrates, 
 Confess'd not to those heathen hes and shes ; 
 But thro' the clouds of the Olympic cope 
 Beheld St. Peter, viith his holy keys, 
 And own'd their love was naught, and bow'd to Pope, 
 Whilst all their purblind race in Pagan mist did grope. 
 
 24 
 From such quaint themes he turns, at last, aside, 
 To new philosophies, that still are green, 
 And shows what rail-roads have been track'd to guide 210 
 
 The wheels of great political machine ; 
 If English corn should grow ' abroad, I ween, 
 And gold be made of gold, or paper sheet ; 
 How many pigs be born to each spalpeen ; 
 And, ah ! how man shall thrive beyond his meat, — 
 With twenty souls alive, to one square sod of. peat ! 
 
 Here, he makes end ; and all the fry of youth, 
 That stood around with serious look intense, 
 Close up again their gaping eyes and mouth, 
 Which they had opened to his eloquence, 220 
 
 As if their hearing were a threefold sense ; 
 But now the current of his words is done, 
 And whether any fruits shall spring from thence, 
 In future time, with any mother's son, 
 It is a thing, God wot ! that can be told by none. 
 
 26 
 Now by the creeping shadows of the noon, 
 The hour is come to lay aside their lore ; 
 The cheerful pedagogue perceives it soon. 
 And cries, ' Begone ! ' unto the imps,— and four 
 Snatch their two hats, and struggle for the door, 230 
 
 Like ardent spirits vented from a cask. 
 All blythe and boisterous,— but leave two more, 
 With Reading made Uneasy for a task. 
 To weep, whilst all their mates in merry sunshine bask, 
 
 27 
 Like sportive Elfins, on the verdant sod. 
 With tender moss so sleekly overgrown, 
 That doth not hurt, but kiss, the sole unshod. 
 So soothly kind is Erin to her own ! 
 ' [Thus in 4th edition j ' go ' in some reprints, it may be an intended bull.] 
 D 
 
66 
 
 THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 And one, at Hare and Hound, plays all alone, — 
 For Phelim 's gone to tend his step-dame's cow ; 
 Ah ! Phelim's step-dame is a canker'd crone ! 
 Whilst other twain play at an Irish row, 
 And, with shillelah small, break one another's brow 1 
 
 240 
 
 28 
 
 But careful Dominie, with ceaseless thrift. 
 Now changeth ferula for rural hoe ; 
 But, first of all, with tender hand doth shift 
 His college gown, because of solar glow. 
 And hangs it on a bush, to scare the crow : 
 Meanwhile, he plants in earth the dappled bean, 
 Or trains the young potatoes all a-row, 
 Or plucks the fragrant leek for pottage green. 
 With that crisp curly herb, call'd Kale in Aberdeen. 
 
 250 
 
 29 
 
 And so he wisely spends the fruitful hours, 
 Linked each to each by labour, like a bee ; 
 Or rules in Learning's hall, or trims her bow'rs ; — 
 Would there were many more such wights as he, 
 To sway each capital academie 
 Of Cam and Isis, for, alack ! at each 
 There dwells, I wot, some dronish Dominie, 
 That does no garden work, nor yet doth teach. 
 But wears a floury head, and talks in flow'ry speech! 
 
 260 
 
 THE SEA- SPELL 
 
 ' Cauld, cauU, he lies beneath the ieep.'— Old Scotch Ballad. 
 
 It was a jolly mariner ! 
 The tallest man of three, — 
 He loosed his sail against the wind. 
 And turned his boat to sea : 
 The ink-black sky told every eye 
 A storm was soon to be ! 
 
 But still that jolly mariner 
 
 Took in no reef at all, 
 
 For, in his pouch, confidingly. 
 
 He wore a baby's caul ; 
 
 A thing, as gossip-nurses know. 
 
 That always brings a squall I 
 
 His hat was new, or newly glaz'd, 
 Shone brightly in the sun ; 
 His jacket, like a mariner's. 
 True blue, as e'er was spun ; 
 His ample trowsers, like Saint Paul, 
 Bore forty stripes save one. 
 
 And now the fretting foaming tide 
 He steer' d away to cross ; 20 
 
 The bounding pinnace play'd a game 
 Of dreary pitch and toss ; 
 A game that, on the good dry land, 
 Is apt to bring a loss ! 
 
THE §EA-SPELL 
 
 67 
 
 Good Heaven befriend that little boat, 
 
 And guide her on her way ! 
 
 A boat, they say, has canvas wings. 
 
 But cannot fly away ! 
 
 Though, like a merry singing-bird. 
 
 She sits upon the spray ! 30 
 
 Still east by south the little boat. 
 With tawny sail kept beating : 
 Now out of sight, between two waves. 
 Now o'er th' horizon fleeting : 
 Likegreedy swine that feed on mast, — 
 The waves her mast seem'd eating ! 
 
 The sullen sky grew black above. 
 The wave as black beneath ; 
 Each roaring billow show'd full soon 
 A white and foamy wreath ; 40 
 
 Like angry dogs that snarl at first, 
 And then display their teeth. 
 
 The boatman looked against the wind. 
 
 The mast began to creak. 
 
 The wave, per saltum.came and dried. 
 
 In salt, upon his cheek ! 
 
 The pointed wave against him rear'd, 
 
 As if it own'd a pique I 
 
 Nor rushing wind, nor gushing wave, 
 That boatman could alarm, 50 
 
 But still he stood away to sea, 
 And trusted in his charm ; 
 He thought by purchase he was safe. 
 And arm'd against all harm ! 
 
 Now thick and fast and far aslant. 
 The stormy rain came pouring, 
 He heard upon the sandy bank. 
 The distant breakers roaring, — 
 A groaning intermitting sound. 
 Like Gog and Magog snoring ! 
 
 The seafowl shriek'd around the mast, 
 Ahead the grampus tumbled. 
 And far off, from a copper cloud, 
 The hollow thunder rumbled ; 
 It would have quail'd another heart, 
 But his was never humbled. 
 
 For why ? he had that infant's caul ; 
 And wherefore should he dread ? 
 Alas ! alas 1 he little thought. 
 Before the ebb-tide sped, — • 70 
 
 That like that infant, he should die. 
 And with a watery head ! 
 
 13 
 The rushing brine flowed in apace ; 
 His boat had ne'er a deck ; 
 Fate seem'd to call him on, and he 
 Attended to her beck ; 
 And so he went, still trusting on, 
 Though reckless — to his wreck I 
 
 *'■ '■ 14 
 
 For as he left his helm, to heave 
 The ballast-bags a-weather, 80 
 
 Three monstrous seas cameroaring on. 
 Like lions leagued together. 
 The two first waves the little boat 
 Swam over like a feather. — 
 
 15 
 The twofirstwaveswerepastandgone. 
 And sinking in her wake ; 
 The hugest still came leaping on, 
 And hissing like a snake ; 
 Now helm a-lee ! for through the midst 
 The monster he must take ! 90 
 
 16 
 
 Ah me ! it was a dreary mount ! 
 Its base as black as night. 
 Its top of pale and livid green. 
 Its crest of awful white, 
 Like Neptune with a leprosy, — 
 And so it. rear'd upright ! 
 
68 
 
 THE SEA-SPELL 
 
 17 
 
 With quaking sails the little boat 
 Climb'd up the foaming heap ; 
 With quaking sails it paused awhile. 
 At balance on the steep ; 100 
 
 Then rushing down the nether slope,' 
 Plunged with a dizzy sweep ! 
 
 Look, how a horse, made mad with 
 
 fear. 
 Disdains his careful guide ; 
 So now the headlong headstrong boat, 
 Unmariaged, turns aside, 
 Andstraightprfesents her reeling flank 
 Against the swelling tide ! 
 
 19 
 The gusty wind assaults the sail ; 
 Her ballast lies a-lee ! no 
 
 The sheet 's to windward, taut and 
 
 stiff! 
 Oh ! the Lively— where is sh^ ? 
 Her capsiz'd keel is in the foam, 
 Her pennon 's in the sea ! 
 
 20 
 
 The wild gull, sailing overhead, 
 Three times beheld emerge 
 The head of that bold mariner. 
 And then she screamed his dirge ! 
 For he had sunk within his grave, 
 La,pp'd in a shroud of surge ! no 
 
 The ensuing wave, with horrid foam, 
 Rush'd o'er and covered all, — 
 The jolly boatman's drowning scream 
 Was smother'd by the squall,— 
 Heaven never heard his cry, nor did 
 The ocean heed his caul. 
 
 FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD 
 
 Ben Battle was a soldier bold. 
 And used to war's alarms : 
 
 But a cannon-ball took off his legs. 
 So he laid down his arms ! 
 
 Now as they bore him off the field. 
 Said he, ' Let others shoot, 
 
 For here I leave my second leg, 
 And the Forty-second Foot ! ' 
 
 The army-sutgeons made him limbs : 
 Said he, — ' They're only pegs : 10 
 
 But there's as wooden members quite 
 As represent my legs ! ' 
 
 Now Ben he loved a pretty maid. 
 Her name was Nelly Gray ; 
 
 So he went to pay her his devours 
 When he'd devoured his pay ! 
 
 But when he called on Nelly Gray, 
 She made him quite a scoff ; 
 
 And when she saw his wooden legs. 
 Began to take them off 1 20 
 
 ' O Nelly Gray ! O, Nelly Gray ! 
 
 Is this your love so warm ? 
 The love that loves a scarlet coat 
 
 Should be more uniform ! ' 
 
 Said she, ' I loved a soldier once, 
 For he was blythe and brave ; 
 
 But I will never have a man 
 With both legs in the grave ! 
 
 ' Before you had those timber toes. 
 Your love I did allow, 30 
 
 But then, you know, you stand upon 
 Another footing now ! ' 
 
FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY 
 
 69 
 
 ' O, Nelly Gray ! O, Nelly Gray ! 
 
 For all your jeering speeches, 
 At duty's call, I left my legs 
 
 In Badajos's breaches I ' 
 
 ' Why, then,' said she, 'you've lost the 
 feet 
 
 Of legs in war's alarms, ' ■ 
 
 And now you cannot wear your shoes 
 
 Upon your feats of arms ! ' 40 
 
 ' O, false and fickle Nelly Gray ; 
 
 I know why you refuse : — 
 Though I've no feet — some other man 
 
 Is standing in my shoes 1 
 
 ' I wish I ne'er had seen your face ; 
 
 But, now, a long farewell ! 
 For you will be my death ; — alas ! 
 
 You will not be my Nell I ' 
 
 Now when he went from Nelly Gray, 
 His heart so heavy got — 50 
 
 And life was such a burthen grown. 
 It made him take a knot ! 
 
 So round his melancholy neck, 
 A rope he did entwine, 
 
 And, for his second time in life, 
 Enlisted in the Line 1 
 
 One end he tied around a beam, 
 And then removed his pegs. 
 
 And, as his legs were off, — of course, 
 He soon was off his legs 1 60 
 
 And there he hung, till he was dead 
 
 As any nail in town, — 
 For though distress had cut him up, 
 
 It could not cut him down ! 
 
 A dozen men sat on his corpse, 
 To find out why he died — 
 
 And they buried Ben in four cross- 
 roads, 
 With a stake in his inside ! 
 
WHIMS AND ODDITIES. Second Series 
 
 {1827) 
 
 TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. 
 THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 ' What Demon hath possessed thee, that thou wilt never forsake that impertinent custom of 
 punning ? ' — Scribkriis. 
 
 BIANCA'S DREAM 
 
 A VENETIAN STORY 
 
 BiANCA ! — fair Bianca ! — who could dwell 
 
 With safety on her dark and hazel gaze, 
 Nor find there lurk'd in it a witching spell, 
 
 Fatal to balmy nights and blessed days ! 
 The peaceful breath that made the bosom swell. 
 
 She turn'd to gas, and set it in a blaze ; 
 Each eye of hers had Love's Eupyrion in it. 
 That he could light his link at in a minute. 
 
 So that, wherever in her charms she shone, 
 
 A thousand breasts were kindled into flame ; 10 
 
 Maidens who cursed her looks forgot their own, 
 
 And beaux were turn'd to flambeaux where she came ; 
 All hearts indeed were conquer'd but her own, 
 
 Which none could ever temper down or tame : 
 In short, to take our haberdasher's hints. 
 She might have written over it,—' from Flint's.' 
 
 She was, in truth, the wonder of her sex. 
 
 At least in Venice — where with eyes of brown, 
 
 Tenderly languid, ladies seldom vex 
 
 An amourous gentle with a needless frown ; 20 
 
 Where gondolas convey guitars by pecks, 
 
 And Love at casements climbeth up and down. 
 
 Whom for his tricks and custom in that kind. 
 
 Some have considered a Venetian blind. 
 
BIANCA'S DREAM 71 
 
 Howbeit, this difference was quickly taught, 
 
 Amongst more youths who had this cruel jailor, 
 
 To hapless Julio — all in vain he sought 
 
 With each new moon his hatter and his tailor ; 
 
 In vain the richest padusoy he bought, 
 
 And went in bran new beaver to assail her — 
 
 As if to show that Love had made him smart 
 
 All over — and not merely round his heart. 
 
 30 
 
 In vain he laboured thro' the sylvan park 
 
 Bianca haunted in — that where she came, 
 Her learned eyes in wandering might mark 
 
 The twisted cypher of her maiden name. 
 Wholesomely going thro' a course of bark : 
 
 No one was touched or troubled by his flame, 
 Except the dryads, those old maids that grow 
 In trees, — like wooden dolls in embryo. 40 
 
 In vain complaining elegies he writ, 
 
 And taught his tuneful instrument to grieve, 
 
 And sang in quavers how his heart was split. 
 Constant beneath her lattice with each eve ; 
 
 She mock'd his wooing with her wicked wit. 
 
 And slash'd his suit, so that it matched his sleeve. 
 
 Till he grew silent at the vesper star. 
 
 And quite despairing, hamstring' d his guitar. 
 
 Bianca's heart was coldly frosted o'er 
 
 With snows unmelting — an eternal sheet, S" 
 
 But his was red within him, like the core 
 
 Of old Vesuvius, with perpetual heat ; 
 And oft he longed internally to pour 
 
 His flames and glowing lava at her feet, 
 But when his burnings he began to spout. 
 She stopped his mouth, and put the crater out. 
 
 Meanwhile he wasted in the eyes of men, 
 So thin, he seem'd a sort of skeleton-key 
 
 Suspended at death's door — so pale — and then 
 He turn'd as nervous as an aspen tree ; 
 
 The life of man is three score years and ten, 
 But he was perishing at twenty-three. 
 
 For people truly said, as grief grew stronger, 
 
 ' It could not shorten his poor life— much longer/ 
 
72 BIANCA'S DREAM 
 
 For why, he neither slept, nor drank, nor fed, 
 
 Nor relished any kind of mirth below ; 
 Fire in his heart, and frenzy in his head, 
 
 Love had become his universal foe. 
 
 Salt in his sugar — nightmare in his bed. 
 
 At last, no wonder wretched Julio, T> 
 
 A sorrow-ridden thing, in utter dearth 
 Of hope, — made up his mind to cut her girth ! 
 
 For hapless lovers always died, of old. 
 Sooner than chew reflection's bitter cud ; 
 
 So Thisbe stuck herself, what time 'tis told 
 The tender-hearted mulberries wept blood ; 
 
 And so poor Sappho, when her boy was cold, 
 Drown'd her salt tear drops in a Salter flood, 
 
 Their fame still breathing, tho' their breath be past, 
 
 For those old suitors lived beyond their last. 
 
 So Julio went to drown, — when life was dull. 
 But took his corks, and merely had a bath ; 
 
 And once he puU'd a trigger at his scull. 
 But merely broke a window in his wrath ; 
 
 And once his hopeless being to annul. 
 He tied a pack-thread to a beam of lath, 
 
 A line so ample, 'twas a query whether 
 
 'Twas meant to be a halter or a tether. 
 
 Smile not in scorn, that Julio did not thrust 
 
 His sorrows thro' — 'tis horrible to die ! 90 
 
 And come down with our little all of dust. 
 
 That dun of all the duns to satisfy : 
 To leave life's pleasant city as we must. 
 
 In Death's most dreary spunging-house to lie, 
 Where even all our personals must go 
 To pay the debt of nature that we owe ! 
 
 So Julio liv'd : — 'twas nothing but a pet 
 He took at life — a momentary spite ; 
 
 Besides, he hoped that time would some day get 
 The better of love's flame, however bright ; 
 
 A thing that time has never compass'd yet, 
 For love, we know, is an Immortal light. 
 
 Like that old fire, that, quite beyond a doubt, 
 
 Was always in, — for none have found it out. 
 
BIANCA'S DREAM ;3 
 
 Meanwhile, Bianca dream'd — 'twas once when night 
 
 Along the darken' d plain began to creep, 
 Like a young Hottentot, whose eyes are bright, 
 
 Altho' in skin as sooty as a sweep : 
 The flowers had shut their eyes — the zephyr light 
 
 Was gone, for it had rock'd the leaves to sleep. no 
 
 And all the little birds had laid their heads 
 Under their wings — sleeping in feather beds; 
 
 Lone in her chamber sat the dark-ey'd maid, 
 By easy stages jaunting thro' her pray'rs. 
 
 But list'ning side-long to a serenade, 
 
 That robb'd the saints a little of their shares ; 
 
 For Julio underneath the lattice play'd 
 His Deh Vieni, and such amorous airs, 
 
 Born only underneath Italian skies, 
 
 Where every fiddle has a Bridge of Sighs. 
 
 Sweet was the tune— the words were even sweeter, 
 Praising her eyes, her lips, her nose, her hair. 
 
 With all the common tropes wherewith in metre 
 The hackney poets overcharge their fair. 
 
 Her shape was like Diana's, but completer ; 
 
 Her brow with Grecian Helen's might compare : 
 
 Cupid, alas ! was cruel Sagittarius, 
 
 Julio — the weeping water-man Aquarius. 
 
 Now, after listing to such landings rare, 
 
 'Twas very natural indeed to go — 
 What if she did postpone one little pray'r — 
 
 To ask her mirror, ' if it was not so ? ' 
 'Twas a large mirror, none the worse for wear, 
 
 Reflecting her at once from top to toe : 
 And there she gazed upon that glossy track, 
 That showed her front face tho' it ' gave her back.' 
 
 And long her lovely eyes were held in thrall. 
 By that dear page where first the woman reads : 
 
 That Julio was no flatt'rer, none at all. 
 
 She told herself— and then she told her beads ; Mo 
 
 Meanwhile, the nerves insensibly let fall 
 Two curtains fairer than the lily breeds ; 
 
 For Sleep had crept and kiss'd her unawares, 
 
 Just at the half-way milestone of her pray'rs. 
 D 3 
 
74 BIANCA'S DREAM 
 
 Then like a drooping rose so bended she, 
 Till her bow'd head upon her hand reposed ; 
 
 But still she plainly saw, or seem'd to see, 
 That fair reflexion, tho' her eyes were closed, 
 
 A beauty-bright as it was wont to be, 
 
 A portrait Fancy painted while she dozed : iS" 
 
 'Tis very natural, some people say. 
 
 To dream o£ what we dwell on in the day. 
 
 Still shone her face— yet not, a(as ! the same, 
 
 But 'gan some dreary touches to assume, 
 And sadder thoughts, with sadder changes came — 
 
 Her eyes resigned their light, her lips their bloom. 
 Her teeth fell out, her tresses did the same, 
 
 Her cheeks were tinged with bile, her eyes with rheum : 
 There was a throbbing at her heart within. 
 For, oh ! there was a shooting in her chin. 160 
 
 And lo I upon her sad desponding brow. 
 
 The cruel trenches of besieging age. 
 With seams, but most unseemly, 'gan to show 
 
 Her place was booking for the seventh stage ; 
 And where her raven tresses used to flow, 
 
 Some locks that Time had left her in his rage, 
 And some mock ringlets, made her forehead shady, 
 A compound (like our Psalms) of tete and braidy. 
 
 Then for her shape — alas ! how Saturn wrecks, 
 
 And bends, and corkscrews all the frame about, 170 
 
 Doubles the hams, and crooks the straightest necks, 
 
 Draws in the nape, and pushes forth the snout, 
 Makes backs and stomachs concave or convex ; 
 
 Witness those pensioners called In and Out, 
 Who all day watching first and second rater, 
 Quaintly unbend themselves — but grow no straighter. 
 
 So Time with fair Bianca dealt, and made 
 
 Her shape a bow, that once was like an arrow ; 
 
 His iron hand upon her spine he laid. 
 
 And twisted all awry her ' winsome marrow.' 180 
 
 In truth it was a change ! — she had obey'd 
 The holy Pope before her chest grew narrow. 
 
 But spectacles and palsy seem'd to make her 
 
 Something between a Glassite and a Quaker. 
 
BIANCA'S DREAM 75 
 
 Her grief and gall meanwhile were quite extreme, 
 
 And she had ample reason for her trouble ; 
 For what sad maiden can endure to seem 
 - Set in for singleness, tho' growing double. 
 The fancy madden'd her ; but now the dream, 
 
 Grown thin by getting bigger, like a bubble, 190 
 
 Burst, — but still left some fragments of its size. 
 That, like the soapsuds, smarted in her eyes. 
 
 And here — just here — as she began to heed 
 
 The real world, her clock chimed out its score ; 
 
 A clock it was of the Venetian breed. 
 
 That cried the hour from one to twenty-four ; 
 
 The works moreover standing in some need 
 Of workmanship, it struck some dozens more ; 
 
 A warning voice that clench'd Bianca's fears. 
 
 Such strokes referring doubtless to her years. 
 
 At fifteen chimes she was but half a nun, 
 By twenty she had quite renounced the veil ; 
 
 She thought of Julio just at twenty-one, 
 And thirty made her very sad and pale. 
 
 To paint that ruin where her charms would run ; 
 At forty all the maid began to fail. 
 
 And thought no higher, as the late dream cross'd her. 
 
 Of single blessedness, than single Gloster. 
 
 And so Bianca changed ; — the next sweet even, 
 
 With Julio in a black Venetian bark, 
 Row'd slow and stealthily — the hour, eleven. 
 
 Just sounding from the tow'r of old St. Mark, 
 She sate with eyes turn'd quietly to heav'n, 
 
 Perchance rejoicing in the grateful dark 
 That veil'd her blushing cheek— for Julio brought her, 
 Of course — to break the ice upon the water. 
 
 But what a puzzle is one's serious mind 
 To open ; — oysters, when the ice is thick. 
 
 Are not so difficult and disinclin'd ; 
 And Julio felt the declaration stick 
 
 About his throat in a most awful kind ; 
 However, he contrived by bits to pick 
 
 His trouble forth,— much like a rotten cork 
 
 Grop'd from a long-neck'd bottle with a fork. 
 
76 BIANCA'S DREAM 
 
 But love is still the quickest of all readers ; 
 
 And Julio spent besides those signs profuse 
 That English telegraphs and foreign pleaders, 
 
 In help of language, are so apt to use ; 
 Arms, shoulders, fingers, all were interceders, 
 
 Nods, shrugs, and bends, — Bianca could not choose 
 But soften to his suit with more facility. 
 He told his story with so much agility. 
 
 ' Be thou my park, and I will be thy dear, 
 
 (So he began at last to speak or quote ;) 
 Be thou my bark, and I thy gondolier, 
 
 (For passion takes this figurative note ;) 
 Be thou my light, and I thy chandelier ; 
 
 Be thou my dove, and I will be thy cote : 
 My lily be, and I will be thy river ; 
 Be thou my life — and I will be thy liver.' z4o 
 
 This, with more tender logic of the kind. 
 He pour'd into her small and shell-like ear. 
 
 That timidly against his lips inclin'd ; 
 
 Meanwhile her eyes glanced on the silver sphere 
 
 That even now began to steal behind 
 
 A dewy vapour, which was lingering near. 
 
 Wherein the dull moon crept all dim and pale, 
 
 Just like a virgin putting on the veil : — 
 
 Bidding adieu to all her sparks — the stars. 
 
 That erst had woo'd and worshipp'd in her tram, 250 
 
 Saturn and Hesperus, and gallant Mars — 
 
 Never to flirt with heavenly eyes again. 
 Meanwhile, remindful of the convent bars, 
 
 Bianca did not watch these signs in vain, 
 But turn'd to Julio at the dark eclipse. 
 With words, like verbal kisses, on her lips. 
 
 He took the hint full speedily, and, back'd 
 
 By love, and night, and the occasion's meetness, 
 
 Bestow'd a something on her cheek that smack'd 
 (Tho' quite in silence) of ambrosial sweetness ; 
 
 That made her think all other kisses lack'd 
 
 Till then, but what she knew not, of completeness: 
 
 Being used but sisterly salutes to feel. 
 
 Insipid things — like sandwiches of veal. 
 
BIANCA'S DREAM 
 
 He took her hand, and sobtt she felt him wring 
 The pretty fingers all instead of one ; 
 
 Anon his stealthy arm began to cling 
 
 About her waist that had been clasp'd by none ; 
 
 Their dear confessions I forbear to sing, 
 
 Since cold description would but be outrun ; 
 
 For bliss and Irish watches have the pow'r. 
 
 In twenty minutes, to lose half an hour ! 
 
 77 
 
 270 
 
 MARY'S GHOST 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD 
 
 'TwAS in the middle of the night, 
 To sleep young William tried. 
 
 When Mary's ghost came stealing in, 
 And stood at his bed-side. 
 
 William dear ! O' William dear ! 
 
 My rest eternal ceases ; 
 Alas ! my Everlasting peace 
 
 Is broken into pieces. 
 
 I thought the last of all my cares 
 Would end with my last minute ; 10 
 
 But tho' I went to my long home, 
 I didn't stay long in it. 
 
 The body-snatchers they have come, 
 And made a snatch at me ; 
 
 It 's very hard them kind of men 
 Won't let a body be ! 
 
 You thought that I was buried deep 
 Quite decent like and chary, 
 
 But from her grave in Mary-bone 19 
 They've comeand boned your Mary. 
 
 6 
 The arm that used to take your arm 
 
 Is took to Dr. Vyse ; 
 And both my legs are gone to walk 
 
 The hospital at Guy's. 
 
 I vow'd that you should have my hand. 
 
 But fate gives us denial ; 
 You'll find it there, at Dr. Bell's, 
 
 In spirits and a phial. 
 
 8 
 As for my feet, the little feet 
 
 You used to call so pretty, 30 
 
 There 's one, I know, in Bedford Row, 
 
 The t'other 's in the city. 
 
 I can't tell where my head is gone. 
 But Doctor Carpue can : 
 
 As for my trunk, it 's all pack'd up 
 To go by Pickford's van. 
 
 I wish you'd go to Mr. P. 
 
 And save me such a ride ; 
 I don't half like the outside place, 
 
 They've took for my inside. 40 
 
 The cock it crows^I must begone I 
 My William we must part I 
 
 But I'll be yours in death, al tho' 
 Sir Astley has my heart. 
 
 Don't go to weep upon my grave. 
 And think that there I be ; 
 
 They haven't left an atom there 
 Of my anatomic. 
 
78 
 THE PROGRESS OF ART 
 
 HAPPY time !— Art's early days ! 
 When o'er each deed, with sweet self- 
 praise, 
 
 Narcissus-like I hung ! 
 When great Rembrandt but little 
 
 seem'd. 
 And such Old Masters all were deem'd 
 
 As nothing to the young ! 
 Some scratchy strokes— abrupt and 
 
 few. 
 So easily and swift I drew, 
 
 SufiSc'd for my design ; 
 My sketchy, superficial hand, _ lo 
 Drew solids at a dash — and spann'd 
 
 A surface with a line. 
 Not long my eye was thus content. 
 But grew more critical — my bent 
 
 EsSay'd a higher walk ; 
 
 1 copied leaden eyes in lead — 
 Rheumatic hands in white and red. 
 
 And gouty feet — in chalk. 
 Anon ray studious art for days 
 Kept making faces — happy phrase, ao 
 
 For faces such as mine ! 
 Accomplish' d in the details then, 
 I left the minor parts of men. 
 
 And drew the form divine. 
 
 Old Gods and Heroes — Trojan — 
 
 Greek, 
 Figures — long after the antique. 
 
 Great Ajax justly feared ; 
 Hectors of whom at night I dreamt, 
 And Nestor, fringed enough to tempt 
 
 Bird-nesters to his beard. 30 
 
 A Bacchus, leering on a bowl, 
 A Pallas, that out-star'd her owl, 
 
 A Vulcan — very lame ; 
 A Dian stuck about with stars. 
 With my right hand I murder' d Mars — 
 
 (One Williams did the same.) 
 
 But tir'd of this dry work at last. 
 Crayon and chalk aside I cast. 
 
 And gave my brush a drink ! 
 Dipping^ — ' as when a painter dips 40 
 In gloom of earthquake and eclipse,' — 
 
 That is — in Indian ink. 
 
 Ohthen,whatblackMontBlancsaroso, 
 Crested with soot, and not with snows;- 
 
 What clouds of dingy hue ! 
 In spite of what the Bard has penn'd, 
 I fear the distance did not ' lend 
 
 Enchantment to the view.' 
 
 Not Radclifie's brush did e'er design 
 Black Forests, half so black as mine.jo 
 
 Or lakes so like a pall ; 
 The Chinese cake dispers'd a ray 
 Of darkness, like the light of Day. 
 
 And Martin over all. 
 
 Yet urchin pride sustain'd me still, 
 I gaz'd on all with right good will. 
 
 And spread ihe dingy tint ; 
 ' No holy Luke helped me to paint, 
 The JDevil surely, not a Saint, 
 
 Had any finger in't ! ' 60 
 
 But colours came !.-r-Uke morninglight, 
 With gorgeous hues displacing night. 
 
 Or Spring's enliven' d scene : 
 At once the sable shades withdrew ; 
 My skies got very, very blue ; 
 
 My trees extremely green. 
 
 And wash'd by my cosmetic brush. 
 How Beauty's cheek began to blush ; 
 
 With locks of auburn stain — 
 (NotGoldsmith'sAuburn)— nut-brc)wn 
 hair, 70 
 
 That made her loveliest of the fair ; 
 
 Not ' loveliest of the plain ! ' 
 
 Her lips were of vermilion hue ; 
 Love in her eyes, and Prussian blue. 
 
 Set all my heart in flame ! — 
 A young Pygmalion, I ador'd 
 The maids I made — but time was stor'd 
 
 With evil — and it came ! 
 
 Perspective dawn'd — and soon I saw 
 My houses stand against its law ; 80 
 
 And ' keeping ' all unkept ! 
 My beauties were no longer things 
 For love and fond imaginings ; 
 
 But horrors to be wept 1 
 
THE PROGRESS OF ART 
 
 79 
 
 Ah 1 why did knowledge ope ray- 
 eyes ? 
 Why did I get more artist-wise ? 
 
 It only serves to hint, 
 What grave defects and wants are 
 
 mine ; 
 That I'm no Hilton in design — 
 
 In nature no De Wint ! 90 
 
 Thrice happy time ! — Art's early days 1 
 When o'er each deed with sweet self- 
 praise, 
 Narcissus-like I hung ! 
 When great Rembrandt but little 
 
 seem'd, 
 And such Old Masters all were deem'd 
 As nothing to the young ! 
 
 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE 
 
 'TwAS in the reign of Lewis, call'd the Great, 
 
 As one may read on his triumphal arches, 
 The thing befel I'm going to relate, 
 
 In course of one of those ' pomposo ' marches 
 He lov'd to make, like any gorgeous Persian, 
 Partly for war, and partly for diversion. 
 
 Some wag had put it in the royal brain 
 
 To drop a visit at an old chateau. 
 Quite unexpected, with his courtly train ; 
 
 The monarch liked it, — but it happened so, 10 
 
 That Death had got before them by a post, 
 And they were ' reckoning without their host,' 
 
 Who died exactly as a child should die. 
 
 Without one groan or a convulsive breath. 
 Closing without one pang his quiet eye. 
 
 Sliding composedly from sleep — to death ; 
 A corpse so placid ne'er adorn'd a bed. 
 He seem'd not quite — but only rather dead. 
 
 All night the widow'd Baroness contriv'd 
 
 To shed a widow's tears ; but on the morrow so 
 
 Some news of such unusual sort arriv'd. 
 
 There came strange alteration in her sorrow ; 
 From mouth to mouth it past, one common humming 
 Throughout the house — the King ! the King is coming 1 
 
 The Baroness, with all her soul and heart, 
 
 A loyal woman, (now called ultra-loyal,) 
 Soon thrust all funeral concerns apart. 
 
 And only thought about a banquet-royal ; 
 In short, by help of earnest preparation. 
 The visit quite dismiss'd the visitation. 30 
 
 And. spite of all her grief for the ex-mate. 
 
 There was a secret hope she could not smother. 
 
So A LEGEND OF NAVARRE 
 
 That some one, early, might replace ' the late ' — 
 
 It was too soon to think about another ; 
 Yet let her minutes of despair be reckon'd 
 Against her hope, which was but for a second. 
 
 She almost thought that being thus bereft 
 
 Just then, was one of time's propitious touches ; 
 
 A thread in such a nick so nicked, it left 
 
 Free opportunity to be a duchess ; 40 
 
 Thus all her care was only to look pleasant. 
 
 But as for tears — she dropp'd them-^for the present. 
 
 Her household, as good servants ought to try, 
 
 Look'd like their lady — any thing but sad, 
 And giggled even that they might not cry. 
 
 To damp fine company ; in truth they had 
 No time to mourn, thro' choking turkeys' throttles. 
 Scouring old laces, and reviewing bottles. 
 
 Oh what a hubbub for the house of woe ! 
 
 All, resolute to one irresolution, 50 
 
 Kept tearing, swearing, plunging to and fro. 
 
 Just like another French mob-revolution. 
 There lay the corpse that could not stir a muscle, 
 But all the rest seem'd Chaos in a bustle. 
 
 The Monarch came : Oh ! who could ever guess 
 
 The Baroness had been so late a weeper ! 
 The kingly grace and more than graciousness, 
 
 Buried the poor defunct some fathoms deeper, — 
 Could he have had a glance — alas, poor Being ! 
 Seeing would certainly have led to D — ing. 60 
 
 For casting round about her eyes to find 
 
 Some one to whom her chattels to endorse. 
 The comfortable dame at last inclin'd 
 
 To choose the cheerful Master of the Horse ; 
 He was so gay, — so tender, — the complete 
 Nice man, — the sweetest of the monarch's suite. 
 
 He saw at once and enter' d in the lists — 
 
 Glance unto glance made amorous replies ; 
 They talk'd together like two egotists. 
 
 In conversation all made up of eyes ; 70 
 
 No couple ever got so right consort-ish 
 Within two hours — a courtship rather shortish. 
 
 At last, some sleepy, some by wine opprest, 
 
 The courtly company began " nid noddin ; ' 
 The King first sought his chamber, and the rest 
 
 Instanter followed by the course he trod in. 
 I shall not please the scandalous by showing 
 The order, or disorder of their going. 
 
A LEGEND OF NAVARRE 8i 
 
 The old Chateau, before that night, had never 
 
 Held half so m^ny underneath its roof ; 8a 
 
 It task'd the Baroness's best endeavour, 
 
 And put her best contrivance to the proof, 
 To give them chambers up and down the stairs. 
 In twos and threes, by singles, and by pairs. 
 
 She had just lodging for the whole — yet barely ; 
 
 And some, that were both broad of back and tall. 
 Lay on spare beds that served them very sparely ; 
 
 However, there were beds enough for all ; 
 But living bodies occupied so many. 
 She could not let the dead one take up any ! 90 
 
 The act was, certainly, not over decent : 
 
 Some small respect, e'en after death she ow'd him, 
 
 Considering his death had been so recent ; 
 
 However, by command, her servants stow'd him, 
 
 (I am asham'd to think how he was slubber'd,) 
 
 Stuck bolt upright within a corner cupboard ! 
 
 And there he slept as soundly as a post. 
 
 With no more pillow than an oaken shelf : 
 Just like a kind accommodating host. 
 
 Taking all inconvenience on himself ; 100 
 
 None else slept in that room, except a stranger, 
 A decent man, a sort of Forest Ranger. 
 
 Who, whether he had gone too soon to bed, 
 
 Or dreamt himself into an appetite, 
 Howbeit, he took a longing to be fed. 
 
 About the hungry middle of the night ; 
 So getting forth, he sought some scrap to eat. 
 Hopeful of some stray pasty or cold meat. 
 
 The casual glances of the midnight moon, 
 
 Bright'ning some antique ornaments of brass, no 
 
 Guided his gropings to that corner soon. 
 
 Just where it stood, the cof&n-safe, alas ! 
 He tried the dopr — then shook it — and in course 
 Of time it opened to a little force. 
 He put one hand in, and began to grope ; 
 
 The place was very deep and quite as dark as 
 The middle night ;— when lo ! beyond his hope, 
 
 He felt a sornething cold, in fact, the carcase ; 
 Right overjoy'd, he laugh'd, and blest his luck 
 At finding, as he thought, this haunch of buck ! 120 
 
 Then striding back for his couteau-de-chasse, 
 
 Determin'd on a little midnight lunching. 
 He came again and probed about the mass. 
 
 As if to find the fattest bit for munching ; 
 
83 A LEGEND OF NAVARRE 
 
 Not meaning wastefuUy to cut it all up, 
 But only to abstract a little coUop. 
 
 But just as he had struck one greedy stroke. 
 His hand fell down quite powerless and weak ; 
 
 For when he cut the haunch it plainly spoke 
 
 As haunch of ven'son never ought to speak ; 130 
 
 No wonder that his hand could go no further — 
 
 Whose could ? — to carve cold meat that bellow'd, ' murther ! ' 
 
 Down came the Body with a bounce, and down 
 The Ranger sprang, a staircase at a spring, 
 
 And bawl'd enough to waken -up a town ; 
 
 Some thought that they were murder'd, some, the King, 
 
 And, like Macduff, did nothing for a season, 
 
 But stand uppn the spot and bellow, ' Treason ! ' 
 
 A hundred nightcaps gathered in a mob. 
 
 Torches drew torches, swords brought swords together, 140 
 
 It seem'd so dark and perilous a job ; 
 
 The Baroness came trembling like a feather 
 Just in the rear, as pallid as a corse, 
 Leaning .against the Master of the Horse. 
 
 A dozen of the bravest up the stair, 
 
 Well lighted and well watch' d, began to clamber ; 
 
 They sought the door — they found it — they were there — 
 A dozen heads went poking in the chamber ; 
 
 And lo ! with one hand planted on his hurt. 
 
 There stood the Body bleeding thro' his shirt, — 150 
 
 No passive corse — but like a duellist 
 
 Just smarting from a scratch — in fierce position, 
 
 One hand advanc'd, and ready to resist ; 
 In fact, the Baron dofi'd the apparition. 
 
 Swearing those oaths the French delight in most. 
 
 And for the second time ' gave up the ghost ! ' 
 
 A living miracle ! — for why ? — the knife 
 
 That cuts so many off from grave grey hairs, 
 
 Had only carv'd him kindly into life. 
 
 How soon it changed the posture of affairs I >6a 
 
 The difference one person more or less 
 
 Will make in families, is. past all gues§. 
 
 There stood the Baroness — no widow yet : 
 Here stood the Baron — ' in the body ' still : 
 
 There stood the Horses' Master in a. pet. 
 Choking with disappointment's bitter pill, 
 
 To see the hope of his reversion fail. 
 
 Like that of riding on a donkey's tail. 
 
A LEGEND OF NAVARRE 83 
 
 The Baron llv'd — 'twas nothing but a trance : 
 
 The lady died — 'twas nothing bilt a death : 170 
 
 The cupboard-cut serv'd only to enhance 
 
 This postscript to the old Baronial breath : — 
 He soon forgave, for the revival's sake, 
 A little chop intended for a steak ! 
 
 THE DEMON-SHIP 
 
 'TwAS off the Wash — the sun went down — the sea look'd black and grim, 
 
 For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the brim ; 
 
 Titanic shades ! enormous gloorn 1 — as if the solid night 
 
 Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light I 
 
 It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye, 
 
 With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky 1 
 
 Down went my helm — close reef'd — the tack held freely in my hand — 
 
 With ballast snug — I put about, and scudded for the land. 
 
 Loud hiss'd the sea beneath her lee — my little boat flew fast, 
 
 But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. 10 
 
 Ixird ! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail ! 
 
 What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail ! 
 
 What darksome caverns yawn'd before ! what jagged steeps behind ! 
 
 Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind. 
 
 Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase, 
 
 But where it sank another rose and gallop' d in its place ; 
 
 As black as night — they turned to white, and cast against the cloud 
 
 A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturn'd a sailor's shroud : — 
 
 Still flew my boat ; alas ! alas I her course was nearly run I 
 
 Behold yon fatal billow rise — ten billows heap'd in one ! 20 
 
 With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling, fast. 
 
 As if the scooping sea contain'd one only wave at last ! 
 
 Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift pursuing grave ; 
 
 It seem'd as though some cloud had turn'd its hugeness to a wave I 
 
 Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face — 
 
 I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base ! 
 
 I saw its alpine hoary head impending over mine ! 
 
 Another pulse — and down it rush'd — an avalanche of brine ! 
 
 Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and home ; 
 
 The waters clos'd — and when I shriek'd, I shriek'd below the foam I 30 
 
 Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed — 
 
 For I was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed. 
 
 ' Where am I ? in the breathing world, or in the world of death ? ' 
 With sharp and sudden pang I drew another birth of breath ; 
 My eyes drank in a doubtful light, my ears a doubtful sound — 
 And was that ship a real ship whose tackle seem'd around ? 
 
84 THE DEMON-SHIP 
 
 A moon, as if the; earthly moon, was shining up aloft ; 
 
 But were those be^ms the very beams that I had seen so oft ? 
 
 A face, that mock'd the human face, before me watch'd alone ; 
 
 But were those eyes the eyes of man that look'd against ray own ? 40 
 
 Oh ! never may the moon again disclose me such a sight 
 As met my gaze, when first I look'd, on that accursed night ! 
 I've seen a thousand horrid shapes begot of fierce extremes 
 Of fever ; and most frightful things have haunted in my dreams — 
 Hyenas — cats — blood-loving bats — and apes with hateful stare, — 
 Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls — the lion, and she-bear— 
 Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spite — ' 
 Detested features, hardly dimm'd and banish'd by the light f 
 Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their tombs- 
 All phantasies and images that flit in midnight glooms — 50 
 Hags, gobUns, demons, lemures, have made me all aghast, — 
 But nothing like that Grimly One who stood beside the mast ! 
 
 His cheek was black — his brow was black — his eyes and hair as dark : 
 His hand was black, and where it touch'd, it left a sable mark ; 
 His throat was black, his vest the^same, and when I look'd beneath, 
 His breast was black — all, all, was black except his grinning teeth. 
 His sooty crew were like in hue, as black as Afric slaves ! 
 Oh, horror J e'en the ship was black that plough'd the inky waves ! 
 
 ' Alas ! ' I cried, ' for love of truth and blessed mercy's sake. 
 
 Where am I ? in what dreadful ship ? upon what dreadful lake ? 60 
 
 What shape is that, so very grim, and black as any 6oal ? 
 
 It is Mahound, the Evil One, and he has gain'd my soul ! 
 
 Oh, mother dear ! my tender nurse ! dear meadows that beguil'd 
 
 My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child, — 
 
 My mother dear — my native fields, I never more shall see : 
 
 I'm sailing in the Devil's Ship, upon the Devil's Sea 1 ' 
 
 Loud laugh'd that Sable Mariner, and loudly in return 
 
 His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem to stern — 
 
 A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce — 
 
 As many sets of grinning teeth came shining" out at once : 70 
 
 A dozen gloomy shapes at once enjoy'd the merry fit, 
 
 With shriek and yell, and oaths as well, like Demons of the Pit, 
 
 They crow'd their fill, and then the Chief made answer for the whole : — 
 
 ' Our skins,' said he, ' are black ye see, because we carry coal ; 
 
 You'll find your mother sure enough, and see your native fields — 
 
 For this here ship has pick'd you up — the Mary Ann of Shields ! ' 
 
85 
 
 A TRUE STORY 
 
 Of all our pains, since man was curst, 
 I mean of body, not the mental. 
 To name the worst, among the worst, 
 The dental sure is transcendental ; 
 Some bit of masticating bone, 
 That ought to help to clear a shelf : 
 But lets its proper work alone, 
 And only seems to gnaw itself. 
 In fact, of any grave attack 
 On victual, there is little danger, lo 
 'Tis so like coming to the rack, 
 As well as gcfing to the manger. 
 
 Old Hunks — it seem'd a fit retort 
 Of justice on his grinding ways — 
 Possess'd a grinder of the sort. 
 That troubled all his latter days. 
 The best of friends fall out, and so 
 His teeth had done some years ago, 
 Save some old stumps with ragged root. 
 And they took turn about to shbot : 20 
 If he drank any chilly liquor. 
 They made it quite a point to throb ; 
 But if he warm'd it on the hob. 
 Why then they only twitch' d the 
 quicker. 
 
 One tooth — I wonder such a tooth 
 Had never kill'd him in his youth — 
 One tooth he had with many fangs. 
 That shot at once as many pangs. 
 It had an universal Sting ; 
 One touch of that extatic stiimp 30 
 Could jerk his limbs, and make him 
 
 jump, 
 Just like a puppet on a string ; 
 And what was worse than all, it had 
 A way of making others bad. 
 There is, as many know, a knack. 
 With certain' farming undertakers. 
 And this same tooth pursued their 
 
 track, 
 I By adding ackers still to ackers I 
 
 One way there is, that has been judg'd 
 A certain cure, but Hunks was loth 40 
 To-pay the fee, and quite begtudg'd 
 To lose his tooth and money both ; 
 
 In fact, a dentist and the wheel 
 Of Fortune, are a kindred cast, 
 For after all is drawn, you feel 
 It's paying for a blank at last ; 
 So Hunks went on from week to week. 
 And kept his torment in his cheek ; 
 Oh! how it sometimes set him rocking. 
 With that perpetual gnaw^-gnaw — 
 
 gnaw, so 
 
 His moans and groans were truly 
 
 shocking, 
 And loud, — altho' he held his jaw. 
 Many a tug he gave his gum 
 And tooth, but still it would riot come, 
 Tho' tied by string, to some firm thing. 
 He could not draw it, do his best. 
 By draw'rs, — altho' he tried a chest. 
 
 At last, but after much debating, 
 He joined a score of mouths in wait- 
 ing, 
 Like his, to have their troubles oiit. 60 
 Sad sight it was to look about 
 At twenty faces makirig faces. 
 With many a rampant trick and antic. 
 For all were very horrid cases. 
 And made their owners nearly frantic. 
 A little wicket now and then 
 Took one of these unhappy men. 
 And out again the victim rush'd. 
 While eyes and mouth together gush'd; 
 At last arrived our hero's turii, 70 
 Who plunged his hands in both his 
 
 'pockets. 
 And down he sat, prepar'd to learn 
 How teeth are charm'd to quit their 
 sockets. 
 
 Those who have felt such operations, 
 Alone can guess the sort of ache. 
 When his old tooth began to break 
 The thread of old associations ; 
 It touch'd a string in every part. 
 It had so many tender ties ; 
 One chord seem'd wrenching at his 
 heart. So 
 
 And two were tugging at his eyes ; 
 
86 
 
 A TRUE STORY 
 
 ' Bone of his bone,' he felt of course, 
 As husbands do in such divorce ; 
 At last the fangs gave way a little. 
 Hunks gave his head a backward jerk. 
 And, lo ! the cause of all this work. 
 Went — where it used to send his 
 victual ! 
 
 The monstrouspainof this proceeding. 
 Had not so numbed his miser wit. 
 But in this slip he saw a hit 90 
 
 To save, at least, his purse from bleed- 
 ing ; 
 So when the dentist sought his fees, 
 Quoth Hunks, ' Let 's finish, if you 
 
 please.' 
 ' How finish I why.it 's out ! '— ' Oh ! 
 
 no — 
 'Tis you are out, to argue so ; 
 I'm none of your before-hand tippers. 
 My tooth is in my head no doubt, 
 But, as you say you puU'd it out. 
 Of course it 's there — between your 
 
 nippers.' 
 ' Zounds, sir ! d'ye think I'd sell the 
 truth 100 
 
 To get a fee ? no, wretch, I scorn it ! ' 
 But Hunks still ask'd to see the tooth. 
 And swore, by gum I he had not 
 drawn it. 
 
 His end obtain'd, he took his leave, 
 A secret chuckle in his sleeve ; 
 The joke was worthy to produce one, 
 To think, by favour of , his wit, 
 How well a dentist had been hit 
 Byoneoldstump,and that a loose.one ! 
 The thing was worth a laugh, but 
 mirth 110 
 
 Is still the frailest thing on earth ; 
 Alas ! how often when a joke 
 Seems in our sleeve, and safe enough. 
 There comes some unexpected stroke, 
 And hangs a weeper on the cuff ! 
 
 Hunks had not whistled half a mile. 
 When, planted right across a stile, 
 There stood his f oeman,Mike Mahoney, 
 A vagrant reaper, Irish-born, 119 
 
 That help'd to reap our miser's corn, 
 But had not help'd to reap his money. 
 
 A fact that Hunks remembered quick- 
 ly ; 
 His whistle all at once was quell'd ; 
 And when he saw how Michael held 
 His sickle, he felt rather sickly. 
 
 Nine souls in ten, with half his fright. 
 Would soon have paid the bill at sight, 
 But misers (let observers watch it) 
 Will never part with their delight 
 Till well demanded by a hatchet 1 30 
 They live hard — and they die to match 
 
 it. 
 Thus Hunks, prepar'd for Mike's at- 
 tacking, 
 Resolv'd not yet to pay the debt. 
 But let him take it out^ in hacking ; ■ 
 However, Mike began to stickle 
 In words before he used the sickle ; 
 But mercy was not long attendant : 
 From words at last he took to blows, 
 And aim'd a cut at Hunks's nose, 139 
 That made it what some folks are not — 
 A member very independent. 
 
 Heaven knows how far this cruel 
 
 trick 
 Might still have led, but for a tramper 
 That came in danger's very nick, 
 To put Mahoney to the scamper. 
 But still compassion met a damper ; 
 There lay the sever'd nose, alas ! 
 Beside the daisies on the grass, 
 ' Wee, crimson-tipt ' as well as they, 
 According to the poet's lay : 150 
 
 And there stood Hunks, no sight for 
 
 laughter ! 
 Away went Hodge to get assistance. 
 With nose in hand, which Hunks ran 
 
 after. 
 But somewhat at unusual distance. 
 In many a little country place 
 It is a very common case 
 To have but one residing doctor, 
 Whose practice rather seems to be 
 No practice, but a rule of three, js» 
 Physician — surgeon — drug-decocter ; 
 Thus Hunks was forc'd to go once 
 
 more 
 
A TRUE STORY 
 
 87 
 
 Where he had ta'en his toot& before. 
 His mere name made the learned man 
 
 hat,— 
 'What! Hunks again within my door! 
 I'll pull his nose;' quoth Hunks, 'You 
 
 cannot.' 
 
 The doctor look'd and saw the case 
 Plain as the nose not on his face. 
 ' O ! hum — ha— yes— 1 understand.' 
 But then arose a long demur, 
 For not a finger would he stir 170 
 
 Till he was paid his fee in hand ; 
 That matter settled, there they were, 
 With Hunks well strapp'd upon his 
 chair. 
 
 The opening of a surgeon's job — 
 His tools, a chestfull or a drawfuU — 
 Are always something very awful. 
 And give the heart the strangest throb ; 
 But never patient in his funks 
 Look'd half so like a ghost as Hunks, 
 Or surgeon half so like a devil 1 80 
 Prepar'd for some infernal revel : 
 His huge black eye kept rolling, rolling. 
 Just like a bolus in a box : 
 His fiiry seem'd above controlling. 
 He bellow' d like a hunted ox : 
 'Now, swindling wretch, I'll show thee 
 
 how 
 We treat such cheating knaves as thou ; 
 Oh ! sweet is this revenge to sup : 
 I have thee by the nose — it 's now 
 My turn — and I will turn it up.' 190 
 
 Guess how the miser liked this scurvy 
 And cruel way of venting passion ; 
 The snubbing folks in this new fashion 
 Seem'dquite to turn him topsy-turvy; 
 
 He utter'd pray'rs, and groans, and 
 
 curses, 
 For things had often gone amiss 
 And wrong with him before, but this 
 Would be the worst of all reverses I 
 In fancy he beheld his snout 199 
 
 Turn'd upward like a pitcher's spout ; 
 There was another grievance yet, 
 And fancy did not fail to show it. 
 That he must throw a summerset, 
 Or stand upon his head to blow it. 
 
 And was there then no argument 
 " To change the d'octor's vile intent. 
 And move his pity ? — yes, in truth, 
 And that was — paying for the tooth. 
 ' Zounds ! pay for such a stump ! I'd 
 
 rather ' 209 
 
 But here the menace went no farther. 
 For with his other ways of pinching. 
 Hunks had a miser's love of snuff, 
 A recollection strong enough 
 To cause a very serious flinching ; 
 In short he paid and had the feature 
 Replac'd as it was meant by nature ; 
 For tho' by this 'twas cold to handle, 
 (No corpse's could have felt more 
 
 horrid,) 
 And white just like an end of candle. 
 The doctor deem'd and prov'd it too, 
 That noses from the nose will do zji 
 As well as noses from the forehead ; 
 So fix'd by dint of rag and lint. 
 The part was bandag'd up andmuffled. 
 The chair unfasten'd. Hunks arose, 
 And shuffled out, for once unshufiied ; 
 And as he went, these words he 
 
 snuffled — 
 'Well, this js"paying thro' the nose.'" 
 
 TIM TURPIN 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD 
 
 Tim Turpin he was gravel blind, 
 And ne'er had seen the skies : i 
 
 For Nature, when his head was made. 
 Forgot to dot his eyes. 
 
 So, like a Christmas pedagogue, 
 Poor Tim was forc'd to do — 
 
 Look out for pupils, for he had 
 A vacancy for two. 
 
88 
 
 TIM TURPIN 
 
 There's some have specs to help their 
 sight 
 
 Of objects dim and small : lo 
 
 But Tim had specks within his eyes, 
 
 And could not see at all. 
 
 Now Tim he woo'd a servant-maid, 
 And took her to his arms ; 
 
 For he, like Pyramus, had cast 
 A wall-eye on her charms. 
 
 By day she led him up and down 
 Where'er he wish'd to jog, 
 
 A happy wife, altho' she led 
 
 The life of any dog. 20 
 
 But just when Tim had liv'd a month 
 
 In honey with his "wife, 
 A surgeon ope'd his Milton eyes. 
 
 Like oysters, with a knife. 
 
 But when his eyes were open'd thus, 
 He >vish'd them dark again : 
 
 For when he look'd upon his wife. 
 He saw her very plain. 
 
 Her face was bad, her figure worse. 
 He couldn't bear to eat : 30 
 
 For she was any thing but like 
 A Grace before his meat. 
 
 Now Tim he was a feeling man : 
 For when his sight was thick. 
 
 It made him feel for everything, — 
 But that was with a stick. 
 
 So with a cudgel in his hand — 
 
 It was not light or slim — 
 He knocked at his wife's head until 
 
 It open'd unto him. 40 
 
 And when the corpse was stiff and cold, 
 He took his slaughter'd spouse, 
 
 And laid her in a heap with all 
 The ashes of her house. 
 
 But like a wicked murderer, 
 
 He liv'd in constant fear 
 From day to day, and so he cut 
 
 His throat from ear to ear. 
 
 The neighbours fetch'd a doctor in : 
 
 Said he, this wound I dread so 
 Can hardly be sew'd up — his life 
 ' Is hanging on a thread. 
 
 But when another week was gone. 
 He gave him stronger hope — 
 
 Instead of hanging on a thread, 
 Of hanging on a rope. 
 
 Ah ! when he hid his bloody work 
 
 In ashes round about. 
 How little he supposed the truth 
 
 Would soon be sifted out. 60 
 
 But when the parish dustman came. 
 
 His rubbish to withdraw. 
 He found more dust within the heap 
 
 Than he contracted for ! 
 
 A dozen men to try the fact. 
 Were sworn that very day ; 
 
 But though they all were jurors, yet 
 No conjurors were they. 
 
 Said Tini unto those jurymen. 
 
 You need not waste your breath, 70 
 
 For I confess myself at once 
 The author of her death. 
 
 And, oh ! when I reflect upon 
 The blood that I have spilt. 
 
 Just like a button is my soul, 
 Inscrib'd with double guilt ! 
 
 Then turning round his head algain. 
 
 He saw before his eyes, 
 A great judge, and a little judge. 
 
 The judges of a-size ! ■ So 
 
 Thegreat judge tookhisjudgmentcap, 
 
 And put it on his head, 
 And sentenc'd Tim by law to hang 
 
 'Till he was three times dead. 
 
 So he was tried, and he was hung 
 
 (Fit punishment for such) 
 On Horsham-drop, and none can say 
 
 It was a drop too much. 
 
89 
 THE MONKEY-MARTYR 
 
 A FABLE 
 
 'God help tliee, sa.id I, but I'll let thee out, cost what it will : so I turned about the cage to get 
 tothc door.^— SlERHE. 
 
 'Tis strange, what awkward figures and odd capers 
 Folks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers ; 
 But there are many shallow politicians. 
 Who take their bias from bewilder'd journals — 
 
 Turn state -physicians, 
 And make themselves fools' -caps of the diurnals. 
 
 One of this kind, not human, but a monkey. 
 Had read himself at last to this sour creed — 
 That he was nothing but Oppression's flunkey. 
 And man a tyrant over all his breed. 
 
 He could not read 
 Of niggers whipt, or over-trampled weavers. 
 But he appUed their wrongs to his own seed. 
 And nourish'd thoughts that threw him into fevers. 
 His very dreams were full of martial beavers, 
 And drilling Pugs, for liberty pugnacious. 
 
 To sever chains vexatious. 
 In fact, he thought that all his injured line 
 Should take up pikes in hand, and never drop 'em 
 Till they had clear'd a road to Freedom's shrine. 
 Unless perchance the turnpike men should stop 'em. 
 
 Full of this rancour, 
 Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes, 
 
 It came into his brains 
 To give a look in at the Crown and Anchor ; 
 Where certain solemn sages of the nation 
 Were at that moment in deliberation 
 How to relieve the wide world of its chains. 
 
 Pluck despots down, 
 
 And thereby crown 
 Whitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation. 
 Pug heard the speeches with great approbation. 
 
90 THE MONKEY-MARTYR 
 
 And gazed with pride upon the Liberators ; 
 
 To see mere coalheavers 
 
 Such perfect Bolivars- 
 Waiters of inns sublimed to innovators, 
 And slaters dignified as legislators — 
 Small publicans demanding (such their high sense 
 Of liberty) an universal licence — 
 And patten-makers easing Freedom's clogs — 
 
 The whole thing seem'd 
 
 So fine, he deem'd 
 The smallest demagogues as great as Gogs 1 
 
 Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle, 
 Walk'd out at last, and turn'd into the Strand, 
 
 To the left hand, 
 Conning some portions of the previous twaddle, 
 And striding with a step that seem'd design'd 
 To represent the mighty March of Mind, 
 
 Instead of that Blow waddle 50 
 
 Of thought, to which our ancestors inclined. 
 No wonder, then, that he should quickly find 
 He stood in front of that intrusive pile. 
 
 Where Cross keeps many a kind 
 
 Of bird confin'd, 
 And fres-born animal, in durance vile — 
 A thought that stirred up all the monkey-bile. 
 
 5 
 The window stood ajar — 
 It was not far, 
 ■ Nor, like Parnassus, very hard to climb — «o 
 
 The hour was verging on the supper-time, 
 
 And many a growl was sent through many a. bar. 
 Meanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar, 
 And soon crept in, 
 Unnotic'd in the din 
 Of tuneless throats, that made the attics ring 
 With all the harshest notes that they could bring ; 
 For like the Jews, 
 Wild beasts refuse 
 In midst of their captivity — to sing. 70 
 
 6 
 
 Lord ! how it made him chafe, 
 Full of his new emancipating zeal. 
 To look around upon this brute-bastille, 
 And see the king of creatures in — a safe ! 
 
THE MONKEY-MARTYR 91 
 
 The desert's denizen in one small den, 
 Swallowing slavery's most bitter pills — 
 A bear in bars unbearable. And then 
 The fretful porcupine, with all its quills 
 
 Imprison'd in a pen ! 
 4 tiger limited to four feet ten ; 80 
 
 And, still worse lot, 
 
 A leopard to one spot 1 
 
 An elephant enlarged. 
 
 But not discharged, 
 (It was before the elephant was shot ;) 
 A doleful wanderow, that wandered not ; 
 An ounce much disproportion' d to his pound. 
 
 Pug's wrath wax'd hot 
 To gaze upon these captive creatures round ; 
 Whose claws — all scratching — gave him full assurance 90 
 
 They found their durance vile of vile endurance. 
 
 He went above — a solitary mounter 
 
 Up gloomy stairs — and saw a pensive group 
 
 Of hapless fowls — 
 
 Cranes, vultures, owls, 
 In fact, it wEis a sort of Poultry-Compter, 
 Where feather'd prisoners were doom'd to droop : 
 Here sat an eagle, forced to make a stoop, 
 Not from the skies, but his impending roof ; 
 
 And there aloof, 
 A pining ostrich, moping in a coop ; 
 With other samples of the bird creation. 
 All caged against their powers and their wills, 
 And cramp'd in such ^ space, the longest bills 
 Were plainly bills of least accommodation. 
 In truth, it was a very ugly scene 
 To fall to any liberator's share, 
 To see those winged fowls, that once had been 
 Free as the wind, no freer than fix'd air. 
 
 His temper little mended. 
 Pug from this Bird-cage Walk at last descended 
 
 Unto the lion and the elephant. 
 
 His bosom in a pant 
 To see all nature's Free List thus suspended, 
 And beasts deprived of what she had intended. 
 
 They could not even prey 
 
 In their own way ; 
 
92 
 
 THE MONKEY-MARTYR 
 
 A hardship always reckon'd quite prodigious. 
 
 Thus he revolved — 
 
 And soon resolved 
 To give them freedom, civil and religious. 
 
 That night there were no country cousins, raw 
 From Wales, to view the lion and his kin : 
 The keeper's eyes were fix'd upon a saw ; 
 The saw was fix'd upon a bullock's shin : 
 Meanwhile with stealthy paw, 
 Pug hasten'd to withdraw 
 The bolt that kept the king of brutes within. 
 Now, monarch of the forest ! thou shalt win 
 Precious enfranchisement — thy bolts are undone ; 
 Thou art no longer a degraded creature, 
 But loose to roam with liberty and nature ; 
 And free of all the jungles about London — 
 All Hampstead's heathy desert lies before thee 
 Methinks I see thee bound from Cross's ark, 
 Full of the native instinct that comes o'er thee. 
 
 And turn a ranger 
 Of Hounslow Forest and the Regent's Park — 
 Thin Rhodes's cows — the mail-coach steeds endanger. 
 And gobble parish watchmen after dark : — 
 Methinks I see thee, with the early laxk. 
 Stealing to Merlin's cave — {thy cave). — Alas, 
 That such bright visions should not come to pass ! 
 Alas, for freedom, and for freedom's hero 1 
 
 Alas, for liberty of Ufe and limb 1 
 For Pug had only half unbolted Nero, 
 
 When Nero bolted him I 
 
 130 
 
 X40 
 
 DEATH'S RAMBLE 
 
 One day the dreary old King of Death 
 Inclined for some sport with the 
 carnal. 
 
 So he tied a pack of darts on his back. 
 And quietly stole from his charnel. 
 
 His head was bald of flesh and of hair, 
 
 His body was lean and lank. 
 His joints at each stir made a crack, 
 and the cur 
 Took a gnaw, by the way, at his 
 shank. 
 
 And what did he do with his deadly 
 darts. 
 This goblin of grisly bone ? 10 
 
 He dabbled and spill'd man's blood, 
 and he kill'd 
 Like a butcher that kills his own. 
 
 The first he slaughter'd it made him 
 laugh, 
 (For the man was a coffin-maker), 
 To think how the mutes, and men in 
 black suits, 
 Would mourn for an undertaker. 
 
DEATH'S RAMBLE 
 
 93 
 
 Death saw two Quakers sitting at 
 
 church, 
 
 Quoth he, ' we shall not differ.' 
 
 And he let them aloney like figures of 
 
 stone, 19 
 
 For he could not make them stiffer. 
 
 He saw two duellists going to fight, 
 In fear they could not smother ; 
 
 And he shot one through at once — for 
 he knew ' 
 They never would shoot each other. 
 
 He saw a watchman fast in his box. 
 And he gave a snore infernal ; 
 
 Said Death, ' he may keep his breath, 
 for his sleep 
 Can never be more eternal.' 
 
 He met a coachman driving his coach. 
 So slow, that his fare grew sick ; 30 
 
 But helethim stray on his tedious way. 
 For Death only wars on the quick. 
 
 Death saw a toll-man taking a toll. 
 In the spirit of his fraternity ; 
 
 But he knew that sort of man would 
 extort. 
 Though summon'd to all eternity. 
 
 He found an author writing his life, 
 But he let him write no further ; 
 
 For Death, who strikes whenever he 
 likes. 
 Is jealous of all self-murther ! 40 
 
 Death saw a patient that puU'd out 
 his purse, 
 And a doctor that took the sum ; 
 Butheletthembe — for he knew [that'] 
 the ' fee ' 
 Was a prelude to ' faw ' and ' fum.' 
 
 He met a dustman ringing a bell. 
 And he gave him a mortal thrust ; 
 
 For himself,by law, since Adam's fiaw. 
 Is contractor for all our dust. 
 
 He saw a sailor mixing his grog. 
 And he marked him out for slaugh- 
 ter ; 50 
 For on water he scarcely had cared for 
 Death, 
 And never on rum-and-water. 
 
 Death saw two players playing at cards , 
 But the game wasn't worth a dump. 
 
 For he quickly laid them flat with 
 a spade. 
 To wait for the final trump ! 
 
 CRANIOLOGY 
 
 'Tis strange how like a very dunce, 
 Man — with his bumps upon his sconce 
 Has lived so long, and yet no know- 
 ledge he 
 Has had till lately, of Phrenology — 
 A science that by simple dint of 
 Headrcombing.heshouldfind a hint of 
 When scratching o'er those little poll- 
 hills. 
 The faculties throw up like mole- 
 hills; 
 A science that, in very spite 
 Of all his teeth, ne'er came to light,to 
 For tho' he knew his skull had grinders. 
 Still there turn'd up no organ finders. 
 Still sages wrote, and ages fled, 
 Andnoman's head came in his head — ■ 
 
 Not even the pate of Erra Pater, 
 Knew aught about its pia mater. 
 At last great Dr. Gall bestirs him — 
 I don't know but it might be Spurzheim^ 
 Tho' native of a dull and slow land, 
 And makes partition of our Poll-land ; 
 At our Acquisitiveness guesses, 21 
 And all those necessary nes$es 
 Indicative of human habits, 
 All burrowing in the head like rabbits. 
 Thus Veneration, he made known. 
 Had got a lodging at the Crown : 
 And Music (see Deville's example) 
 A set of chambers in the Temple : 
 That Language taught the tongues 
 
 close by, 
 And took in pupils thro' the eye, 30 
 
 ' [* th^vt ' added \i\ second edition.] 
 
94 
 
 CRANIOLOGY 
 
 Close by his neighbour Computation, 
 Who taught tlie eyebrows numeration. 
 
 The science thus — to speak in fit 
 Terms — having struggled from its nit, 
 Was seiz'd on by a swarm of .Scotch- 
 men, 
 Those scientifical hotch-potch men 
 Who have al; least a periny dip 
 And wallop in all doctorship. 
 Just as in making broth they smatter 
 By bobbing twenty things in water : 40 
 These men, I say, made quick appliance 
 And close, to phrenologic science ; 
 For of all learned themes whatever. 
 That schools and colleges deliver. 
 There 's none they love so near the 
 
 bodies, ,, 
 As analysing their own noddles ; 
 Thus in a trice each northern block- 
 head 
 Had gpt his fingers in his shock head, 
 And of his bumps was babbling yet 
 
 worse 
 Than poor Miss Capulet's dry-wet^ 
 nurse ; ' 50 
 
 Till having been sufficient rangers 
 Of their own heads, they took to 
 
 strangers' , 
 And found in Presbyterians' polls 
 The things they hated in their souls ; 
 For Presbyterians hear with passion 
 Of organs join'd with veneration. 
 No kind there was of human pumpkin 
 But at its bumps it had a bumpkin ; 
 Down to the very lowest guUion, 
 And oiliest skull of oily scullion. 60 
 No great man died butthisthey did do, 
 They begged his cranium of his widow: 
 No murderer died by law disaster, 
 But they took off his sconce in plaster; 
 For thereon they could show depend- 
 ing, 
 ' The head and front of his offending,' 
 How that his philanthropic bunip 
 Was master'd by a baser lump ; 
 For every bump (these wags insist) 
 Has its direct antagonist, 70 
 
 Each striving stoutly to prevail, 
 Like horses knotted tail to tail : 
 
 And many a stiff and sturdy battle 
 Occurs between these adverse cattle : 
 The secret cause, beyond all question. 
 Of aches ascrib'd to indigestion,— 
 Whereas 'tis but two knobby rivals 
 Tugging together like sheer devils, 
 Till one gets mastery good or sinister, 
 And comes in like a new prime- 
 minister. 8q 
 
 Each bias in some master node is : — 
 What takes M'Adam where a road is, 
 To hammer little pebbles less ? 
 His organ of Destriictiveness. 
 What makes great Joseph soencumber 
 Debate? a lumping lump of Number: 
 Or Malthus rail at babies so ? 
 The smallness of his Philopro — 
 What severs man and wife ? a simple 
 Defect of the Adhesive pimple : 90 
 Or makes weak women go astray ? 
 Their bumps are more in fault than 
 ■ they. 
 
 These facts beihgfoiindandsetin order 
 By grave M.D.'s beyond the Border, 
 To make them for some few months 
 
 eternal^ 
 Were entered monthly in a journal, 
 That many a northern sage still writes 
 
 in. 
 And throws his little Northern Lights 
 
 in. 
 And proves and proves about the 
 
 phrenos, 99 
 
 A great deal more than I or he knows : 
 How Music suffers, par exemple. 
 By wearing tight hats round the 
 
 temple ; 
 What ills great boxers have to fear 
 From blisters put behind the ear : 
 And how a porter's Veneration 
 Is hurt by porter's occupation ; 
 Whether shillelaghs in reality 
 May deaden Individuality : 
 Or tongs and poker be creative 
 Of alterations in th' Amative ; no 
 If falls from scaffolds make us less 
 Inclin'd to all Constructiveness : 
 With more such matters, all applying 
 To heads — and therefore Aeadifying. 
 
95 
 
 A PARTHIAN GLANCE 
 
 *Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale, 
 Oft up the stream of time I turn my sail.'— ^o^^r.y. 
 
 Come, my Crony, let 's think upon far-away days, 
 
 And lift up a little Oblivion's veil ; 
 Let 's consider the past with a lingering gaze, 
 
 Like a peacock whose eyes are inclin'd to his tail. 
 
 Aye, come, let us turn our attention behind. 
 
 Like those critics whose heads are so heavy, I fear, 
 
 That they cannot keep up with the march of the mind, 
 And so turn face about for reviewing the rear. 
 
 Looking over Time's crupper and over his tail, 
 Oh ! what ages and pages there are to revise ! 
 
 And as farther our back-searching glances prevail, 
 Like the emmets, ' how httle we are in our eyes ! ' 
 
 What a sweet pretty innocent, half-a-yard long, 
 
 On a dimity lap of true nursery make ! 
 I can fancy I hear the old lullaby song 
 
 That was meant to compose me, but kept me awake. 
 
 Methinks ;I still suffer the infantine throes, 
 
 When my flesh was a cushion for any long pin — 
 
 Whilst they patted my body to comfort my woes. 
 
 Oh ! how little they dreamt they were driving them in ! 
 
 Infant sorrows are strong — infant pleasures as weak — 
 But no grief was allow'd to indulge in its note ; 
 
 Did you ever attempt a small ' bubble and squeak,' ■ 
 Thro' the Dalby's Carminative down in your throat ? 
 
 Did you ever go up to the roof with a bounce ? 
 
 Did you ever come down to the floor with the same ? 
 Oh ! I can't but agree with both ends, and pronounce 
 
 ' Heads or tails ' with a. child, an unpleasantish game ! 
 
 Then an urchin — I see myself urchin, indeed. 
 
 With a smooth Sunday face for a mother's delight ; 
 
 Why should weeks have an end ? — I am sure there was need 
 Of a Sabbath, to follow each Saturday-night. 
 
 Was your face ever sent to the housemaid to scrub ? 
 
 Have you ever felt huckaback soften'd with sand ? 
 Had you ever your nose towell'd up to a snub. 
 
 And your eyes knuckled out with the back of the hand ? 
 
96 A PARTHIAN GLANCE 
 
 Then a school-boy — my tailor was nothing in fault, 
 
 For an urchin will grow to a lad by degrees, — 
 But how well I remember that ' pepper-and-sailt ' 
 
 That was down to the elbows, and up to the knees ! 40 
 
 What a figure it cut when as Norval I spoke ! 
 
 With a lanky right leg duly planted before ; 
 Whilst I told of the chief that was kill'd by my stroke. 
 
 And extended my arms as ' the arms that he wore ! ' 
 
 Next a Lover — Oh ! say, were you ever in love ? 
 
 With a lady too cold — and your bosom too hot ! 
 Have you bow'd to a shoe-tie, and knelt to a glove ? 
 
 Like a beau that desired to be tied in a knot ? 
 
 With the Bride all in white, and your body in blue. 
 
 Did you walk up the aisle — the genteelest of men ? 50 
 
 When I think of that beautiful vision anew. 
 
 Oh ! I seem but the biffin of what I was then ! 
 
 I am wither' d and worn by a premature care. 
 And my wrinkles confess the decline of my days ; 
 
 Old Time's busy hand has made free with my hair. 
 And I'm seeking to hide it — by writing for bays ! 
 
 A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS 
 
 There 's some is born with their straight legs by natur — 
 
 And some is born with bow-legs from the first — 
 
 And some that should have grow'd a good deal straighter. 
 
 But they were badly nurs'd. 
 And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs 
 
 Astride of casks and kegs : 
 I've got myself a sort of bow to larboard 
 
 And starboard, ' 
 And this is what it was that warp'd my legs : 
 
 'Twas all along of Poll, as I may say, 
 That foul'd my cable when I ought to slip ; 
 
 But on the tenth of May, 
 
 When I gets under weigh, 
 Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship, 
 
 I sees the mail 
 
 Get under sail. 
 The only one there was to make the trip. 
 
 Well, — I gives chase, 
 
 But as she run 
 
 Two knots to one. 
 There warn't no use in keeping on the race 1 
 
A SAH-OR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW- LEGS 97 
 
 Well — ^casting round about, what next to try on, 
 
 And how to spin, 
 I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion, 
 And bears away to leeward for the inn. 
 
 Beats round the gable, 
 And fetches up before the coach-horse stable : 
 Well, there they stand, four kickers in a row. 
 
 And so 
 I just makes free to cut a brown 'un's cable. 30 
 
 But riding isn't in a seaman's natur — 
 So I whips out a toughish end of yarn. 
 And gets a kind of sort of a land-waiter 
 
 To splice me, heel to heel. 
 
 Under the she-mare's keel. 
 And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn I 
 
 My eyes ! how she did pitch ! 
 And wouldn't keep her own to go in no line. 
 The' I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-line. 
 But always making lee-way to the ditch, 40 
 
 And yaw'd her head about all sorts of ways. 
 
 The devil sink the craft ! 
 And wasn't she trimendus slack in stays ! 
 We couldn't, no how, keep the inn abaft ! 
 
 Well — I suppose 
 We hadn't run a knot-^or much beyond — 
 (What will you have on it ?) — but off she goes, 
 Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond ! 
 
 There I am ! all a-back ! 
 So I looks forward for her bridle-gears, 50 
 
 To heave her head round on the t'other tack ; 
 
 But when I starts, 
 
 The leather parts, 
 And goes away right over by the ears ! 
 
 What could a fellow do. 
 Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes, 
 But trim myself ' upright for bringing-to. 
 And square his yard-arms and brace up his elbows. 
 
 In rig all snug and clever, 
 Just while his craft was taking in her water ? 60 
 
 I didn't like my berth though, howsomdever. 
 Because the yarn, you see, kept getting tauter, — 
 Says I — I wish this job was rayther shorter I 
 
 The chase had gain'd a mile 
 A-head, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking : 
 
 Now, all the while 
 Her body didn't take of course to shrinking. 
 1 [' himself in first edition,] 
 E 
 
98 A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS 
 
 Says I, she 's letting out her reefs, I'm thinking— 
 And so she swell'd and swell'd, 
 And yet the tackle held, 
 
 'Till both my legs began to bend like winkin. 
 
 My eyes ! but she took in enough to founder ! 
 
 And there 's my timbers straining every bit. 
 Ready to split, 
 
 And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder ! 
 
 Well there— ofi Hartford Ness, 
 We lay both lash'd and water-logg'd together. 
 
 And can't contrive a signal of distress ; 
 Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather, 
 Tho' sick of riding out — and nothing less ; 
 When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn : — 
 Hollo ! says I, come underneath her quarter ! — 
 And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn. 
 So I gets off, and lands upon the road. 
 And leaves the she-mare to her own concarn, 
 
 A-Btanding by the water. 
 If I get on another, I'll be blow'd ! 
 And that 's the way, you see, my legs got bow'd 1 
 
 70 
 
 8a 
 
 JACK HALL 
 
 'Tis very hard when men forsake 
 This melancholy world, and make 
 A bed of turf, they cannot take 
 
 A quiet doze. 
 But certain rogues will come and break 
 
 Their ' bone repose.' 
 
 'Tis hard we can't give up our breath. 
 And to the earth our earth bequeath. 
 Without Death Fetches after death. 
 
 Who thus exhume us ; 10 
 And snatch us from our homes beneath 
 
 And hearths posthumous. 
 
 The tender lover comes to rear 
 
 The mournful urn, and shed his tear — 
 
 Her glorious dust, he cries, is here ! 
 
 Alack I alack ! 
 The while his Sacharissa dear 
 
 Is in a sack I 
 
 'Tis hard one cannot lie amid 
 
 The mould, beneath a coffin-lid, 20 
 
 But thus the Faculty will bid 
 
 Theirrogues break thro' it ! 
 
 If they don't want us there, why did 
 They send us to it ? 
 
 One of these sacrilegious knaves. 
 Who crave as hungry vulture craves. 
 Behaving as the goul behaves, 
 
 ' Neath church-yard wall — 
 Mayhap because he fed on graves. 
 
 Was nam'd Jack Hall. 30 
 By day it was his trade to go 
 Tending the black coach to and fro ; 
 And sometimes at the door of woe. 
 
 With emblems suitable. 
 He stood with brother Mute, to show 
 
 That life is mutable. 
 
 But long before they pass'd the ferry. 
 The dead that he had help'd to bury 
 He sack'd — (he had a sack to carry 
 
 The bodies off in.) 43 
 In fact, he let them have a very 
 
 Short fit of coffin. 
 
JACK HALL 
 
 99 
 
 Night after night, with crow and spade, 
 He drove this dead but thriving trade, 
 Meanwhilehis conscience neverweigh'd 
 
 A single horsehair ; 
 On corses of all kinds he prey'd, 
 
 A perfect corsair 1 
 
 At last — it may be, Death toolc spite 
 Or jesting only meant to fright — so 
 He sought for Jack night after night 
 
 The churchyards round ; 
 And soon they met, the man and sprite, 
 
 In Pancras' ground. 
 
 Jack, by the glimpses of the moon, 
 Perceiv'd the bony knacker soon. 
 An awful shape to meet at noon 
 
 Of night and lonely ; 
 Butjack'stoughcouragedidbutswoon 
 
 A minute only. 6a 
 
 Anon he gave his spade a swing 
 Aloft, and kept it brandishing, 
 Ready for what mishaps might spring 
 
 From this conjunction ; 
 Funking indeed was quite a thing 
 
 Beside his function. 
 
 ' Hollo ! ' cried Death, ' d'ye wish 
 
 your sands 
 
 Run out ? the stoutest never stands 
 
 A chance with me,^ — to my commands 
 
 The strongest truckles ; 70 
 
 But I'ni your friend — so let 's shake 
 
 hands, 
 
 I should say — knuckles.' 
 
 Jack, glad to see th' old sprite so 
 
 sprightly. 
 And meaning nothing but uprightly, 
 Shook hands at once, and, bowing 
 slightly, 
 
 His mull did proffer : 
 But Death, who had no nose, politely 
 Declin'd the offer. 
 
 Then sitting down upon a bank. 
 Leg over leg, shank over shank, 80 
 Like friends for conversation frank. 
 
 That had no check on : 
 Quoth Jack unto the Lean and Lank, 
 
 ' You're Death, I reckon.' 
 
 The Jaw-bone grinn'd : — ' I am that 
 
 same. 
 You've hit exactly on my name ; 
 In truth it has some little fame 
 Where burial sod is.' 
 Quoth Jack (and wink'd), ' of course 
 ye came 
 
 Here after bodies.' 90 
 
 Death grinn'd again and shook his 
 
 head : — 
 ' I've little business with the dead ; 
 When they are fairly sent to bed 
 
 I've done my turn : 
 Whether or not the worms are fed 
 
 Is your concern. 
 
 ' My errand here, in meeting you, 
 Is nothing but a how-d'ye-do ; 
 I've done what jobs I had — a few. 
 
 Along this way ; loo 
 
 If I can serve a crony too, 
 
 I beg you'll say.' 
 
 Quoth Jack, ' Your Honour 's very 
 
 kind : 
 And now I call the thing to mind. 
 This parish very strict I find ; 
 
 But in the next 'un 
 There lives a very well-inclin'd 
 
 Old sort of sexton.' 
 
 Death took the hint, and gave a wink 
 As well as eyelet holes can blink ; no 
 Then stretching out his arm to link 
 
 The other's arm, — 
 ' Suppose,' sayg he, ' we have a drink 
 
 Of something warm.' 
 Jack nothing loth, with friendly ease 
 Spoke up at once : — ' Why, what ye 
 
 please ; 
 Hard by there is the Cheshire Cheese, 
 
 A famous tap.' 
 But this suggestion seem'd to tease 
 
 The bony chap. 120 
 
 ' No, no — your mortal drinks are 
 
 heady. 
 And only make my hand unsteady ; 
 I do not even care for Deady, 
 
 And loathe your rum ; 
 But I've some glorious brewage ready. 
 
 My drink is — mum ! ' 
 
100 
 
 JACK HALL 
 
 And off they set, each right content — 
 Who knows the dreary way they went ? 
 But Jack felt rather faint and spent, 
 
 And out of breath ; 130 
 At last he saw, quite evident, 
 
 The Door of Death. 
 
 All other men had been unmann'd 
 To see a coffin on each hand, 
 That served a skeleton to stand 
 
 By way of sentry ; 
 In fact. Death has a very grand 
 
 And awful entry. 
 
 Throughout his dismal sign prevails, 
 His name is writ in coffin nails, 140 
 The mortal darts make area rails ; 
 
 A scull that mocketh, 
 Grins on the gloomy gate, and quails 
 
 Whoever knocketh. 
 
 And lo ! on either side, arise 
 
 Two monstrous pillars — bones of 
 
 thighs ; 
 A monumental slab supplies 
 
 The step of stone. 
 Where waiting for his master lies, 
 
 A dog of bone. iSo 
 
 The dog leapt up, but gave no yell. 
 The wire was pull'd, but woke no bell, 
 The ghastly knocker rose and fell, 
 
 But caused no riot ; 
 The ways of Death, we all know well 
 
 Are very quiet. 
 
 Old Bones stepped in ; Jack stepp'd 
 
 behind : 
 QuothDeath,'! really hope you'll find 
 The entertainment to your mind. 
 
 As I shall treat ye — 160 
 A friend or two of goblin kind 
 
 I've asked to meet ye.' 
 
 And lo ! a cfowd of spectres tall, 
 Like jack-a-lanterns on a wall, 
 Were standing — every ghastly ball 
 
 An eager watcher. 
 ' My friends,' says Death — ' friends, 
 Mr. Hall, 
 
 The body-snatcher,' 
 
 Lord ! what a tumult it produc'd, 
 When Mr. Hall was introduced ! 170 
 Jack even, who had long been used 
 
 To frightful things. 
 Felt just as if his back was sluic'd 
 
 With freezing springs ! 
 
 Each goblin face began to make 
 Some horrid mouth — ape — gorgon — 
 
 snake ; 
 And then a spectre-hag would shake 
 
 An airy thigh-bone ; 
 And cried, (or seem'd to cry,) I'll break 
 
 Your bone, with my bone ! 
 
 Some ground their teeth — some seem'd 
 to spit — 181 
 
 (Nothing, but nothing came of it,) 
 A hundred awful brows were knit 
 
 In dreadful spite. 
 Thought Jack — I'm sure I'd better 
 quit. 
 
 Without good-night. 
 
 One skip and hop and he was clear, 
 
 And running like a hunted deer, 
 
 As fleet as people run by fear 189 
 
 Well spurr'd and whipp'd. 
 Death, ghosts, and all in that career 
 
 Were quite outstripp'd. 
 
 But those who live by death must die; 
 Jack's soul at last prepar'd to fly ; 
 And when his latter end drew riigh. 
 
 Oh ! what a swarm 
 Of doctors came, — but not to try 
 
 To keep him warm. 
 
 No ravens ever scented prey 
 
 So early where a dead horse lay, 200 
 
 Nor vultures sniff'd so far away 
 
 A last convulse ; 
 A dozen ' guests ' day after day 
 
 Were ' at his pulse.' 
 
 'Twas strange, altho' they got no fees, 
 How still they watch'd by twos and 
 
 threes : 
 But Jack a very little ease 
 
 Obtain'd from them ; 
 In fact, he did not find M.D.'s 
 
 Worth one D — M. aio 
 
JACK HALL 
 
 The passing bell with hollow toll 
 Was in his thought — the dreary hole ! 
 Jack gave his eyes a horrid roll, 
 
 And then a cough. 
 ' There's something weighing on my 
 soul 
 
 I wish was off ; 
 
 ' All night it roves about my brains, 
 AH day it adds to all my pains, 
 It is concerning my remains 
 
 When I am dead ; ' 220 
 Twelve wigs and twelve gold-headed 
 canes 
 
 Drew near his bed. 
 
 ' Alas ! ' he sighed, ' I'm sore afraid, 
 A dozen pangs iny heart invade ; 
 But when I drove a certain trade 
 
 In flesh and bone. 
 There was a little bargain made 
 
 About my own.' 
 
 Twelve suits of black began to close, 
 Twelvepair of sleekand sable hose, 230 
 Twelve flowing cambric frills in rows, 
 
 At once drew round ; 
 Twelve noses turn'd against his nose, 
 
 Twelve snubs profound. 
 
 ' Ten guineas did not quite suffice, 
 And so I sold my body twice ; 
 Twice did not do — I sold it thrice, 
 
 Forgive my crimes ! 
 In short I have received its price 
 
 A dozen times ! ' 240 
 
 Twelve browsgot very grim and black. 
 Twelve wishes stretch'd him on the 
 
 rack. 
 Twelve pair of hands for fierce attack 
 
 Took up position. 
 Ready to share the dying Jack 
 
 By long division. 
 
 Twelve angry doctors wrangled so. 
 That twelve had struck an hour ago, 
 Before they had an eye to throw 
 
 On the departed ; 230 
 
 Twelve heads turn'd round at once, 
 and lo ! 
 
 Twelve doctors started. 
 
 Whether some comrade of the dead. 
 Or Satan took it in his head. 
 To steal the corpse — the corpse had 
 fled! 
 
 'Tis only written, 
 That ' there was nothing in the bed. 
 
 But twelve were bitten I ' 
 
 THE WEE MAN 
 
 A ROMANCE 
 
 It was a merry company. 
 And they were just afloat. 
 
 When lo ! a man of dwarfish span 
 Came up and hail'd the boat. 
 
 ' Good morrow to ye, gentle folks. 
 And will you let me in ? — 
 
 A slender space will serve my case. 
 For I am small and thin.' 
 
 They saw he was a dwarfish man, 
 And very small and thin ; 10 
 
 Not seven such would matter much, 
 And so they took him in. 
 
 They laugh' d to see his little hat, 
 With such a narrow brim ; 
 
 They laugh'd to note his dappercoat. 
 With skirts so scant and trim. 
 
 But barely had they gone a mile. 
 When, gravely, one and all, 
 
 At once began to think the man 
 Was not so very small : 20 
 
 His coat had got a broader skirt. 
 
 His hat a broader brim. 
 His leg grew stout, and soon plump'd 
 out 
 
 A very proper limb. • 
 
102 
 
 THE WEE MAN 
 
 Still on they went, and as they went, 
 
 More rough the billows grew, — 
 And rose and fell, a greater swell, 
 
 And he was swelling too I 
 And lo ! where room had been for 
 seven. 
 
 For six there scarce was space ! 30 
 For five ! — for four 1 — for three ! — not 
 more 
 
 Than^wo could find a place I 
 
 There was not even room for one ! 
 
 They crowded by degrees — 
 Aye — closer yet, till Elbows met. 
 
 And knees were jogging knees. 
 
 ' Good sir, you must not sit a-stern. 
 The wave will else come in ! ' 
 
 Without a word he gravely stirr'd, 
 Another seat to win. ' 40 
 
 ' Good sir, the boat has lost her trim. 
 You must not sit a-lee ! ' 
 
 With smiling face, and courteous grace, 
 The middle seat took he. 
 
 But still, by constant quiet growth, 
 
 His back became so wide. 
 Each neighbour wight, to left and right. 
 
 Was thrust against the side. 
 
 Lord I how they chided with them- 
 selves. 
 
 That they had let him in ; so 
 
 To see him grow so monstrous now. 
 
 That came so small and thin. 
 
 On every brow a dew-drop stood. 
 They grew so scared and hot, — 
 
 ' I' the name of all that' s great and tall, 
 Who are ye, sir, and what ? ' 
 
 Loud laugh' d the Gogmagog, a laugh 
 
 As loud as giant's roar — 
 ' When first I came, my proper name 
 
 Was Little — now I'm Moore ! ' 60 
 
 A BUTCHER 
 
 WHOE'ERhasgonethro'LondonStreet, 
 Has seen a Butcher gazing at his 
 meat. 
 And how he keeps 
 Gloating upon a sheep's 
 Or bullock's personals, as if his own ; 
 How he admires his halves 
 And quarters — and his calves, 
 As if in truth upon his own legsgrown;-^ 
 His fat ! his suet ! 9 
 
 His kidneys peeping elegantly thro' it! 
 His thick flank ! 
 And his thin ! 
 His shank ! 
 His shin ! 
 Skin of his skin, and bone too of his 
 • bone ! 
 
 With what an air 
 He stands aloof, across the thorough- 
 fare 
 Gazing — and will not let a body by, 
 Tho' buy ! buy ! buy 1 be constantly 
 bis cry. 
 
 Meanwhile with arms a-kimbo, and 
 a pair 20 
 
 Of Rhodian legs he revels in a stare 
 At his Joint Stock — for one may call 
 it so, 
 Howbeit, without a Co. 
 The' dotage of self-love was never 
 
 fonder 
 Than he of his brute bodies all a-row ; 
 Narcissusin the wave did never ponder 
 With love so strong, 
 On his ' portrait charmant,' 
 As our vain Butcher on his carcase 
 yonder. 
 
 Look at his sleek round skull ! 30 
 How bright his cheek, how rubicund 
 his nose is ! 
 His visage seems to be 
 Ripe for beef-tea ; 
 Of brutal juices the whole man is 
 
 full.— 
 In fact, fulfilling the metempsychosis, 
 The Butcher is already half a Bull. 
 
I03 
 
 'DON'T YOU SMELL FIRE?" 
 
 Run ! — run for St. Clement's engine ! 
 For the Pawnbroker 's all in a blaze, 
 And the pledges are frying and singe- 
 ing— 
 Oh 1 how the poor pawners will 
 craze ! 
 Now where can the turncock be drink- 
 ing ? 
 Was there ever so thirsty an elf ? — • 
 But he still may tope on, for I'm 
 thinking 
 That the plugs are as dry as himself. 
 
 The engines ! — I hear them come 
 rumbling ; 
 There 's the Phoenix [ the Globe ! 
 and the Sun ! lo 
 
 What a row there will be, and a grum- 
 bling, 
 When the waterdon'tstartforarun ! 
 See ! there they come racing and 
 tearing, 
 All the street with loud voices is 
 fill'd ; 
 Oh ! it's only the firemen a-swearing 
 Ataman they've run over and kill'd! 
 
 How sweetly the sparks fly away now, 
 And twinkle like stars in the sky ; 
 It 's a wonder the engines don't play 
 now, . 
 But I never saw water so shy ! 20 
 Why there isn't enough for a snipe, 
 
 And the fire it is fiercer, alas ! 
 Oh ! instead of the New River pipe. 
 They have gone — that they have — to 
 the gas ! 
 
 Only look at the poor little P 's 
 
 On the roof — is there anything 
 sadder ? 
 My dears, keep fast hold, if you please, 
 And they won't be an hour with the 
 ladder ! 
 
 But if any one 's hot in their feet, 29 
 And in very great haste to be sav'd. 
 
 Here 's a nice easy bit in the street, 
 That M'Adam has lately unpav'd ! 
 
 There is some one — I see a dark shape 
 
 At that window, the hottest of all, — 
 
 My good woman, why don't you 
 
 escape ? 
 
 Never think of your bonnet and 
 
 shawl : 
 
 If your dress isn't perfect, what is it 
 
 For once in a way to your hurt ? 
 When your husband is paying a visit 
 There, at Number Fourteen, in his 
 shirt 1 40 
 
 Only see how she throws out her 
 chaney I 
 Her basons, and teapots, and all 
 The most brittle of her goods — or any. 
 But they all break in breaking their 
 fall: 
 Such things are not surely the best 
 From a two-storey window to 
 throw — 
 She might save a good iron-bound 
 chest, 
 For there's plenty of people below! 
 
 O dear I what a beautiful flash ! 
 How it shone thro' the window and 
 door ; 5" 
 
 We shall soon hear a scream and a crash. 
 When the woman falls thro' with 
 the floor ! 
 There I there! what a volley of flame. 
 And then suddenly all is obscur'd ! 
 Well — I'm glad in my heart that I 
 came : — 
 But I hope the poor man is insur'd t 
 
104 
 
 THE VOLUNTEER 
 
 'The clashing of my armour in my ears 
 Sounds like a passing bell : my buckler puis me 
 In mind of bier ; this, my broadsword, a pickaxe 
 To dig my %'cs.yz.''— The Lover's Progress. 
 
 'TwAS in that memorable year 
 France threaten'd to put off in 
 Flat-bottom' d boats, intending each 
 To be a British coffin, 
 To make sad widows of our wives, 
 And every babe an orphan ; — ■ 
 
 When coatswere made of scarlet cloaks, 
 And heads were dredg'd with flour, 
 I 'listed in the Lawyers' Corps, 
 Against the battle hour ; lo 
 
 A perfect Volunteer — for why ? 
 I brought my ' will and pow'r.' 
 
 One dreary day — a day of dread, 
 
 Like Cato's, over-cast — 
 
 About the hour of six, (the morn 
 
 And I were breaking fast,) 
 
 There came a loud and sudden sound. 
 
 That struck me all aghast ! 
 
 A dismal sort of morning roll. 
 That was not to be eaten ; 20 
 
 Although it was no skin of mine. 
 But parchment that was beaten, 
 I felt tattooed through all my flesh. 
 Like any Qtaheitan. 
 
 My jaws with utter dread enclos'd 
 ' The morsel I was munching. 
 And terror lock'd them up so tight. 
 My very teeth went crunching 
 All through my bread and tongue at 
 
 once. 
 Like sandwich made at lunching. 30 
 
 My hand that held the tea-pot fast, 
 
 Stiffen'd, but yet unsteady. 
 
 Kept pouring, pouring, pouring o'er 
 
 The cup in one long eddy. 
 
 Till both my hose were marked with 
 
 tea. 
 As they were mark'd already. 
 
 I felt my visage turn from red 
 
 To white^from cold to hot ; 
 
 But it was nothing wonderful 
 
 My colour changed, I wot, 40 
 
 For, like some variable silks, 
 
 I felt that I was shot. 
 
 And looking forth with anxious eye. 
 
 From my snug upper storey, 
 
 I saw our melancholy corps, 
 
 Going to beds all gory ; 
 
 The pioneers seem'd very loth 
 
 To axe their way to glory. 
 
 The captain march'd as mourners 
 
 march. 
 The ensign too seem'd lagging, 50 
 And many more, although they were 
 No ensigns, took to flagging — 
 Like corpses in the Serpentine, 
 Methought they wanted dragging. 
 
 But while I watch' d, the thought of 
 
 death 
 Came like a chilly gust. 
 And lo ! I shut the window down, 
 With very little lust 
 To join so many marching men. 
 That soon might be March dust. 60 
 
 Quoth I, ' since Fate ordains it so. 
 
 Our ioe the coast must land on ; ' 
 
 I felt so warm beside the fire 
 
 I cared not to abandon ; 
 
 Our hearths and homes are always 
 
 things 
 That patriots make a stand on. 
 
 ' The fools that fight abroad for home,' 
 Thought I, ' may get a wrong one ; 
 Let those that have no homes at all 
 Go battle 'for a long one.' 70 
 
 The mirror here confirm'd me this 
 I Reflection, by a strong one : 
 
THE VOLUNTEER 
 
 105 
 
 For there, where I was wont to shave, 
 And deck me Uke Adonis, 
 There stood the leader of our foes, 
 With vultures for his cronies — 
 No Corsican, but Death himself. 
 The Bony of all Bonies. 
 
 A horrid sight it was, and sad. 
 
 To see the grisly chap 80 
 
 Put on my crimson livery, 
 
 And then begin to clap 
 
 My helmet on — ah me ! it feli 
 
 Like any felon's cap. 
 
 My plume seem'd borrow'd from a 
 
 hearse, 
 An undertaker's crest ; 
 
 My epaulettes like colfin-plates ; 
 My belt so heavy press'd, 
 Four pipeclay cross-roads seem'd to lie 
 At once upon my breast. 90 
 
 My brazen breast-plate only lack'd 
 
 A little heap of salt. 
 
 To make me like a corpse full dress'd. 
 
 Preparing for the vault — 
 
 To set up what the Poet calls 
 
 My everlasting halt. 
 
 This funeral show inclin'd me quite 
 To peace : — and here I am ! 
 Whilst better lions go to war, 
 -Enjoying with the lamb 100 
 
 Alengthen'dlife,that might have been 
 A martial epigram. 
 
 THE WIDOW 
 
 One widow at a grave will sob 
 
 A little while, and weep, and sigh ; 
 
 If two should meet on such a job, 
 
 They'll have a gossip by and by. 
 
 If three should come together — why. 
 
 Three widows are good company ! 
 
 If four should meet by any chance. 
 
 Four is a number very nice. 
 
 To have a rubber in a trice — 
 
 But five will up and have a dance ! 10 
 
 Poor Mrs. C (why should I not 
 
 Declare her name ?— her name was 
 
 Cross) 
 Was one of those the ' common lot ' 
 Had left to weep ' no common loss ' — 
 For she had lately buried then 
 A man,' the ' very best of men,' 
 A lingering truth, discover'd first 
 Whenever men ' are at the worst.' 
 To take the measure of her woe, 
 It was some dozen inches deep — 20 
 I mean in crape, and hung so low, 
 It hid the drops she did not weep : 
 In fact, what human life appears. 
 It was, a perfect ' veil of tears.' 
 Though ever since she lost ' her prop 
 And stay,' — alas ! he wouldn't stay — 
 She never had a tear to mop, 
 Except one little angry drop. 
 
 From Passion's eye, as Moore would 
 say ; 29 
 
 Because, when Mister Cross took flight, 
 It look'd so very like a spite- 
 He died upon a washing-day ! 
 
 Still Widow Cross went twice a week. 
 
 As if to ' wet a widow's cheek,' 
 
 And soothe his grave with sorrow's 
 
 gravy,— 
 'Twas nothing but a make-believe. 
 She might as well have hoped to grieve 
 Enough of brine to float a navy ; 
 And yet she often seem'd to raise 
 A cambric kerchief to her eye — 40 
 A duster ought to be the phrase, 
 Its work was all so yery dry. 
 The springs were lock'd that ought to 
 
 flow — 
 In England or in widow-woman — 
 As those thatwatch the weather know. 
 Such ' backward Springs ' are not un- 
 common. 
 
 But why did Widow Cross take pains 
 To call upon the ' dear remains,' — 
 Remains that could not tell a jot 
 Whether she ever wept or not, 50 
 Or how his relict took her losses ? 
 Oh! myblackinkturnsredforshame— . 
 
io6 
 
 THE WIDOW 
 
 But still the naughty world must learn 
 There was a little German came 
 To shed a tear in ' Anna's Urn,' 
 At the next grave to Mr. Cross's ! 
 For there an angel's virtues slept, 
 ' Too soon did Heay'n assert its 
 
 claim ! ' 
 But still her painted face he kept, 
 ' Encompass'd in an angel's frame.' 60 
 
 He look'd quite sad, and quite de- 
 
 priv'd, 
 His head was nothing but a hat-band ; 
 He look'd so lone, and so wwwiv'd. 
 That soon the Widow Cross contriv'd* 
 To fall in love with even that band ; 
 And all at once the brackish juices 
 Came gushing out thro' sorrow's 
 
 sluices — 
 Tear after tear too fast to wipe, 
 Tho' sopp'd, and sopp'd, and sopp'd 
 
 again—* 
 No leak in sorrow's private pipe, 70 
 But like a bursting on the main ! 
 Whoe'er has watch'd the window- 
 pane — 
 I mean to say in showery weather — 
 Has seen two little drops of rain. 
 Like lovers very fond and fain, 
 At one another creeping, creeping, 
 Till both, at last, embrace together : 
 So far'd it with that couple's weep- 
 ing! 
 The principle was quite as active — 
 
 Tear unto tear 80 
 
 Kept drawing near, 
 Their very blacks became attractive. 
 To cut a shortish story shorter, 
 Conceive them sitting iete-a-tSte — 
 Two cups — hot muffins on a plate — 
 With 'Anna's Urn' to hold hot water! 
 The brazen vessel for a while 
 Had lectured in an easy song, 
 Like Abernethy — on the bile — 
 The scalded herb was getting strong ; 90 
 
 All seem'd as smooth as smooth could 
 
 be. 
 To have a cosey cup of tea ; 
 Alas ! how often human sippers 
 With unexpected bitters meet. 
 And buds, the sweetest of the sweet. 
 Like sugar, only meet the nippers ! 
 
 The Widow Cross, I should have told. 
 Had seen three husbands to themouldj 
 She never sought an Indian pyre. 
 Like Hindoo wives that lose their 
 
 loves, 100 
 
 But, with a proper sense of fire. 
 Put up, instead, with ' three removes : ' 
 Thus, when with any tender words 
 Or tears she spoke about a loss, 
 The dear depairted, Mr. Cross, 
 Came in for nothing but his thirds ; 
 For; as all widows love too well, 
 She liked upon the list to dwell. 
 And oft ripp'd up the old disasters. 
 She might, indeed, have been sup- 
 
 pos'd Jio 
 
 A great ship owner ; for she pros'd 
 Eternally of her Three Masters ! 
 
 Thus, foolish woman ! while she 
 
 nurs'd 
 Her mild souchong, she talk'd and 
 
 reckon 'd 
 What had been left her by her first, 
 And by her last, and by her second. 
 Alas ! not all her annual rents 
 Could then entice the little German — 
 Not Mr. Gross's Three Per Cents, 
 Or Consols, ever make him Aer man: 120 
 He liked her cash, he liked her houses, 
 But not that dismal bit of land 
 She always settled on her spouses. 
 So taking up his hat and band. 
 Said he, ' You'll think my conduct 
 
 odd— 
 Buthere my hopesnomore may linger ; 
 I thought you had a wedding-finger. 
 But oh !^it is a curtain-rod ! ' 
 
I07 
 
 JOHN TROT 
 
 A BALLAD 
 
 John Trot he was as tall a lad 
 
 As York did ever rear — 
 As his dear Granny used to say, 
 
 He'd make a grenadier. 
 
 A Serjeant soon came down to York, 
 
 With ribbons and a frill ; 
 My lads, said he, let broadcast be. 
 
 And come away to drill. 
 
 But when he wanted John to 'list. 
 In war he saw no fun, lo 
 
 Where what is called a raw recruit 
 Gets often over-done. 
 
 Let others carry guns, said he. 
 
 And go to war's alarms, 
 But I have got a shoulder-knot 
 
 Impos'd upon my arms. 
 
 For John he had a footman's place 
 
 To wait on Lady Wye — 
 She was a dumpy woman, tho' 
 
 Her family was high. 20 
 
 Now when two years had past away, 
 
 Her Lord took very ill. 
 And left her to her widowhood. 
 
 Of course more dumpy still. 
 
 Said John, I am a proper man. 
 
 And very tall to see ; 
 Who knows, but now her Lord is low. 
 
 She may look up to me ? 
 
 A cunning woman told me once. 
 Such fortune would tufn up ; 30 
 
 She was a kind of sorceress. 
 But studied in a cup ! 
 
 So he walked up to Lady Wye, 
 And took her quite amaz'd, — ■ 
 
 Shethought, tho' John was tall-eriough, 
 He wanted to be rais'd. 
 
 But John — for why? she was a dame 
 Of such a dwarfish sort — 
 
 Had only come to bid her make 
 Her mourning very short. 40 
 
 Said he, your Lord is dead and cold. 
 You only cry in vain ; 
 
 Not all the Cries of London now 
 Could call him back again ! 
 
 You'll soon have many a noble beau. 
 To dry your noble tears— 
 
 But jUst consider this, that I 
 Have follow'd you for years. 
 
 And tho' you are above me far. 
 What matters high degree, so 
 
 When you are only four foot nine. 
 And I am six foot three ! 
 
 For tho' you are of lofty race. 
 
 And I'm a low-born elf ; 
 Yet none among your friends could say. 
 
 You match'd beneath yourself. 
 
 Said she, such insolence as this 
 
 Can be no common case ; 
 Tho' you are in my service, sir. 
 
 Your love is out of place. 60 
 
 O Lady Wye ! O Lady Wye ! 
 
 Consider what you do ; 
 How can you be so short with me, 
 
 I am not so with you ! 
 
 Then ringing for her serving men. 
 They show'd him to the door : 
 
 Said they, you turn out better now. 
 Why didn't you before ? 
 
 They stripp'd his coat, and gave him 
 kicks 
 
 For all his wages due ; 70 
 
 And off, instead of green and gold. 
 
 He went in black and blue. 
 
 No family would take him in. 
 
 Because of his discharge ; 
 So he made up his mind to serve 
 , The country all at large. 
 
 Huzza ! the Serjeant cried, and put 
 
 The money in his hand. 
 And with a shilling cut him off 
 
 From his paternal land. 80 
 
 For when his regiment went to fight 
 
 At Saragossa town, 
 A Frenchman thought he look' d too tall 
 
 And so he cut him down I 
 
io8 
 
 ODE TO THE CAMELEOPARD 
 
 Welcome to Freedom's birth-place — and a den ! 
 
 Great Anti-climax, hail ! 
 So very lofty in thy front — but then, 
 
 So dwindling at the tail ! — 
 In truth, thou hast the most unequal legs : 
 Has one pair gallop'd, whilst the other trotted. 
 Along with other brethren, leopard-spotted, 
 O'er Afric sand, where ostriches lay eggs ? 
 Sure thou wert caught in some hard uphill chase. 
 Those hinder heels still keeping thee in check ! lo 
 
 And yet thou seem'st prepar'd in any case, 
 
 Tho' they had lost the race. 
 To win it^by a neck ! 
 
 That lengthy neck — how like a crane's it looks ! 
 
 Art thou the overseer of all the brutes ? 
 
 Or dost thou browze on tip-top leaves or fruits — 
 
 Or go a-bird-Hesting amongst the roks ? 
 
 How kindly nature caters for all wants ; 
 
 Thus giving unto thee a neck that stretches, 
 
 And high food fetches — so 
 
 To some a long nose, like the elephant's ! 
 
 Oh! had'st thou any organ to thy bellows, 
 To turn thy breath to speech in human style, 
 
 What secrets thou might'st tell us, 
 Where now our scientific guesses fail ; 
 
 For instance, of the Nile, 
 Whether those Seven Mouths have any tail — 
 
 Mayhap thy luck too, 
 From that high head, as from a lofty hill. 
 
 Has let thee see the marvellous Timbuctoo — 30 
 
 Or drink of Niger at its infant rill ; 
 What were the travels of our Major Denham, 
 
 Or Clapperton, to thine 
 
 In that same line, 
 If thou could'st only squat thee down and pen 'em I 
 
 Strange sights, indeed, thou must have overlook'd. 
 
 With eyes held ever in such vantage-stations ! 
 
 Hast seen, perchance, unhappy white folks cook'd. 
 
 And then made free of negro corporations ? 
 
 Poor wretches saved from cast away three deckers — 40 
 
 By sooty wTeckers — 
 From hungry waves to have a loss still drearier, 
 To far exceed the utmost aim of Park — 
 And find themselves, alas I beyond the mark. 
 In the insides of Africa's Interior I 
 
ODE TO THE CAMELEOPARD 109 
 
 Live on, Giraffe ! genteelest of raff kind ! — 
 Admir'd by noble and by royal tongues ! — 
 
 May no pernicious wind, 
 Or English fog, blight thy exotic lungs I 
 
 Live on in happy peace, altho' a rarity, go 
 
 Nor envy thy poor cousin's more outrageous 
 
 Parisian popularity ; — 
 Whose very leopard-rash is grown contagious, 
 'And worn on. gloves and ribbons all about; . 
 
 Alas ! they'll wear him out ! — 
 So thou Shalt take thy sweet diurnal feeds — 
 When he is stuff'd with undigested straw, ' ' 
 Sad food that never visited his jaw ! 
 And staring rouijd him with a brace of beads 1 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES, 
 
 HERO AND LEANDER, LYGUS THE CENTAUR, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 (1827) 
 
 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 TO CHARLES LAMB, ESQ. 
 
 MV DEAR FRIENB, 
 
 I thank my literary fortune that I am not reduced, like many better wits, to 
 barter dedications, for the hope or promise of patronage, with some nominally great 
 man ; but that where true affection points, and honest respect, I am free to gratify my 
 head and heart by a sincere inscription. An intimacy and dearness, wortliy of a much 
 earlier date than our acquaintance can refer to, direct me at once to your name : and 
 with this acknowledgment of your ever kind feeling towards me, I desire to retord 
 a respect and admiration for you as a writer, which no one acquainted with our 
 literature, save Klia himself, will think disproportionate or misplaced. If I had not 
 these better reasons to govern me, I should be guided to the same selection by your 
 intense yet critical relish for the works of our great Dramatist, and for that favourite 
 play in particular which has furnished the subject of my verses. 
 
 It is my design, in the following Poem, to celebrate, by an allegory, that 
 immortality which Shalispeare has conferred on the Fairy mythology ijy liis 
 Midsummer Night's Dream. But for him, those pretty cliildren of our childhood 
 would leave barely their names to our maturer years ; they belong, as the mites upon 
 the plumb, to the bloom of fancy, a thing generally loo frail and beautiful to with- 
 stand the rude handling of time : but the Poet has made this most perishable part of 
 the mind's crealion equal to the most enduring ; he has so intertwined the Elfins with 
 human sympathies, and linked them by so many delightful associations with the 
 productions of nature, that they are as real to the mind's eye, as their green magical 
 circles to the outer sense. 
 
 It would have been a pity for such a race to go extinct, even though they were but 
 as the butterflies that hover about the leaves and blossoms of the visible world. 
 
 I am, my dear Friend, Yours most truly, 
 
 T. Hood. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MnjSUMMER FAIRIES iii 
 
 'TwAS in that mellow season of the year, 
 
 When the hot Sun singes the yellow leaves 
 
 Till they be gold, — and with a broader sphere 
 
 The Moon looks down on Ceres and her sheaves ; 
 
 When more abundantly the spider weaves, 
 
 And the cold wind breathes from a chillier clime ; 
 
 That forth I fared, on one of those still eves, 
 
 Touch'd with the dewy sadness of the time, ■ 
 
 To think how the bright months had spent their prime. 
 
 So that, wherever I address'd my way, 
 
 I seem'd to track the melancholy feet 
 
 Of him that is the Father of Decay, 
 
 And spoils at once the sour weed and the sweet ; — 
 
 Wherefore regretfully I made retreat 
 
 To some unwasted regions of my brain, 
 
 Charm'd with the light of summer and the heat. 
 
 And bade that bounteous season bloom again, 
 
 And sprout fresh flowers in mine own domain. 
 
 It was a shady and sequester'd scene. 
 
 Like those famed gardens of Boccaccio, 20 
 
 Planted with his own laurels evergreen. 
 
 And roses that for endless summer blow ; 
 
 And there were founting springs to overflow 
 
 Their marble basins, — and cool green arcades 
 
 Of tall o'erarching sycamores, to throw 
 
 Athwart the dappled pa.th their dancing shades, — 
 
 With timid coneys cropping the green blades. 
 
 IV 
 
 And there were crystal pools, peopled with fish, 
 
 Argent and gold ; and some of Tyrian skin, 
 
 Some crimson-barr'd ;^-and ever at a wish 30 
 
 They rose obsequious till the wave grew thin 
 
 As glass upon their backs, and then dived in. 
 
 Quenching their ardent scales in watery gloom ; 
 
 Whilst others with fresh hues row'd forth to win 
 
 My changeable regard, — for so we doom 
 
 Things born of thought to vanish or to bloom. 
 
 And there were many birds of many dyes, 
 From tree to tree still faring to and fro, 
 And stately peacocks with their splendid eyes. 
 And gorgeous pheasants with their golden glow. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 Like Iris just bedabbled in her bow, 
 Besides some vocalists, without a name. 
 That oft on fairy errands come and go, 
 With accents magical ; — and all were tame, 
 And peckled at my hand where'er I came. 
 
 And for my sylvan company, in lieu 
 
 Of Pampinea with her lively peers, 
 
 Sat Queen Titania with her pretty crew, 
 
 All in their liveries quaint, with elfin gears. 
 
 For she was gracious to my childish years, 50 
 
 And made me free of her enchanted round ; 
 
 Wherefore this dreamy scene she still endears. 
 
 And plants her court upon a verdant mound. 
 
 Fenced with umbrageous woods and groves profound. 
 
 ' Ah me,' she cries, ' was ever moonlight seen 
 So clear and tender for our midnight trips ? 
 Go some one forth, and with a trump convene 
 My lieges all ! ' — Away the goblin skips 
 A pace or two apart, and deftly strips 
 The ruddy skin from a sweet rose's cheek. 
 Then blows the shuddering leaf between his lips. 
 Making it utter forth a shrill small shriek, 
 Like a fray'd bird in the grey owlet's beak. 
 
 And lo ! upon my fix'd delighted ken 
 
 Appear'd the loyal Fays. — Some by degrees 
 
 Crept from the primrose buds that open'd then. 
 
 And some from bell-shap'd blossoms like the bees, 
 
 Some from the dewy meads, and rushy leas. 
 
 Flew up like chafers when the rustics pass ; 
 
 Some from the rivers, others from tall trees 70 
 
 Dropp'd, like shed blossoms, silent to the grass. 
 
 Spirits and elfins small, of every class. 
 
 Peri and Pixy, and quaint Puck the Antic, 
 Brought Robin Goodfellow, that merry swain ; 
 And stealthy Mab, queen of old realms romantic, 
 Came too, from distance, in her tiny wain, 
 Fresh dripping from a cloud — some bloomy rain. 
 Then circling the bright Moon, had washed her car, 
 And still bedew'd it with a various stain : 
 Lastly came Ariel, shooting from a star, 
 Who bears all fairy embassies afar. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 113 
 
 But Oberon, that night elsewhere exiled, 
 
 Was absent, whether some distemper' d spleen 
 
 Kept him and his fair mate unreconciled, 
 
 Or warfare with the Gnome (whose race had been 
 
 Sometime obnoxious), kept him from his queen. 
 
 And made her now peruse the starry skies 
 
 Prophetical with such an absent mien ; 
 
 Howbeit, the tears stole often to her eyes, 
 
 And oft the Moon was incensed with her sighs — 
 
 Which made the elves sport drearily, and soon 
 Their hushing dances languish'd to a stand, 
 Like midnight leaves when, as the Zephyrs swoon, 
 All on their drooping stems they sink unfann'd, — 
 So into silence droop' d the fairy band, 
 To see their empress dear so pale and still, 
 Crowding her softly round on either hand. 
 As pale as frosty snow-drops, and as chill. 
 To whom the sceptred dame reveals her ill. 
 
 ' Alas,' quoth she, ' ye know our fairy lives 
 Are leased upon the fickle faith of men ; 
 Not measured out against fate's njortal knives. 
 Like human gossamers, we perish when 
 We fade, and are forgot in worldly ken, — 
 Though poesy has thus prolong'd our date, 
 Thanks be to the sweet Bard's auspicious pen 
 That rescued us so long ! — howbeit of late 
 I feel some dark misgivings of our fate. 
 
 ' And this dull day my melancholy sleep 
 Hath been so throng'd with images of woe, 
 That even now I cannot choose but weep 
 To think this was some sad prophetic show 
 Of future horror to befall us so, — 
 Of mortal wreck and uttermost distress, — 
 Yea, our poor empire's fall and overthrow, — 
 For this was my long vision's dreadful stress," 
 And when I waked my trouble was not less. 
 
 ' Whenever to the clouds I tried to seek. 
 Such leaden weight dragg'd these Icarian wings. 
 My faithless wand was wavering and weak, 
 And slimy toads had trespass'd in our rings — 
 
114 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 The birds refused to sing for me — all things 
 Disown'd their old allegiance to our spells ; 
 The rude bees prick'd me with their rebel stings ; 
 And, when I pass'd, the valley-lily's bells 
 Rang out, methought, most melancholy knells. 
 
 ' And ever on the faint and flagging air 
 
 A doleful spirit with a dreary note 
 
 Cried in my fearful ear, " Prepare ! prepare ! " 
 
 Which soon I knew came from a raven's throat, 130 
 
 Perch'd on a cypress bough not far remote, — 
 
 A cursed bird, too crafty to be shot. 
 
 That alway cometh with his soot-black coat 
 
 To make hearts dreary : — for he is a blot 
 
 Upon the book of life, as well ye wot ! — 
 
 ' Wherefore some while I bribed him to be mute, 
 
 With bitter acorns stufifing his foul maw. 
 
 Which barely I appeased, when some fresh bruit 
 
 Startled me all aheap ! — and soon I saw 
 
 The horridest shape that ever raised my awe, — 
 
 A monstrous giant, very huge and tall, 
 
 Such as in elder times, devoid of law, 
 
 With wicked might grieved the primeval ball, 
 
 And this was sure the deadliest of them all ! 
 
 ' Gaunt was he as a wolf of Languedoc, 
 
 With bloody jaws, and frost upon his crown ; 
 
 So from his barren poll one hoary lock 
 
 Over his wrinkled front fell far adown. 
 
 Well nigh to where his frosty brows did frown 
 
 Like jagged icicles at cottage eaves ; 150 
 
 And for his coronal he wore some brown 
 
 And bristled ears gather'd from Ceres' sheaves, 
 
 Entwined with certain sere and russet leaves. 
 
 ' And lo ! upon a mast rear'd far aloft. 
 He bore a very bright and crescent blade. 
 The which he waved so dreadfully, and oft. 
 In meditative spite, that, sore dismay'd, 
 I crept into an acorn-cup for shade ; 
 Meanwhile the horrid efhgy went by : 
 I trow his look was dreadful, for it made 
 The trembling birds betake them to the sky, 
 For every leaf was lifted by his sigh. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 115 
 
 ' And ever as he sigh'd, his foggy breath 
 
 Blurr'd out the landscape like a flight of smoke; 
 
 Thence knew I this was either dreary Death 
 
 Or Time, who leads all creatures to his stroke. 
 
 Ah wretched me ! ' — Here, even as she spoke, 
 
 The melancholy Shape came gliding in, 
 
 And lean'd his back against an antique oak. 
 
 Folding his wings, that were so fine and thin, 170 
 
 They scarce were seen against the Dryad's skin. 
 
 Then what a fear seized all the little rout ! 
 Look how a flock Of panick'd sheep will stare — 
 And huddle close — and start — and wheel about. 
 Watching the roaming mongrel here and there, — 
 So did that sudden Apparition scare 
 All close aheap those small affrighted things ; 
 Nor sought they now the safety of the air, 
 As if some leaden spell withheld their wings ; 
 But who can fly that ancientest of Kings ? 
 
 Whom now the Queen, with a forestalling tear 
 And previous sigh, beginneth to entreat, 
 Bidding him spare, for love, her lieges dear : 
 ' Alas t ' quoth she, ' is there no nodding wheat 
 Ripe for thy crooked weapon, and more meet, — 
 Or wither'd leaves to ravish from the tree, — 
 Or crumbling battlements for thy defeat ? 
 Think but what vaunting monuments there be 
 Builded in spite and mockery of thee. 
 
 ' O fret away the fabric walls of Fame, 
 And grind down marble Caesars with the dust : 
 Make tombs inscriptionless— raze each high name, 
 And waste old armours of renown with rust : 
 Do all of this, and thy revenge is just : 
 Make such decays the trophies of thy prime, 
 And check Ambition's overweening lust, 
 That dares exterminating war with Time, — 
 But we are guiltless of that lofty crime. 
 
 ' Frail feeble sprites ! — the children of a dream ! 
 Leased on the sufferance of fickle men, 
 Like motes dependent on the sunny beam, 
 Living but in the sun's indulgent ken, 
 
ii6 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 And when that light withdraws, withdrawing then ; — 
 So do we flutter in the glance of youth 
 And fervid fancy, — and so perish when 
 The eye of faith grow;s aged ;-:-in sad truth, 
 Feeling thy sway, O Time ! though not thy tooth 1 
 
 ' Where be those old divinities forlorn. 
 
 That dwelt in trees, or haunted in a stream ? 
 
 Alas ! their memories are dimm'd and torn, 
 
 Like the remainder tatters of a dream : 
 
 So will it fare with our poor thrones, I deem ; — 
 
 For us the same dark trench Oblivion delves,- 
 
 That holds the wastes of every human scheme. 
 
 O spare us then, — and these our pretty elves. 
 
 We soon, alas ! shall perish of ourselves ! ' 
 
 Now as she ended, with a sigh, to name 
 Those old Olympians, scatter'd by the whirl 
 Of fortune's giddy wheel and brought to shame, 
 Methought a scornful and malignant curl 
 Show'd on the lips of that malicious churl, 
 To think what noble havocks he had made ; 
 So that I fear'd he all at once would hurl 
 The harmless fairies into endless shade, — 
 Howbeit he stopp'd awhile to whet his blade. 
 
 Pity it was to hear the elfins' wail. 
 Rise up in concert from their mingled dread ; 
 Pity it was to see them, all so pale. 
 Gaze on the grass as for a. dying bed ; — 
 But Puck was seated on a spider's thread. 
 That hung between two branches of a briar, 
 And 'gan to swing and gambol heels o'er head, 
 Like any Southwark tumbler on a wire. 
 For him no present grief could long inspire. 
 
 Meanwhile the Queen with many piteous drops, 
 
 Falling like tiny sparks full fast and free. 
 
 Bedews a pathway from her throne ; — and stops 
 
 Before the foot of her arch enemy. 
 
 And with her little arms enfolds his knee, 
 
 That shows more gristly from that fair embrace ; 240 
 
 But she will ne'er depart. ' Alas I ' quoth she, 
 
 ' My painful fingers I will here enlace 
 
 Till I have gain'd your pity for our race. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 117 
 
 ' What have we' ever done to earn this grudge, 
 
 And hate— (if not too humble for thy hating ?)— 
 
 Look o'er our labours and our lives, and judge 
 
 If there be any ills of our creating ; ' 
 
 For we are very kindly creatures, dating 
 
 With nature's charities still sweet and bland : — 
 
 O think this murder worthy of debating ! ' — ^50 
 
 Herewith she makes a signal with her hand. 
 
 To beckon some one from the Fairy band. 
 
 Anon I saw one of those elfin things, 
 
 Clad all in white like any chorister, 
 
 Come fluttering forth on his melodious wings, 
 
 That made soft music at each little stir. 
 
 But something louder than a bee's demur 
 
 Before he lights upon a bunch of broom, 
 
 And thus 'gan he with Saturn to confer, — 
 
 And O his voice was sweet, touch'd with the gloom 
 
 Of that sad theme that argued of his doom ! 
 
 Quoth he, ' We make all melodies our care. 
 
 That nb false discords may offend the Sun, 
 
 Music's great master — tuning every where 
 
 All pastoral sounds and melodies, each one 
 
 Duly to place and, season so that none 
 
 May harshly interfere. We rouse at morn 
 
 The shrill sweet lark ; and when the day is done. 
 
 Hush silent pauses for the bird forlorn, 
 
 That singeth with her breast against a thorn. 270 
 
 ' We gather in loud choirs the twittering race. 
 That make a chorus with their single note ; 
 And tend on new-fledged birds in every place. 
 That duly they may get their tunes by rote ; 
 And oft, like echoes, answering remote, 
 We hide in thickets from the feather'd throng, 
 And strain in rivalship each throbbing throat. 
 Singing in shrill responses all day long. 
 Whilst the glad truant listens to our song. 
 
 ' Wherefore, great King of Years, as thou dost love eSo 
 
 The raining music from a morning cloud, 
 When vanish'd larks are carolling above, 
 To wake Apollo with their pipings loud • — 
 
ii8 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 If ever thou hast heard in leafy shroud 
 The sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell, 
 Show thy sweet mercy on' this little crowd, 
 And we will muffle up the sheepfold bell 
 Whene'er thou listenest to Philomel.' 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Then Saturn thus :— ' Sweet is the merry lark, 
 
 That carols in man's ear so clear and strong-; 290 
 
 And youth must love to listen in the dark 
 
 That tuneful elegy of Tereus' wrong ; 
 
 But 1 have heard that ancient strain too long, 
 
 For sweet is sweet but when a little strange. 
 
 And I grow weary for some newer song ; 
 
 For wherefore had I wings, unless to range 
 
 Through all things mutable frojn change to change ? 
 
 ' But wouldst thou hear the melodies of Time, 
 
 Listen when sleep and drowsy darkness roll 
 
 Over hush'd cities, and the midnight chime 
 
 Sounds from their hundred clocks, and deep bells toll 
 
 Like a last knell over the dead world's soul. 
 
 Saying, Time shall be final of all things, 
 
 Whose late, last voice must elegise the whole, — 
 
 O then I clap aloft my brave broad wings. 
 
 And make the wide air tremble while it rings ! ' 
 
 Then next a fair Eve-Fay made meek address. 
 Saying, 'We be the handmaids of the Spring, 
 In sign whereof. May, the quaint broideress, 
 Hath wrought her samplers on our gauzy wing. 
 We tend upon buds' birth and blossoming. 
 And count the leafy tributes that they owe — 
 As, so much to the earth — so much to fling 
 In showers to the brook — so much to go 
 In whirlwinds to the clouds that made them grow. 
 
 ' The pastoral cowslips are our little pets. 
 
 And daisy stars, whose firmament is green ; 
 
 Pansies, and those veil'd nuns, meek violets. 
 
 Sighing to that warm world from which they screen ; 
 
 And golden daffodils, pluck'd for May's Queen ; 320 
 
 And lonely harebells, quaking on the heath ; 
 
 And Hyacinth, long since a fair youth seen. 
 
 Whose tuneful voice, turn'd fragrance in his breath, 
 
 Kiss'd ,by sad Zephyr, guilty of his death. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 119 
 
 xxxvu 
 
 ' The widow'd primrose weeping to the moon, 
 
 And saffron crocus in whose chalice bright 
 
 A cool libation hoarded for the noon 
 
 Is kept — and she that purifies the light, 
 
 The virgin lily, faithful to her white, 
 
 Whereon Eve wept in Eden for her shame ; 330 
 
 And the most dainty rose, Aurora's spright. 
 
 Our every godchild, by whatever name — 
 
 Spare us our lives, for we did nurse the same ! ' 
 
 Then that old Mower stamp'd his heel, and struck 
 
 His hurtful scythe against the harmless ground. 
 
 Saying, ' Ye foolish imps, when am I stuck 
 
 With gaudy buds, or like a wooer crown'd 
 
 With flow'ry chaplets, save when they are found 
 
 Wither'd ? — Whenever have I pluck'd a rose. 
 
 Except to scatter its vain leaves around ? 340 
 
 For so all gloss of beauty I oppose, 
 
 And bring decay on every flow'r that blows. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 ' Or when am I so wroth as when I view 
 
 The wanton pride of Summer ; — how she decks 
 
 The birth-day world with blossoms ever new. 
 
 As if Time had not lived, and heap'd great wrecks 
 
 Of years on years ? — O then I bravely vex 
 
 And catch the gay Months in their gaudy plight, 
 
 And slay them with the wreaths about their necks. 
 
 Like foolish heifers in the holy rite, 350 
 
 And raise great trophies to my ancient might.' 
 
 Then saith another, ' We are kindly things. 
 
 And like her offspring nestle with the dove, — -. 
 
 Witness these hearts embroider'd on our wings, 
 
 To show our constant patronage of love : — 
 
 We sit at even, in sweet bow'fs above 
 
 Lovers, and shake rich odours on the air. 
 
 To mingle with their sighs ; and still remove 
 
 The startling owl, and bid the bat forbear 
 
 Their privacy, and haunt some other where. 360 
 
 XLI 
 
 ' And we are near the mother when she sits 
 Beside her infant in its wicker bed ; 
 And we are in the fairy scene that flits 
 Across its tender brain; sweet dreams we shed. 
 
120 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 And whilst the tender little soul is fled 
 Away, to sport with our young elves, the while 
 We touch the dimpled cheek with roses red, 
 And tickle the soft lips until they smile, 
 So that their careful parents they beguile. 
 
 ' O then, if ever thou hast breathed a vow 370 
 
 At Love's dear portal, Or at pale moon-rise 
 
 Crush'd the dear curl on a regardful brow 
 
 That did not frown thee from thy. honey prize — 
 
 If ever thy sweet son sat on thy thighs, 
 
 And wooed thee from thy careful thoughts within 
 
 To watch the harmless beauty of his eyes, 
 
 Or glad thy fingers on his smooth soft skin, 
 
 For Love's dear sake, let us thy pity win ! ' 
 
 Then Saturn fiercely thus : — ' What joy have I 
 
 In tender babes, that have devour'd mine own, 380 
 
 Whenever to the light I heard them cry, 
 
 Till foolish Rhea cheated me with stone ? 
 
 Whereon., till now, is my great hunger shown. 
 
 In monstrous dints of my enormous tooth ; 
 
 And, — but the peopled world is too full grown 
 
 For hunger's edge, — I would consume all youth 
 
 At one great meal, without delay or ruth ! 
 
 ' For I am well nigh craz'd and wild to hear 
 How boastful fathers taunt me with their breed, 
 Saying, We shall not die nor disappear, 
 But in these other selves, ourselves succeed, 
 Ev'n as ripe flowers pass into their seed 
 Only to be renew'd from prime to prime, 
 All of which boastings I am forced to read, 
 Besides a thousand challenges to Time 
 Which bragging lovers have compil'd in rhyme. 
 
 XLV 
 
 ' Wherefore, when they are sweetly met o' nights. 
 There will I steal, and with my hurried hand 
 Startle them suddenly from their delights 
 Before the next encounter hath been plann'd. 
 Ravishing hours in little minutes spann'd ; 
 But when they say farewell, and grieve apart. 
 Then like a leaden statue I will stand. 
 Meanwhile their many tears encrust my dart. 
 And with a ragged edge cut heart from heart.' 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 Then next a merry Woodsman, clad in green, 
 
 Stept vanward from his mates, that idly stood 
 
 Each at his proper ease, as they had been 
 
 Nursed in the liberty of old Sherwood, 
 
 And wore the livery of Robin Hood, 410 
 
 Who wont in forest shades to dine and sup, — 
 
 So came this chief Tight frankly, and made good 
 
 His haunch against his axe, and thus spoke up, ■ 
 
 Doffing his cap, which was an acorn's cup : — 
 
 ' We be small foresters and gay, who tend 
 On trees, and all their furniture of green, 
 Training the young boughs airily to bend. 
 And show blue snatches of the sky between ; — 
 Or knit more close intricacies, to screen 
 Birds' crafty dwellings as may hide them best. 
 But most the timid blackbird's— she, that seen, 
 Will bear black poisonous berries to her nest. 
 Lest man should cage the darlings of her breast. 
 
 ' We bend each tree in proper attitude, 
 
 And founting willows train in silvery falls; 
 
 We frame all shady roofs and arches rude. 
 
 And verdant aisles leading to Dryads' halls. 
 
 Or deep recesses where the Echo calls ; — 
 
 We shape all plumy trees against the sky, 
 
 And carve tall elms' Corinthian capitals, — 430 
 
 When sometimes, as our tiny hatchets ply. 
 
 Men say the tapping woodpecker is nigh. 
 
 ' Sometimes we scoop the squirrel's hollow cell, 
 
 And sometimes carve quaint letters on trees' rind, 
 
 That haply some lone musing wight may spell 
 
 Dainty Aminta, — Gentle Rosalind, — 
 
 Or chastest Laura, — sweetly call'd to mind 
 
 In sylvan solitudes, ere he lies down ; — 
 
 And sometimes we enrich gray stems, with twined 
 
 And vagrant ivy, — or rich moss, whose brown 440 
 
 Burns into gold as the warm sun goes down. 
 
 ' And, lastly, for mirth's sake and Christmas cheer. 
 We bear the seedling berries, for increase, 
 To graft the Druid oaks, from year to year. 
 Careful that misletoe may never cease ; — 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 Wherefore, if thou dost prize the shady peace 
 
 Of sombre forests, or to see Ught break 
 
 Through sylvan cloisters, and in spring release 
 
 Thy spirit amongst leaves from careful ake. 
 
 Spare us our lives for the Green Dryad's sake.' 450 
 
 Then Saturn, with a frown : — ' Go forth, and fell 
 
 Oak for your coffins, and thenceforth lay by 
 
 Your axes for the rust, and bid farewell 
 
 To all sweet birds, and the blue peeps of sky 
 
 Through tangled branches, for ye shall not spy 
 
 The next green generation of the tree ; 
 
 But hence with the dead leaves, whene'er they fly,- 
 
 Which in the bleak air I would rather see. 
 
 Than flights of the most tuneful birds that be. 
 
 ' For I dislike all prime and verdant pets, 460 
 
 Ivy except, that on the aged wall 
 
 Preys with its worm-like roots, and daily frets, 
 
 The crumbled to^yer it seems to league withal. 
 
 King-like, worn down by its own coronal : — 
 
 Neither in forest haunts love I to won. 
 
 Before the golden plumage 'gins to fall. 
 
 And leaves the brown bleak limbs with few leaves on. 
 
 Or bare — like Nature in her skeleton. 
 
 ' For then sit I amongst the crooked boughs. 
 
 Wooing dull Memory with kindred sighs ; 473 
 
 And there in rustling nuptials we espouse, 
 
 Smit by the sadness in each other's eyes ; — 
 
 But Hope must have green bowers and blue skies. 
 
 And must be courted with the gauds of spring ; 
 
 Whilst Youth leans god-like on her lap, and cries. 
 
 What shall we always do, but love and sing ? — 
 
 And Time is reckon'd a discarded thing.' 
 
 Here in my dream it made me fret to see 
 
 How Puck, the antic, all this dreary while 
 
 Had blithely jested with calamity, 480 
 
 With mistim'd mirth mocking the doleful style 
 
 Of his sad comrades, till it raised my bile 
 
 To see him so reflect their grief aside. 
 
 Turning their solemn looks to half a smile — 
 
 Like a straight stick shown crooked in the tide ; — 
 
 But soon a novel advocate I spied. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 123 
 
 Quoth he — ' We teach all natures to fulfil 
 
 Their fore-appointed crafts, and instincts meet, — 
 
 The bee's sweet alchemy, — the spider's skill, — 
 
 The pismire's care to gamer up his wheat, — 49a 
 
 And rustic masonry to swallows fleet, — 
 
 The lapwing's cunning to preserve her nest, — 
 
 But most, that lesser pelican, the sweet 
 
 And shrilly ruddock, with its bleeding breast. 
 
 Its tender pity of poor babes distrest. 
 
 ' Sometimes we cast our shapes, and in sleek skins 
 Delve with the timid mole, that aptly delves 
 From our example ; so the spider spins, 
 And eke the silk-worm pattern'd by ourselves : 
 Sometimes we travail on the summer shelves 
 Of early bees, and busy toils commence. 
 Watch' d of wise men, that know not we are elves. 
 But gaze and marvel at our stretch of sense. 
 And praise our human-like intelligence. 
 
 ' Wherefore, by thy delight in that old tale. 
 
 And plaintive dirges the late robins sing. 
 
 What time the leaves are scatter'd by the gale, 
 
 Mindful of that old forest burying ; — 
 
 As thou dost love to watch each tiny thing. 
 
 For whom our craft most curiously contrives, 510 
 
 If thou hast caught a bee upon the wing, 
 
 To take his honey-bag,-^spare us our lives, 
 
 And we will pay the ransom in full hives.' 
 
 ' Now by my glass,' quoth Time, " ye do offend 
 
 In teaching the brown bees that careful lore, 
 
 And frugal ants, whose millions would have end. 
 
 But they lay up for need a tiniely store. 
 
 And travail with the seasons evermore ; 
 
 Whereas Great Mammoth long hath pass'd away. 
 
 And none but I can tell what hide he wore ; 520 
 
 Whilst purblind men, the creatures of a day, 
 
 In riddling wonder his great bones survey.' 
 
 Then came an elf, right beauteous to behold. 
 Whose coat was like a brooklet that the sun 
 Hath all embroider'd with its crooked gold, 
 It was so quaintly wrought, and overrun 
 
124 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 With spangled traceries, — most meet for one 
 
 That was a warden of the pearly streams ; — 
 
 And as he stept out of the shadows dun, 
 
 His jewels sparkled in the pale moon's gleams, S3o 
 
 And shot into the air their pointed beams. 
 
 Quoth he, — ' We bear the cold and silver keys 
 
 Of bubbling springs and fountains, that below 
 
 Course thro' the veiny earth, — which when they freeze 
 
 Into hard chrysolites, we bid to flow. 
 
 Creeping like subtle snakes, when, as they go, 
 
 We guide their windings to melodious falls, 
 
 At whose soft murmurings, so sweet and low, 
 
 Poets have tun'd their smoothest' madrigals, 
 
 To sing to ladies in their banquet halls. 540 
 
 LXI 
 
 ' And when the hot sun with his steadfast heat 
 Parches the river god, — whose dusty urn 
 Drips miserly, till soon his crystal feet 
 Against his pebbly floor wax faint and burn. 
 And languid fish, unpois'd, grow sick and yearn, — 
 Then scoop we hollows in some sandy nook. 
 And little channels dig, wherein we turn 
 The thread-worn rivulet, that all forsook 
 The Naiad-lily, pining for her brook. 
 
 ' Wherefore, by thy delight in cool green meads, 550 
 
 With living sapphires daintily inlaid, — 
 
 In all soft songs of waters and their reeds, — 
 
 And all reflections in a streamlet made. 
 
 Haply of thy own love, that, disarray'd, 
 
 Kills the fair lily with a livelier white, — 
 
 By silver trouts upspringing from green shade, 
 
 And winking stars reduplicate at night. 
 
 Spare us, poor ministers to such delight.' 
 
 Howbeit his pleading and his gentle looks 
 
 Mov'd not the spiteful Shade : — Quoth he, ' Your taste 560 
 
 Shoots wide of mine, for I despise the brooks 
 
 And slavish rivulets that run to waste 
 
 In noontide sweats, or, like poor vassals, haste 
 
 To swell the vast dominion of the sea. 
 
 In whose great presence I" am held disgrac'd. 
 
 And neighbour'd with a king that rivals me 
 
 In ancient might and hoary majesty. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 125 
 
 ' Whereas I rul'd in Chaos, and still keep 
 
 The awful secrets of that ancient dearth, 
 
 Before the briny fountains of the deep 570 
 
 Brimm'd up the hollow cavities of earth ; — 
 
 I saw each trickling Sea-God at his birth, 
 
 Each pearly Naiad with her oozy locks, 
 
 And infant Titans of enormous girth, 
 
 Whose huge young feet yet stumbled on the rocks. 
 
 Stunning the early world with frequent shocks. 
 
 ' Where now is Titan, with his cumbrous brood. 
 
 That scar'd the world ? — By this sharp scythe they fell. 
 
 And half the sky was curdled with their blood : 
 
 So have all primal giants sigh'd farewell. 580 
 
 No Wardens now by sedgy fountains dwell, 
 
 No pearly Naiads. All their days are done 
 
 That strove with Time, untimely, to excel ; 
 
 Wherefore I raz'd their progenies, and none 
 
 But my great shadow intercepts the sun ! ' 
 
 Then saith the timid Fay — ' Oh, mighty Time ! 
 
 Well hast thou wrought the cruel Titans' fall, 
 
 For they were stain'd with many a bloody crime : 
 
 Great giants work great wrongs, — but we are small. 
 
 For love goes lowly ; — but Oppression 's tall, 39" 
 
 And with surpassing strides goes foremost still 
 
 Where love indeed can hardly reach at all ; 
 
 Like a poor dwarf o'erburthen'd with good will, 
 
 That labours to efface the tracks of ill. — 
 
 ' Man even strives with Man, but we eschew 
 
 The guilty feud, and all fierce strifes abhor ; 
 
 Nay, we are gentle as sweet heaven's dew, 
 
 Beside the red and horrid drops of war. 
 
 Weeping the cruel hates men battle for, 
 
 Which worldly bosoms nourish in our spite : 600 
 
 For in the gentle breast we ne'er withdraw, 
 
 But only when all love hath taken flight. 
 
 And youth's warm gracious heart is harden'd quite. 
 
 ' So are our gentle natures intertwin'd 
 With sweet humanities, and closely knit 
 In kindly sympathy with human kind. 
 Witness how we befriend, with elfin wit. 
 
126 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 All hopeless maids and lovers, — nor omit 
 
 Magical succours unto hearts forlorn : — 
 
 We charm man's life, and do not perish it ;— 6«i> 
 
 So judge us by the helps we show'd this morn, 
 
 To one who held his wretched days in scorn. 
 
 ' 'Twas nigh sweet Amwell ; — for the Queen had task'd 
 
 Our skill to-day amidst the silver Lea, 
 
 Whereon the noontide sun had not yet bask'd ; 
 
 Wherefore some patient man we thought to see. 
 
 Planted in moss-grown rushes to the knee. 
 
 Beside the cloudy margin cold and dim ; 
 
 Howbeit no patient fisherman was he 
 
 That cast his sudden shadow from the brim, 620 
 
 Making us leave our toils to gaze on him. 
 
 ' His face was ashy pale, and leaden care 
 
 Had sunk the levell'd arches of his brow. 
 
 Once bridges for his joyous thoughts to fare 
 
 Over those melancholy springs and slow, 
 
 That from his piteous eyes began to flow, 
 
 And fell anon into the chilly stream ; 
 
 Which, as his mimick'd image show'd below. 
 
 Wrinkled his face with many a needless seam, 
 
 Making grief sadder in its own esteem. 630 
 
 ' And lo ! upon the air we saw him stretch 
 His passionate arms ; and, in a wayward strain. 
 He 'gan to elegize that fellow wretch 
 That with mute gestures answer'd him again. 
 Saying, " Poor slave, how long wilt thou remain 
 Life's sad weak captive in a prison strong. 
 Hoping with tears to rust away thy chain. 
 In bitter servitude to worldly wrong ? — 
 Thou wear'st that mortal livery too long ! " 
 
 ' This, with more spleenful speeches and some tears, 640 
 
 When he had spent upon the imaged wave, 
 
 Speedily I conven'd my elfin peers 
 
 Under the lily-cups, that we might save 
 
 This woeful mortal from a wilful grave 
 
 By shrewd diversions of his mind's regret. 
 
 Seeing he was mere melancholy's slave. 
 
 That sank wherever a dark cloud he met. 
 
 And straight was tangled in her secret net. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 127 
 
 ' Therefore, as still he watch'd the water's flow, 
 
 Daintily we transform'd, and with bright fins 650 
 
 Came glancing through the gloom ; some from below 
 
 Rose like dim fancies when a dream begins, 
 
 Snatching the light upon their purple skins ; 
 
 Then under the broad leaves made slow retire : 
 
 One like a golden galley bravely wins 
 
 Its radiant course, — another glows like fire, — 
 
 Making that wayward man our pranks admire. 
 
 ' And so he banish'd thought, and quite forgot 
 
 All contemplation of that wretched face ; 
 
 And so we wil'd him from that lonely spot 
 
 Along the river's brink ; till, by heaven's grace, 
 
 He met a gentle haunter of the place. 
 
 Full of sweet wisdom gather' d from the brooks, 
 
 Who there discuss'd his melancholy case 
 
 With wholesome texts leam'd from kind nature's books, 
 
 Meanwhile he newly trimm'd his lines and hooks.' 
 
 Herewith the Fairy ceased. Quoth Ariel now — 
 
 ' Let me remember how I sav'd a man. 
 
 Whose fatal noose was fasten'd on a bough, 
 
 Intended to abridge his sad life's span ; 670 
 
 For haply I was by when he began 
 
 His stern soliloquy in life's dispraise. 
 
 And overheard his melancholy plan. 
 
 How he had made a vow to end his days. 
 
 And therefore foUow'd him in all his ways. 
 
 ' Through brake and tangled copse, for much he loath' d 
 
 All populous haunts, and roam'd in forests rude, 
 
 To hide himself from man. But I had cloth'd 
 
 My delicate limbs with plumes, and still pursued. 
 
 Where only foxes and wild cats intrude, 680 
 
 Till we were come beside an ancient tree 
 
 Late blasted by a storm. Here he renew'd 
 
 His loud complaints, — choosing that spot to be 
 
 The scene of his last horrid tragedy. 
 
 ' It was a wild and melancholy glen, 
 Made gloomy by tall firs and cypress dark, 
 Whose roots, like any bones of buried men, 
 Push'd through the rotten sod for fear's remark : 
 
128 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 A hundred horrid stems, jagged and stark, 
 
 Wrestled with crooked arms in hideous fray, 690 
 
 Besides sleek ashes with their dappled bark, 
 
 Like crafty serpents climbing for a prey, 
 
 With many blasted oaks moss-grown and grey. 
 
 ' But here upon his final desperate clause 
 
 Suddenly I pronounced so Iweet a strain, 
 
 Like a pang'd nightingale, it made him pause, 
 
 Till half the frenzy of his grief was slain. 
 
 The sad remainder oozing from his brain • 
 
 In timely ecstasies of healing tears, 
 
 Which through his ardent eyes began to drain ; — 700 
 
 Meanwhile the deadly Fates unclos'd their shears : — 
 
 So pity me and all my fated peers ! ' 
 
 Thus Ariel ended, and was some time hush'd : 
 
 When with the hoary shape a fresh tongue pleads, 
 
 And red as rose the gentle Fairy blush'd 
 
 To read the record of her own good deeds : — 
 
 ' It chanc'd,' quoth she, ' in seeking through the meads 
 
 For honied cowslips, sweetest in the morn, 
 
 Whilst yet the buds were hung with dewy beads. 
 
 And Echo answer'd to the huntsman's horn, 710 
 
 We found a babe left in the swarths forlorn. 
 
 ' A little, sorrowful, deserted thing. 
 
 Begot of love, and yet no love begetting ; 
 
 Guiltless of shame, and yet for shame to wring ; 
 
 And too soon banish'd from a mother's petting. 
 
 To churlish nurture and the wide world's fretting, 
 
 For alien pity and unnatural care ; — 
 
 Aleis ! to see how the cold dew kept wetting 
 
 His childish coats, and dabbled all his hair. 
 
 Like gossamers across his forehead fair. 72a 
 
 ' His pretty pouting mouth, witless of speech. 
 Lay half-way open like a rose-lipp'd shell ; 
 And his young cheek was softer than a peach. 
 Whereon his tears, for roundness, could not dwell. 
 But quickly roll'd themselves to pearls, and fell. 
 Some on the grass, and some against his hand. 
 Or haply wander'd to the dimpled well. 
 Which love beside his mouth had sweetly plann'd. 
 Yet not for tears, but mirth and smilings bland.' 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 129 
 
 ' Pity it was to see those frequent tears 730 
 
 Falling regardless from his friendless eyes ; 
 
 There was such beauty in those twin blue spheres, 
 
 As any mother's heart might leap to prize ; 
 
 Blue were they, like the zenith of the skies 
 
 Soften'd betwixt two clouds, both clear and mild ; — 
 
 Just touch'd with thought, and yet not over wise. 
 
 They show'd the gentle spirit of a child. 
 
 Not yet by care or any craft defil'd. 
 
 ' Pity it was to see the ardent sun 
 
 Scorching his helpless limbs — it shone so warm ; 740 
 
 For kindly shade or shelter he had none, 
 
 Nor mother's gentle breast; come fair or storm. 
 
 Meanwhile I bade my pitying mates transform 
 
 Like grasshoppers, and then, with shrilly cries. 
 
 All round the infant noisily we swarm, 
 
 Haply some passing rustic to advise — 
 
 Whilst providential Heav'n our care espies, 
 
 ' And sends full soon a tender-hearted hind, 
 
 Who, wond'ring at our loud unusual note, 
 
 Strays curiously aside, and so doth find 750 
 
 The orphan child laid in the grass remote. 
 
 And laps the foundling in his russet coat, 
 
 Who thence was nurtur'd in his kindly cot : 
 
 But how he prosper'd let proud London quote, 
 
 How wise, how rich, and how ran own' d he got. 
 
 And chief of all her citizens, I wot. 
 
 ' Witness his goodly vessels on the Thames, 
 
 Whose holds were fraught with costly merchandize, — 
 
 Jewels from Ind, and pearls for courtly dames, 
 
 And gorgeous silks that Samarcand supplies : 760 
 
 Witness that Royal Bourse he bade arise. 
 
 The mart of merchants from the East and West ; 
 
 Whose slender summit, pointing to the skies. 
 
 Still bears, in token of his grateful breast. 
 
 The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest — 
 
 ' The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest, 
 That all the summer, with a tuneful wing. 
 Makes merry chirpings in its grassy nest. 
 Inspirited with dew to leap and sing : — 
 
I30 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 .So let us also live, eternal King ! 7T> 
 
 Partakers of the green and pleasant earth : — 
 
 Pity it is to slay the meanest thing, 
 
 That, like a mote, shines in the smile of mirth : — 
 
 Enough there is of joy's decrease and dearth ! 
 
 ' Enough of pleasure, and delight, and beauty, 
 
 Perish'd and gone, and hasting to decay ; — 
 
 Enough to sadden even thee, whose duty 
 
 Or spite it is to havoc and to slay : 
 
 Too many a lovely race raz'd quite away. 
 
 Hath left large gaps in life and human loving : — \ 780 
 
 Here then begin thy cruel war to stay. 
 
 And spare fresh sighs, and tears, and groans, reproving 
 
 Thy desolating hand for our removing.' 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 
 Now here I heard a shrill and sudden cry. 
 
 And, looking up, I saw the antic Puck 
 
 Grappling with Time, who clutch' d him like a fly 
 
 Victim of his own sport, — the jester's luck ! 
 
 He, whilst his fellows griev'd, poor wight, had stuclc 
 
 His freakish gauds upon the Ancient's brow. 
 
 And now his ear, and now his beard, would pluck ; 790 
 
 Whereas the angry churl had snatch'd him now. 
 
 Crying, ' Thou impish mischief, who art thou ? ' 
 
 ' Alas ! ' quoth Puck, ' a little random elf, 
 
 Born in the sport of nature, like a weed, 
 
 For simple sweet enjoyment of myself. 
 
 But for no other purpose, worth, or need ; 
 
 And yet withal of a most happy breed ; — 
 
 And there is Robin Goodfellow besides. 
 
 My partner dear in many a prankish deed 
 
 To make dame Laughter hold her jolly sides, 800 
 
 Like merry mummers twain on holy tides. 
 
 ' 'Tis we that bob the angler's idle cork. 
 
 Till e'en the patient man breathes half a curse ; 
 
 We steal the morsel from the gossip's fork. 
 
 And curdling looks with secret straws disperse. 
 
 Or stop the sneezing chanter at mid verse : 
 
 And when an infant's beauty prospers ill, 
 
 We change, some mothers say, the child at nurse ; 
 
 But any graver purpose to fulfil. 
 
 We have not wit enough, and scarce the will. gio 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 131 
 
 ' We never let the canker melancholy 
 
 To gather on our faces like a rust, 
 
 But gloss our features with some change of folly, 
 
 Taking life's fabled miseries on trust. 
 
 But only sorrowing when sorrow must : 
 
 We ruminate no sage's solemn cud, 
 
 But own ourselves a pinch of lively dust 
 
 To frisk upon a wind, — whereas the flood 
 
 Of tears would turn us into heavy mud. 
 
 ' Beshrew those sad interpreters of nature, 
 
 Who gloze her lively universal law, 
 
 As if she had not form'd our cheerful feature 
 
 To be so tickled with the slightest straw ! 
 
 So let them vex their mumping mouths, and draw 
 
 The corners downward, like a wat'ry moon. 
 
 And deal in gusty sighs and rainy flaw — 
 
 We will not woo foul weather all too soon. 
 
 Or nurse November on the lap of June. 
 
 ' For ours are winging sprites, like any bird, 
 
 That shun all stagnant settlements of giief ; 830 
 
 And even iti our rest our hearts are stirr'd. 
 
 Like insects settled on a dancing leaf : — 
 
 This is our small philosophy in brief. 
 
 Which thus to teach hath set me all agape : 
 
 But dost thou relish it ? O hoary chief ! 
 
 Unclasp thy crooked fingers from my nape, 
 
 And I will show thee many a pleasant scrape." 
 
 Then Saturn thus : — shaking his crooked blade 
 
 O'erhead, which made aloft a lightning flash 
 
 In all the fairies' eyes, dismally fray'd ! 840 
 
 His ensuing voice came like the thunder crash — 
 
 Meanwhile the bolt shatters some pine or ash — 
 
 ' Thou feeble, wanton, foolish, fickle thing ' 
 
 Whom nought can frighten, sadden, or abash, — 
 
 To hope my solemn countenance to wring 
 
 To idiot smiles ! — but I will prune thy wing ! 
 
 ' Lo ! this most awful handle of my scythe 
 
 Stood once a May-pole, with a flowery crown, 
 
 Which rustics danced around, and maidens blithe, 
 
 To wanton pipings ; — but I pluck'd it down, 830 
 
132 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 And robed the May Queen in a, churchyard gown, 
 Turning her buds to rosemary and rue ; 
 And all their merry minstrelsy did drown, 
 And laid each lusty leaper in the dew ; — 
 So thou shalt fare — and every jovial crew 1 ' 
 
 Here he lets go the struggling imp, to clutch 
 
 His mortal engine with each grisly hand. 
 
 Which frights the elfin progeny so much, 
 
 They huddle in a heap, and trembling stand 
 
 All round Titania, like the queen bee's band, 860 
 
 With sighs and tears and very shrieks of woe ! — 
 
 Meanwhile, some moving argument I plann'd, 
 
 To make the stern Shade merciful, — when lo ! 
 
 He drops his fatal scythe without a blow ! 
 
 For, just at need, a timely Apparition 
 
 Steps in between, to bear the awful brunt ; 
 
 Making him change his horrible position. 
 
 To marvel at this comer, brave and blunt. 
 
 That dares Time's irresistible affront. 
 
 Whose strokes have scarr'd even the gods of old ;■ — 870 
 
 Whereas this seera'd a mortal, at mere hunt 
 
 For coneys, lighted by the moonshine cold, 
 
 Or stalker of straj- deer, stealthy and bold. 
 
 Who, turning to the small assembled fays. 
 
 Doffs to the lily queen his courteous cap. 
 
 And holds her beauty for a while in gaze, 
 
 With bright eyes kindling at this pleasant hap ; 
 
 And thence upon the fair moon's silver map. 
 
 As if in question of this magic chance. 
 
 Laid like a dream upon the green earth's lap ; 880 
 
 And then upon old Saturn turns askance. 
 
 Exclaiming, with a glad and kindly glance : — 
 
 ' Oh, these be Fancy's revellers by night ! 
 
 Stealthy companions of the downy moth — 
 
 Diana's motes, that flit in her pale light, 
 
 Shunners of sunbeams in diurnal sloth ; — 
 
 These be the feasters on night's silver cloth, — 
 
 The gnat with shrilly trump is their convener. 
 
 Forth from their flowery chambers, nothing loth, 
 
 With lulling tunes to charm the air serener, 89a 
 
 Or dance upon the grass to make it greener. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 133 
 
 ' These be the jjretty genii of the flow'rs, 
 
 Daintily fed with honey and pure dew — 
 
 Midsummer's phantoms in her dreaming hours, 
 
 King Oberon, and all his merry crew, 
 
 The darling puppets of romance's view ; 
 
 Fairies, and sprites, and goblin elves we call them. 
 
 Famous for patronage of lovers true ; — 
 
 Nor harm they act, neither shall harm befall them. 
 
 So do not thus with crabbed frowns appal them.' 
 
 O what a cry was Saturn's then ! — it made 
 
 The fairies quake. ' What care I for their pranks, 
 
 However they may lovers choose to aid. 
 
 Or dance their roundelays on flow'ry banks ? — 
 
 Long must they dance before they earn my thanks, — 
 
 So step aside, to some far safer spot, 
 
 Whilst with my hungry scythe I mow their ranks. 
 
 And leave them in the sun, like weeds, to rot. 
 
 And with the next day's sun to be forgot.' 
 
 Anon, he raised afresh his weapon keen ; 
 But still the gracious Shade disarm'd his aim. 
 Stepping with braive alacrity between. 
 And made his sere arm powerless and tame. 
 His be perpetual glory, for the shame 
 Of hoary Saturn in that grand defeat ! — 
 But I must tell, how here Titania came 
 With all her kneeling lieges, to entreat 
 His kindly succour, in sad tones, but sweet. 
 
 Saying, ' Thou seest a wretched queen before thee, 
 
 The fading power of a failing land. 
 
 Who for her kingdom kneeleth to implore thee, 
 
 Now menac'd by this tyrant's spoiling hand ; 
 
 No one but thee can hopefully withstand 
 
 That crooked blade, he longeth so to lift. 
 
 I pray thee blind him with his own vile sand. 
 
 Which only times all ruins by its drift. 
 
 Or prune his eagle wings that are so swift. 
 
 ' Or take him by that sole and grizzled tuft, 
 
 That hangs upon his bald and barren crown ; 
 
 And we will sing to see him so rebufi'd, 9i« 
 
 And lend our little mights to pull him down. 
 
134 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 And make brave sport of his malicious frown, 
 For all his boastful mockery o'er men ; 
 ^For thou wast born I know for this renown, 
 By my most magical and inward ken, 
 That readeth ev'n at Fate's forestalling pen. 
 
 ' Nay, by the golden lustre of thine eye, 
 And by thy brow's most fair and ample span, 
 Thought's glorious palace, fram'd for fancies high, 
 And by thy cheek thus passionately wan, 
 I know the signs of an immortal man, — 
 Nature's cRief darling, and illustrious mate, 
 Destin'd to foil old Death's oblivious plan. 
 And shine untarnish'd by the fogs of Fate, 
 Time's famous rival till the final date I 
 
 ' O shield us then from this usurping Time, 
 
 And we will visit thee in moonlight dreams ; 
 
 And teach thee tunes, to wed unto thy rhyme, 
 
 And dance about thee in all midnight gleams. 
 
 Giving thee glimpses of our magic schemes, 950 
 
 Such as no mortal's eye hath ever seen ; 
 
 And, for thy love to us in our extremes, 
 
 Will ever keep thy chaplet fresh and green, 
 
 Such as no poet's wreath hath ever been ! 
 
 ' And we'll distil thee aromatic dews. 
 
 To charm thy sense, when there shall be no flow'rs ; 
 
 And fiavour'd syrops in thy drinks infuse. 
 
 And teach the nightingale to haunt thy bow'rs. 
 
 And with our games divert thy weariest hours, 
 
 With all that elfin wits can e'er devise. 960 
 
 And, this churl dead, there'll be no hasting hours 
 
 To rob thee of thy joys, as now joy flies ; ' — 
 
 Here she was stopp'd by Saturn's furious cries. 
 
 Whom, therefore, the kind Shade rebukes anew. 
 
 Saying, ' Thou haggard Sin, go forth, and scoop 
 
 Thy hollow coffin in some churchyard yew. 
 
 Or make th' autumnal flow'rs turn pale, and droop ; 
 
 Or fell the bearded corn, till gleaners stoop 
 
 Under fat sheaves, — or blast the piny grove ; — 
 
 But here thou shalt not harm this pretty groupe, 970 
 
 Whose lives are not so frail and feebly wove. 
 
 But leas'd on Nature's loveliness and love. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 135 
 
 ' 'Tis these that free the small entangled fly, 
 
 Caught in the venom'd spider's crafty snare ; — 
 
 These be the petty surgeons that apply 
 
 The healing balsams to the wounded hare, 
 
 Bedded in bloody fern, no creature's care ! — 
 
 These be providers for the orphan brood. 
 
 Whose tender mother hath been slain in air. 
 
 Quitting with gaping bill her darling's food, 980 
 
 Hard by the verge of her domestic wood. 
 
 ' 'Tis these befriend the timid trembling stag. 
 When, with a. bursting heart beset with fears, 
 He feels his saving speed begin to flag ; 
 For then they quench the fatal taint with tears, 
 And prompt fresh shifts in his alarum'd ears, 
 So piteously they view all bloody morts ; 
 Or if the gunner, with his arm, appears, 
 Like noisy pyes and jays, with harsh reports, 
 They warn the wild fowl of his deadly sports. 
 
 ' For these are kindly ministers of nature, 
 To soothe all covert hurts and dumb distress ; 
 Pretty they be, and very small of stature, — 
 For mercy still consorts with littleness ;-^ 
 Wherefore the sum of good is still the less. 
 And mischief grossest in this world of wrong ; — 
 So do these charitable dwarfs redress 
 The tenfold ravages of giants strong. 
 To whom great malice and great might belong. 
 
 ' Likewise to them are Poets much beholden 
 For secret favours in the midnight glooms ; 
 Brave Spenser quafi'd out of their goblets golden. 
 And saw their tables spread of prompt mushrooms. 
 And heard their horns of honeysuckle blooms 
 Sounding upon the air most soothing soft, 
 Like humming bees busy about the brooms, — 
 And glanc'd this fair queen's witchery full oft. 
 And in her magic wain soared far aloft. 
 
 • Nay I myself, though mortal, once was nurs'd 
 By fairy gossips, friendly at my birth. 
 Arid in my childish ear glib Mab rehears'd 
 Her breezy travels round our planet's girth, 
 
136 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 Telling me wonders of the moon and earth ; 
 
 My gramarye at her grave lap I conn'd, 
 
 Where Puck hath been conven'd to make me mirth ; 
 
 I have had from Queen Titania tokens fond, 
 
 And toy'd with Oberon's permitted wand. 
 
 cxiv 
 ' With figs and plums and Persian dates they fed me, 
 And delicate cates after my sunset mealj 
 
 And took me by my childish hand, and led me 1020 
 
 By craggy rocks crested with keeps of steel. 
 Whose awful bases deep dark woods conceal, 
 Staining some dead lake with their verdant dyes : 
 And when the West sparkled at Phoebus' wheel. 
 With fairy euphrasy they purg'd mine eyes. 
 To let me see their cities in the skies. 
 
 cxv 
 
 ' 'Twas they first school'd my young imagination 
 
 To take its flights like any new-fledg'd bird, 
 
 And show'd the span of winged meditation 
 
 Stretch'd wider than things grossly seen or heard. 1030 
 
 With sweet swift Ariel how I soar'd and stirr'd 
 
 The fragrant blooms of spiritual bow'rs ! 
 
 'Twas they endear'd what I have still preferr'd. 
 
 Nature's blest attributes and balmy pow'rs. 
 
 Her hills and vales and brooks, sweet birds and flow'rs ! 
 
 ' Wherefore with all true loyalty and duty 
 
 Will I regard them in my honouring rhyme, 
 
 With love for love, and homages to beauty, 
 
 And magic thoughts gather'd in night's cool clime, 
 
 With studious verse trancing the dragon Time, 
 
 Strong as old Merlin's necromantic spells ; 
 
 So these dear mqnarchs of the summer's prime 
 
 Shall live unstartled by his dreadful yells. 
 
 Till shrill larks warn them to their flowery cells.' 
 
 Look how a poison'd man turns livid black, 
 
 Drugg'd with a cup of deadly hellebore. 
 
 That sets his horrid features all at rack, — 
 
 So seem'd these words into the ear to pour 
 
 Of ghastly Saturn, answering with a roar 
 
 Of mortal pain and spite and utmost rage, 1050 
 
 Wherewith his grisly arm he rais'd once more. 
 
 And bade the cluster'd sinews all engage. 
 
 As if at one fell stroke to wreck an age. 
 
THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 137 
 
 Whereas the blade flash' d on the dinted ground, 
 
 Down through his steadfast foe, yet made no scar 
 
 On that immortal Shade, or death-like wound ; 
 
 But Time was long benumb'd, and stood ajar. 
 
 And then with baffled rage took flight afar. 
 
 To weep his hurt in some Cimmerian gloom. 
 
 Or meaner fames (like mine) to mock and mar, 1060 
 
 Or sharp his scythe for royal strokes of doom, 
 
 Whetting its edge on some old Caesar's tomb. 
 
 Howbeit he vanish'd in the forest shade. 
 
 Distantly heard as if some grumbling pard. 
 
 And, like Narcissus, to a sound decay'd ; — 
 
 Meanwhile the fays cluster'd the gracious Bard, 
 
 The darling centre of their dear regard : 
 
 Besides of sundry dances on the green. 
 
 Never was mortal man so brightly starr'd, 
 
 Or won such pretty homages, I ween. 1070 
 
 ' Nod to him. Elves I ' cries the melodious queen. 
 
 ' Nod to him, Elves, and flutter round about him, 
 And quite enclose him with your pretty crowd, 
 And touch him lovingly, for that, without him. 
 The silk-worm now had spun our dreary shroud ; — 
 But he hath all dispers'd death's tearful cloud. 
 And Time's dread effigy scar'd quite away : 
 Bow to him then, as though to me ye.bow'd. 
 And his dear wishes prosper and obey 
 Wherever love and wit can find a way! 
 
 ' 'Noint him with fairy dews of magic savours, 
 Shaken from orient buds still pearly wet, 
 Roses and spicy pinks, — and, of all favours. 
 Plant in his walks the purple violet, 
 And meadow-sweet under the hedges set. 
 To mingle breaths with dainty eglantine 
 And honeysuckles sweet, — nor yet forget 
 Some pastoral flowery chaplets to entwine, 
 To vie the thoughts about his brow benign ! 
 
 ' Let no wild things astonish him or fear him, 1090 
 
 But tell them all how mild he is of heart, 
 Till e'en the timid hares go frankly near him, 
 And eke the dappled does, yet never start ; 
 f 3 
 
138 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES 
 
 Nor shall their fawns into the thickets dart, 
 Nor wrens forsake their nests among the leaves, 
 Nor speckled thrushes flutter far apart ;^- 
 But bid the sacred swallow haunt his eaves, 
 To guard his roof from lightning and from thieves. 
 
 ' Or when he goes the nimble squirrel's visitor, 
 Let the brown hermit bring his hoarded nuts. 
 For, tell him, this is Nature's kind Inquisitor,^ 
 Though man keeps cautious doors that conscience shuts. 
 For conscious wrong all curious quest rebuts, — 
 Nor yet shall bees uncase their jealous stings. 
 However he may watch their straw-built huts ; — 
 So let him learn the cralts of all small things. 
 Which he will hint most aptly when he sings.' 
 
 Here she leaves off, and with a graceful hand 
 Waves thrice three splendid circles round his head ; 
 Which, though deserted by the radiant wand. 
 Wears still the glory which her waving shed. 
 Such as erst crown'd the old Apostle's head, 
 To show the thoughts there harbour'd were divine, 
 And on immortal contemplations fed : — 
 Goodly it was to see that glory shine 
 Around a brow so lofty and benign ! 
 
 Goodly it was to see the elfin brood 
 Contend for kisses of his gentle hand, 
 That had their mortal enemy withstood, 
 And stay'd their lives, fast ebbing with the sand. 
 Long while this strife engag'd the pretty band ; 
 But now bold Chanticleer, from farm to farm, 
 Challeng'd the dawn creeping o'er eastern land, 
 And well the fairies knew that shrill alarm. 
 Which sounds the knell of every elfish charm. 
 
 And soon the rolling mist, that 'gan arise 
 
 From plashy mead and undiscover'd stream. 
 
 Earth's morning incense to the early skies. 
 
 Crept o'er the failing landscape of my dream. 
 
 Soon faded then the Phantom of my theme — 1130 
 
 A shapeless shade, that fancy disavow'd, 
 
 And shrank to nothing in the mist extreme. 
 
 Then flew Titania, — and her little crowd, 
 
 Like flocking linnets, vanish' d in a cloud. 
 
139 
 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 TO S. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ. 
 
 It is not with a hope my feeble praise 
 
 Can add one moment's honour to thy own, 
 
 That with thy mighty name I grace these lays ; 
 
 I seek to glorify myself alone : 
 
 For that same precious favour thou hast shown 
 
 To my endeavour in a by-gone time, 
 
 And by this token, I would have it known 
 
 Thou art my friend, and friendly to my rhyme ! 
 
 It is my dear ambition now to climb 
 
 Still higher in thy thought, — if my bold pen 
 
 May thrust on contemplations more sublime. — 
 
 But I am thirsty for thy praise, for when 
 
 We gain applauses from the great in name. 
 
 We seem to be partakers of their fame. 
 
 I 
 Oh Bards of old ! what sorrows have ye sung, 
 And tragic stories, chronicled in stone, — 
 Sad Philomel restor'd her ravish'd tongue. 
 And transformed Niobe in dumbness shown ; 
 Sweet Sappho on her love for ever calls, 
 And Hero on the drown'd Leander falls ! 
 
 Was it that spectacles of sadder plights, 
 Should make our blisses relish- the more high ? 
 Then all fair dames, and maidens, and true knights. 
 Whose flourish'd fortunes prosper in Love's eye, 
 Weep here, unto a tale of ancient grief, 
 Trac'd from the course of an old bas-relief. 
 
 There stands Abydos ! — here is Sestos' steep. 
 Hard by the gusty margin of the sea. 
 Where sprinkling waves continually do leap ; 
 And that is where those famous lovers be, 
 A builded gloom shot up into the grey, 
 As if the first tall watch-tow'r of the day. 
 
 Lo ! how the lark soars upward and is gone ; 
 Turning a spirit as he nears the sky. 
 His voice is heard, though body there is none, 
 And rain-like music scatters from on high ; 
 But Love would follow with a falcon spite. 
 To pluck the minstrel from his dewy height. 
 
140 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 For Love hath fram'd a ditty of regrets, 
 
 Tun'd to the hollow sobbings on the shore, 
 
 A vexing sense, that with like music frets,' 
 
 And chimes this dismal burthen o'er and o'er, 
 
 Saying, Leander's joys are past and spent. 
 
 Like stars extinguish'd in the firmament. 30 
 
 For ere the golden crevices of morn 
 
 Let in those regal luxuries of light. 
 
 Which all the variable east adorn, 
 
 And hang rich fringes on the skirts of night, 
 
 Leander, weaning from sweet Hero's side. 
 
 Must leave a widow where he found a bride. 
 
 Hark ! how the billows beat upon the sand ! 
 Like pawing steeds impatient of delay ; 
 Meanwhile their rider, ling'ring on the land. 
 Dallies with love, and holds farewell at bay 
 A too short span. — How tedious slow is grief ! 
 But parting renders time both sad and brief. 
 
 ' Alas (he sigh'd), that this first glimpsing light. 
 Which makes the wide world tenderly appear. 
 Should be the burning signal for my flight. 
 From all the world's best image, which is here ;' 
 Whose very shadow, in my fond compare. 
 Shines far more bright than Beauty's self elsewhere.' 
 
 Their cheeks are white as blossoms of the dark. 
 Whose leaves close up and show the outward pale, 
 And those fair mirrors where their joys did spark, 
 All dim and tarnish'd with a dreary veil, 
 No more to kindle till the night's return. 
 Like stars replenish'd at Joy's golden urn. 
 
 Ev'n thus they creep into the spectral grey. 
 
 That cramps the landscape in its narrow brim. 
 
 As when two shadows by old Lethe stray, 
 
 He clasping her, and she entwining him ; 
 
 Like trees wind -parted that embrace anon, 
 
 True love so often goes before 'tis gone. So 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 141 
 
 For what rich merchant but will pause in fear, 
 To trust his wealth to the unsafe abyss ? 
 So Hero dotes upon her treasure here, 
 And sums the loss with many an anxious kiss, 
 Whilst her fond eyes grow dizzy in her head, 
 Fear aggravating fear with shows of dread. 
 
 She thinks how many have been sunk and drown'd, 
 
 And spies their snow-white bones below the deep. 
 
 Then calls huge congregated monsters round. 
 
 And plants a rock wherever he would leap ; 70 
 
 Anon she dwells on a fantastic dream, 
 
 Which she interprets of that fatal stream. 
 
 Saying, ' That honey'd fly I saw was thee, 
 Which lighted on a water-lily's cup. 
 When, lo ! the flow'r, enamour'd of my bee, 
 Closed on him suddenly and lock'd him up, 
 And he was smother'd in her drenching dew ; 
 Therefore this day thy drowning I shall rue.' 
 
 But next, remembering her virgin fame, 
 
 She clips him in her arms and bids him go, 8a 
 
 But seeing him break loose, repents her shame. 
 
 And plucks him back upon her bosom's snow ; 
 
 And tears unfix her iced resolve again. 
 
 As steadfast frosts are thawed by show'rs of rain. 
 
 O for a type of parting ! — Love to love 
 Is like the fond attraction of two spheres. 
 Which needs a godlike effort to remove. 
 And then sink down their sunny atmospheres. 
 In rain and darkness on each ruin'd heart. 
 Nor yet their melodies will sound apart. 
 
 So brave Leander sunders from his bride ; 
 
 The wrenching pang disparts his soul in twain ; 
 
 Half stays with her, half goes towards the tide, — 
 
 And life must ache, until they join again. 
 
 Now would'st thou know the wideness of the wound, 
 
 Mete every step he takes upon the ground. 
 
142 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 And for the agony and bosom-throe, 
 
 Let it be measur'd by the wide vast air, 
 
 For that is infinite, and so is woe, 
 
 Since parted lovers breathe it every where. 
 
 Look how it heaves Leander's labouring chest. 
 
 Panting, at poise, upon a rocky crest ! 
 
 From which he leaps into the scooping brine, 
 That shocks his bosom with a double chill ; 
 Because, all hours, till the slow sun's decline, 
 That cold divorcer will betwixt them still ; 
 Wherefore he likens it to Styx' foul tide. 
 Where life grows death upon the other side. 
 
 Then sadly he confronts his two-fold toil 
 Against rude waves and an unwilling mind. 
 Wishing, alas 1 with the stout rower's toil. 
 That like a rower he might gaze behind, 
 And watch that lonely statue he hath left 
 On her bleak summit, weeping and bereft ! 
 
 Yet turning oft, he sees her troubled locks 
 Pursue him still the furthest that they may ; 
 Her marble arms that overstretch the rocks, 
 And her pale .passion' d hands that seem to pray 
 In dumb petition to the gods above : 
 LoVe prays devoutly when it prays for love ! 
 
 Then with deep sighs he blows away the wave. 
 That hangs superfltious tears upon his cheek. 
 And bans his labour like a hopeless slave. 
 That, chain'd in hostile galley, faint and weak, 
 Plies on despairing through the restless foam, 
 Thoughtful of his lost love, and far-ofi home. 
 
 XXII 
 
 The drowsy mist before him chill and dank. 
 
 Like a dull lethargy o'erleans the sea. 
 
 Where he rows on against the utter blank. 
 
 Steering as if to dim eternity,— ,30 
 
 Like Love's frail ghost departing with the dawn ; 
 
 A failing shadow in the twilight drawn. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 143 
 
 And soon is gone, — or nothing but a faint 
 And failing image in the eye of thought, 
 That mocks his model with an after-paint. 
 And stains an atom like the shape she sought ; 
 Then with her earnest vows she hopes to fee. 
 The old and hoary majesty of sea. 
 
 ' O King of waves, and brother of high Jove, 
 Preserve my sumless venture there afloat ; 
 A woman's heart, and its whole wealth of love, 
 Are all embark'd upon that little boat ; 
 Nay, but two loves, two lives, a double fate, 
 A perilous voyage for so dear a freight. 
 
 ' If impious mariners be stain'd with crime. 
 Shake not in awful rage thy hoary locks ; 
 Lay by thy storms until another time. 
 Lest my frail bark be dash'd against the rocks : 
 Or rather smooth thy deeps, that he may fly 
 Like Love himself, upon a seeming sky ! 
 
 ' Let all thy herded monsters sleep beneath. 
 
 Nor gore him with crook'd tusks, or wreathed horns ; 
 
 Let no fierce sharks destroy him with their teeth, 
 
 Nor spine-fish wound hinx with their venom'd thorns ; 
 
 But if he faint, and timely succour lack. 
 
 Let ruthful dolphins rest him on their back. 
 
 'Let no false dimpling whirlpools suck him in. 
 
 Nor slimy quicksands smother his sweet breath ; 
 
 Let no jagg'd corals tear his tender skin. 
 
 Nor mountain billows bury him in death ; ' — 160 
 
 And with that thought forestalling her own fears. 
 
 She drown'd his painted image in her tears. 
 
 By this, the climbing sun, with rest repair'd, 
 Look'd through the gold embrasures of the sky. 
 And ask'd the drowsy world how she had far'd ;- 
 The drowsy world shone brighten'd in reply ; 
 And smiling off her fogs, his slanting beam 
 Spied young Leander in the middle stream. 
 
H4 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 XXIX 
 
 His face was pallid, but the hectic morn 
 
 Had hung a lying crimson on his cheeks, 170 
 
 And slanderous sparkles in his eyes forlorn ; 
 
 So death lies ambush'd in consumptive streaks ; 
 
 But inward grief was writhing o'er its task, 
 
 As heart-sick jesters weep behind the mask. 
 
 He thought of Hero and the lost delight, 
 
 Her last embracings, and the space between ; 
 
 He thought of Hero and the future night, 
 
 Her speechless rapture and enamour'd mien, 
 
 When, lo ! before him, scarce two galleys' space. 
 
 His thought's confronted with another face ! 180 
 
 Her aspect 's like a moon divinely fair. 
 
 But makes the midnight darker that it lies on ; 
 
 'Tis so beclouded with her coal-black hair 
 
 That densely skirts her luminous horizon. 
 
 Making her doubly fair, thus darkly set. 
 
 As marble lies ad van tag' d upon jet. 
 
 She 's all too bright, too argent, and too pale. 
 
 To be a woman ; — but a woman's double. 
 
 Reflected on the wave so faint and frail, 
 
 She tops the billows like an air-blown bubble ; 
 
 Or dim creation of a morning dream, 
 
 Fair as the wave-bleach'd lily of the stream. 
 
 The very rumour strikes his seeing dead : 
 
 Great beauty like great fear first stuns the sense : 
 
 He knows not if her lips be blue or red, 
 
 Nor if her eyes can give true evidence : 
 
 Like murder's witness swooning in the court, 
 
 His sight falls senseless by its own report. 
 
 Anon resuming, it declares her eyes 
 Are tinct vrith azure, like two crystal wells 
 That drink the blue complexion of the skies, 
 Or pearls outpeeping from their silvery shells : 
 Her polish' d brow, it is an ample plain, 
 To lodge vast contemplations of the main. 
 
HERO. AND LEANDER 145 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Her lips might corals seem, but corals near, 
 
 Stray through her hair Uke blossoms on a bower ; 
 
 And o'er the weaker red still domineer, 
 
 And make it pale by tribute to more power ; 
 
 Her rounded cheeks are of still paler hue, 
 
 Touch'd by the bloom of water, tender blue. zio 
 
 Thus he beholds her rocking on the water, 
 Under the glossy umbrage of her hair, 
 Like pearly Amphitrite's fairest daughter 
 Naiad, or Nereid, — or Syren fair, 
 Mislodging music in her pitiless breast, 
 A nightingale within a falcon's nest. 
 
 They say there be such maidens in the deep. 
 Charming poor mariners, that all too near 
 By mortal lullabies fall dead asleep. 
 As drowsy men are poison'd through the ear ; 
 Therefore Leander's fears begin to urge. 
 This snowy swan is come to sing his dirge. 
 
 At which he falls into a deadly chill, 
 And strains his eyes upon her lips apart ; 
 Fearing each breath to feel that prelude shrill. 
 Pierce through his marrow, Uke a breath-blown dart 
 Shot sudden from an Indian's hollow cane. 
 With mortal venom fraught, and fiery pain. 
 
 Here then, poor wretch, how he begins to crowd 
 A thousand thoughts within a pulse's space ; 
 There seem'd so brief a pause of life allow'd, 
 His mind stretch'd universal, to embrace 
 The whole wide world, in an extreme farewell, — 
 A moment's musing — but an age to tell. 
 
 For there stood Hero, widow'd at a glance. 
 
 The foreseen sum of many a tedious fact. 
 
 Pale cheeks, dim eyes, and wither'd countenance, 
 
 A wasted ruin that no wasting lack'd ; 
 
 Time's tragic consequents ere time began, 
 
 A world of sorrow in a tear-drop's span. 
 
146 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 A moment's thinking, is an hour in words, — 
 An hour of words is little for some woes ; 
 Too little breathing a long life affords, 
 For love to paint itself by perfect shows ; 
 Then let his love and grief unwrong'd lie dumb, 
 Whilst Fear, and that it fears, together come. 
 
 As when the crew, hard by some jntty cape, 
 
 Struck pale and panick'd by the billows' roar, 
 
 Lay by all timely measures of escape. 
 
 And let their bark go driving on the shore ; Ho 
 
 So fray'd Leander, drifting to his wreck. 
 
 Gazing on Scylla, falls upon her neck. 
 
 For he hath all forgot the swimmer's art, 
 The rower's cunning, and the pilot's skill, 
 letting his arms fall down in languid part, 
 Sway'd by the waves, and nothing by his will- 
 Till soon he jars against that glossy skin, 
 Solid like glass, though seemingly as thin. 
 
 Lo ! how she startles at the warning shock, 
 And straight^yay girds him to her radiant breast. 
 More like his safe smooth harbour than his rock ; 
 Poor wretch, he is so faint and toil-opprest. 
 He cannot loose him from his grappling foe. 
 Whether for love or hate, she lets not go. 
 
 His eyes are blinded with the sleety brine, 
 
 His ears are deafen'd with the wildering noise ; 
 
 He asks the purpose of her fell design. 
 
 But foamy waves choke up his struggling voice ; 
 
 Under the ponderous sea his body dips. 
 
 And Hero's name dies bubbling on his lips. 270 
 
 Look how a man is lower' d to his grave ; 
 A yearning hollow in the green earth's lap ; 
 So he is sunk into the yawning wave, 
 The plunging sea fills up the watery gap ; 
 Anon he is all gone, and nothing seen.. 
 But likeness of green turf and hillocks green. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 147. 
 
 XL VII 
 
 And where he swam, the constant sun lies sleeping, 
 
 Over the verdant plain that makes his bed ; 
 
 And all the noisy waves go freshly leaping, 
 
 Like gamesome boys over the churchyard dead ; 280 
 
 The light in vain keeps looking for his face, 
 
 Now screaming sea-fowl settle in his place. 
 
 Yet weep and watch for him though all in vain ! 
 Ye moaning billows, seek him as ye wander ! 
 Ye gazing sunbeams, look for him again ! 
 Ye winds, grow hoarse with asking for Leander ! 
 Ye did but spare him for more cruel rape. 
 Sea-storm and ruin in a female shape ! 
 
 She says 'tis love hath bribed her to this deed. 
 The glancing of his eyes did so bewitch her, 
 O bootless theft ! unprofitable meed ! 
 Love's treasury is sack'd, but she no richer ; 
 The sparkles of his eyes are cold and dead. 
 And all his golden looks are turn'd to lead I 
 
 She holds the casket, but her simple hand 
 Hath spill'd its dearest jewel by the way ; 
 She hath life's empty garment at command, 
 But her own death lies covert in the prey ; 
 As if a thief should steal a tainted vest. 
 Some dead man's spoil, and sicken of his pest. 
 
 Now she compels him to her deeps below, 
 
 Hiding his face beneath her plenteous hair, 
 
 Which jealously she shakes all round her brow, 
 
 For dread of envy, though no eyes are there 
 
 But seals', and all brute tenants of the deep, 
 
 Which heedless through the wave their journeys keep. 
 
 Down and still downward through the dusky green 
 
 She bore him, murmuring with joyous haste 
 
 In too rash ignorance, as he had been 
 
 Born to the texture of that watery waste ; 
 
 That which she breath'd and sigh'd, the emerald wave, 
 
 How could her pleasant home become his grave ! 
 
148 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 LIII 
 
 Down and still downward through the dusky green 
 She bore her treasure, with a face too nigh 
 To mark how life was alter'd in its mien, 
 Or how the light grew torpid in his eye. 
 Or how his pearly breath unprison'd there, 
 Flew up to join the universal air. 
 
 LIV 
 
 She could not miss the throbbings of his heart. 
 
 Whilst her own pulse so wanton'd in its joy ; 320 
 
 She could not guess he struggled to depart, 
 
 And when he strove no more, the hapless boy ! 
 
 She read his mortal stillness for content, 
 
 Feeling no fear where only love was meant. 
 
 Soon she alights upon her ocean-floor. 
 
 And straight unyokes her arms from her fair prize ; 
 
 Then on his lovely face begins to pore. 
 
 As if to glut her soul ; — her hungry eyes 
 
 Have grown so jealous of her arms' delight ; 
 
 It seems, she hath no other sense but sight. 
 
 But O sad marvel ! O most bitter strange ! 
 What dismal magic makes his cheek so pale. 
 Why will he not embrace, — why not exchange 
 Her kindly kisses ; — wherefore not exhale 
 Some odorous message from life's ruby gates. 
 Where she his first sweet embassy awaits ? 
 
 Her eyes, poor watchers, fix'd upon his looks. 
 Are grappled with a wonder near to grief, 
 As one, who pores on undecypher'd books, 
 Strains vain surmise, and dodges with belief ; 
 So she keeps gazing with a mazy thought. 
 Framing a thousand doubts that end in nought. 
 
 Too stern inscription for a page so young, 
 The dark translation of his look was death 1 
 But death was written in an alien tongue, 
 And learning was not by to give it breath ; 
 So one deep woe sleeps buried in its seal, 
 Which Time, untimely, hasteth to reveal. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 149 
 
 LIX 
 
 Meanwhile she sits unconscious of her hap, 
 
 Nursing Death's marble effigy, which there 350 
 
 With heavy head lies pillow' d in her lap, 
 
 And elbows all unhinged ; — his sleeking hair 
 
 Creeps o'er her knees, and settles where his hand 
 
 Leans with lax fingers crook'd against the sand ; 
 
 And there lies spread in many an oozy trail, 
 
 Like glossy weeds hung from a chalky base. 
 
 That shows no whiter than his brow is pale; 
 
 So soon the wintry death had bleach'd his face 
 
 Into cold marble, — with blue chilly shades, 
 
 Shomng wherein the freezy blood pervades. 360 
 
 And o'er his steadfast cheek a furrow'd pain 
 Hath set, and stiffen' d like a storm in ice. 
 Showing by drooping lines the deadly strain 
 Of mortal anguish ; — yet you might gaze twice 
 Ere Death it seem'd, and not his cousin, Sleep, 
 That through those creviced lids did underpeep. 
 
 But all that tender bloom about his eyes. 
 
 Is death's own vi'lets, which his utmost rite 
 
 It is to scatter when the red rose dies ; 
 
 For blue is chilly, and akin to white : 370 
 
 Also he leaves some tinges on his lips. 
 
 Which he hath kiss'd with such cold frosty nips. 
 
 ' Surely,' quoth she, ' he sleeps, the senseless thing. 
 Oppress' d and faint with toiling in the stream I ' 
 Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing 
 So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream ; 
 Meanwhile, her lily fingers tasks to twine 
 His uncrispt locks uncurling in the brine. 
 
 ' O lovely boy ! ' — thus she attun'd her voice, — 
 
 ' Welcome, thrice welcome, to a sea-maid's home, 380 
 
 My love-mate thou shalt be, and true heart's choice ; 
 
 How have I long'd such a twin-self should come,-— 
 
 A lonely thing, till this sweet chance befel, 
 
 My heart kept sighing like a hoUow shell. 
 
ISO HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 LXV 
 
 ' Here thou shalt live, beneath this secret dome, 
 
 An ocean bow'r, defended by the shade 
 
 Of quiet waters ; a cool emerald gloom 
 
 To lap thee all about. Naiy, be not fray'd, 
 
 Those are but shady fishes that sail by 
 
 Like antic clouds across my liquid sky 1 
 
 ' Look how the sunbeam burns upon their scales. 
 And shows rich glimpses of their Tyrian skins, 
 They flash small lightnings from their vigorous tails, 
 And winking stars are kindled at their fins ; 
 These shall divert thee in thy weariest mood, 
 And seek thy hand for gamesomeness and food. 
 
 ' Lo ! those green pretty leaves with tassel bells, 
 My fiowrets those, that never pine for drowth ; ' 
 Myself did plant them in the dappled shells. 
 That drink the wave with such a rosy mouth, — 
 Pearls wouldst thou have beside ? crystals to shine ? 
 I had such treasures once,-^now they are thine. 
 
 ' Now, lay thine ear against this golden sand, 
 And thou shalt hear the music of the sea, 
 Those hollow tunes it plays against the land, — 
 Is't not a rich and wondrous melody ? 
 I have lain hours, and fancied in its tone 
 I heard the languages of ages gone 1 
 
 ' I too can sing when it shall please thy choice. 
 
 And breathe soft tunes through a melodious shell, 410 
 
 Though heretofore I have but set my voice 
 
 To some long sighs, grief harmonized, to tell 
 
 How desolate I fared ; — but this sweet change 
 
 Will add new notes of gladness to my range ! 
 
 ' Or bid me speak and I will tell thee tales. 
 
 Which I have framed out of the noise of waves; 
 
 Ere now, I have commun'd with senseless gales, 
 
 And held vain colloquies with barren caves ; 
 
 But I could talk to thee whole days and days. 
 
 Only to word my love a thousand ways. 42a 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 151 
 
 LXXI 
 
 ' But if thy lips will bless me with their speech, 
 Then ope, sweet oracles ! and I'll be mute ; 
 I was born ignorant for thee to teach. 
 Nay all love's lore to thy dear looks impute ; 
 Then ope thine eyes, fair teachers, by whose light 
 I saw to give away my heart aright ! ' 
 
 But cold and deaf the sullen creature lies, 
 
 Over her knees, and with concealing clay. 
 
 Like hoarding Avarice locks up his eyes, 
 
 And leaves the world impoverish'd of day ; 430 
 
 Then at his cruel lips she bends to plead, 
 
 But there the door is closed against her need. 
 
 Surely he sleeps, — so her false wits infer ! 
 Alas ! poor sluggard, ne'er to wake again ! 
 Surely he sleeps, yet without any stir 
 That might denote a vision in his brain ; 
 Or if he does not sleep, he feigns too long, 
 Twice she hath reach'd the ending of her song. 
 
 Therefore 'tis time she tells him to uncover 
 Those radiant jesters, and disperse her fears. 
 Whereby her April face is shaded over. 
 Like rainy clouds just ripe for .showering tears ; 
 Nay, if he will not wake, so poor she gets, 
 Herself must rob those lock'd up cabinets. 
 
 With that she stoops above his brow, and bids 
 
 Her busy hands forsake his tangled hair. 
 
 And tenderly lift up those cofifer-lids, 
 
 That she may gaze upon the jewels there. 
 
 Like babes that pluck an early bud apart. 
 
 To know the dainty colour of its heart. 4S0 
 
 Now, picture one, soft creeping to a bed. 
 Who slowly parts the fringe-hung canopies, 
 And then starts back to find the sleeper dead ; 
 So she looks in on his uncover'd eyes. 
 And seeing all within so drear and dark. 
 Her own bright soul dies in her like a spark. 
 
152 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 Backward she falls, like a pale prophetess, 
 
 Under the swoon of holy divination : * 
 
 And what had all surpass'd her simple guess, 
 
 She now resolves in this dark revelation ; 460 
 
 Death's very mystery, — oblivious death ; — 
 
 Long sleep, — deep night, and an entranced breath. 
 
 Yet life, though wounded sore, not wholly slain. 
 Merely obscur'd, and not extinguish'd, lies ; 
 Her breath that stood at ebb, soon flows, again, 
 Heaving her hollow breast with heavy sighs, 
 And light comes in and kindles up the gloom, 
 To light her spirit from its transient tomb. 
 
 Then like the sun, awaken'd at new dawn. 
 
 With pale bewilder'd face she peers about, 470 
 
 And spies blurr'd images obscurely drawn. 
 
 Uncertain shadows in a haze of doubt ; 
 
 But her true grief grows shapely by degrees, 
 
 A perish'd creature lying on her knees. 
 
 And now she knows how that old Murther preys, 
 
 Whose quarry on her lap lies newly slain ; 
 
 How he roams all abroad and grimly slays. 
 
 Like a lean tiger in Love's own domain ; 
 
 Parting from mates, — and oft in flowery lawns 
 
 Bereaves mild mothers of their milky fawns. 480 
 
 O too dear knowledge ! O pernicious earning ! 
 Foul curse engraven upon beauty's page ! 
 Ev'n now the sorrow of that deadly learning 
 Ploughs up her brow, like an untimely age. 
 And on her cheek stamps verdict of death's truth. 
 By canker blights upon the bud of youth 1 
 
 LXXXII 
 
 For as unwholesome winds decay the leaf. 
 
 So her cheeks' rose is perish'd by her sighs, 
 
 And withers in the sickly breath of grief ; 
 
 Whilst unacquainted rheum bedims her eyes, 490 
 
 Tears, virgin tears, the first that ever leapt 
 
 From those young lids, now plentifully wept. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 153 
 
 Whence being shed, the liquid crystalline 
 Drops straightway down, refusing to partake 
 In gross admixture with the baser brine. 
 But shrinks and hardens into pearls opaque, 
 Hereafter to be worn on arms and ears ; 
 So one maid's trophy is another's tears ! 
 
 ' O foul Arch-Shadow, thou old cloud of Night, 
 
 (Thus in her frenzy she began to wait,) 500 
 
 Thou blank oblivion — blotter out of light. 
 
 Life's ruthless murdeirer, and dear love's bale ! 
 
 Why hast thou left thy havoc incomplete. 
 
 Leaving me here, and slaying the more sweet ? 
 
 ' Lo ! what a lovely ruin thou hast made, 
 Alas I alas ! thou hast no eyes to see. 
 And blindly slew'st him in misguided shade. 
 Would I had lent my doting sense to thee ! 
 But now I turn to thee, a willing mark. 
 Thine arrows miss me in the aimless dark ! 
 
 ' O doubly cruel ! — twice misdoing spite. 
 
 But I will guide thee with my helping eyes, 
 
 Or walk the wide world through, devoid of sight, 
 
 Yet thou shalt know me by my many sighs. 
 
 Nay, then thou should'st have spared my rose, false Death, 
 
 And known Love's flow'r by smelling his sweet breath ; 
 
 ' Or, when thy furious rage was round him dealing, 
 
 Love should have grown from touching of his skin. 
 
 But like cold marble thou art all unfeeling. 
 
 And hast no ruddy springs of warmth within, S'o 
 
 And being but a shape of freezing bone. 
 
 Thy touching only turn'd my love to stone ! 
 
 ' And here, alas ! he lies across my knees. 
 With cheeks still colder than the stilly wave. 
 The light beneath his eyelids seems to freeze. 
 Here then, since Love is dead and lacks a grave, 
 O come and dig it in my sad heart's core — 
 That wound will bring a balsam for its sore ! 
 
154 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 LXXXIX 
 
 ' For art thou not a sleep where sense of ill, 
 
 Lies stingless, like a sense benurab'd with cold, 53o 
 
 Healing all hurts only with sleep's good will, 
 
 So shall I slumber, and perchance behold 
 
 My living love in dreams, — O happy night. 
 
 That lets me company his banished spright ! 
 
 ' O poppy Death ! — sweet poisoner of sleep I 
 
 Where shall I seek for thee, oblivious drug, 
 
 That I may steep thee in my drink, and creep 
 
 Out of life's coil. Look, Idol ! how I hug 
 
 Thy dainty image in this strict embrace. 
 
 And kiss this clay-cold model of thy face ! S4o 
 
 ' Put out, put out these sun-consuming lamps, 
 I do but read my sorrows by their shine, 
 O come and quench them with thy oozy damps. 
 And let my darkness intermix with thine ; 
 Since love is blinded, wherefore should I see. 
 Now love is death, — death will be love to me ! 
 
 ' Away, away, this vain complaining breath. 
 
 It does but stir the troubles that I weep, 
 
 Let it be hush'd and quieted, sweet Death, 
 
 The wind must settle ere the wave can sleep, — 550 
 
 Since love is silent, I would fain be mute, 
 
 O Death, be gracious to my dying suit ! ' 
 
 Thus far she pleads, but pleading nought avails her. 
 For Death, her sullen burthen, deigns no heed. 
 Then with dumb craving arms, since darkness fails her, 
 She prays to heav'n's fair light, as if her need 
 Inspir'd her there were Gods to pity pain. 
 Or end it, — but she lifts her arms in vain ! 
 
 Poor gilded Grief ! the subtle light by this 
 
 With mazy gold creeps through her watery mine, • 560 
 
 And, diving downward through the green abyss, 
 
 Lights up her palace with an amber shine ; 
 
 There, falling on her arms, — the crystal skin 
 
 Reveals the ruby tide that fares within. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 155 
 
 xcv 
 
 Look how the fulsome beam would hang a glory 
 
 On her dark hair, but the dark hairs repel it ; 
 
 Look how the perjur'd glow suborns a story 
 
 On her pale Ups, but hps refuse to tell it ; 
 
 Grief will not swerve from grief, however told 
 
 On coral lips, or character'd in gold ; 570 
 
 Or else, thou maid ! safe anchor'd on Love's neck, 
 Listing the hapless doom of young Leander, 
 Thou would'st not shed a tear for that old wreck, 
 Sitting secure where no wild surges wander ; 
 Whereas the woe moves on with tragic pace. 
 And shows its sad reflection in thy face. 
 
 xcvii 
 
 Thus having travell'd on, and track'd the tale 
 
 Like the true course of an old bas-relief, 
 
 Where Tragedy pursues her progress pale, 
 
 Brood here awhile upon that sea-maid's grief, 580 
 
 And take a deeper imprint from the frieze 
 
 Of that young Fate, with Death upon her knees. 
 
 Then whilst the melancholy muse withal 
 Resumes her music in a sadder tone. 
 Meanwhile the sunbeam strikes upon the wall. 
 Conceive that lovely siren to live on, 
 Ev'n as Hope whisper'd, the Promethean light 
 Would kindle up the dead Leander's spright. 
 
 "Tis light,' she says, 'that feeds the glittering stars. 
 And those were stars set in his heavenly brow. 
 But this salt.cloud, this cold sea-vapour, mars 
 Their radiant breathing, and obscures them now. 
 Therefore I'll lay him in the clear blue air, 
 And see.how these dull orbs will kindle there.' 
 
 Swiftly as dolphins glide, or swifter yet. 
 With dead Leander in her fond arms' fold. 
 She cleaves the meshes of that radiant net, 
 The sun hath twin'd above of liquid gold. 
 Nor .slacks, till on the margin of the land, 
 She lays his body on the glowing sand. 
 
iS6 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 There, like a pearly waif, just past the reach 
 Of foamy billows he lies cast. Just then, 
 Some listless fishers, straying down the beach, 
 Spy out this wonder. Thence the curious men, 
 Low crouching, creep into a thicket brake, 
 And watch her doings till their rude hearts ache. 
 
 First she begins to chafe him till she faints, 
 
 Then falls upon his mouth with kisses many, 
 
 And sometimes pauses in her own complaints 
 
 To list his breathing, but there is not any, — 6io 
 
 Then looks into his eyes where no light dwells, 
 
 Light makes no pictures in such muddy wells. 
 
 The hot sun parches his discover'd eyes. 
 
 The hot sun beats on his discolour'd limbs. 
 
 The sand is oozy whereupon he lies, 
 
 Soiling his fairness ; — then away she swims. 
 
 Meaning to gather him a daintier bed. 
 
 Plucking the cool fresh weeds, brown, green, and red. 
 
 But, simple-witted thief, while she dives under, 
 Another robs her of her amorous theft ; 
 The ambush'd fishermen creep forth to plunder, 
 And steal the unwatch'd treasure she has left ; 
 Only his void impression dints the sands ; 
 Leander is purloin' d by stealthy hands ! 
 
 Lo ! how she shudders off the beaded wave ! 
 
 Like Grief all over tears, and senseless falls. 
 
 His void imprint seems hoUow'd for her, grave, - - 
 
 Then, rising on her knees, looks round and calls 
 
 On Hero ! Hero ! having learn'd this name 
 
 Of his last breath, she calls him by the same. 630 
 
 Then with her frantic hands she rends her hairs. 
 And casts them forth, sad keepsakes to the wind. 
 As if in plucking those she pluck' d her cares ; 
 But grief lies deeper, and remains behind 
 Like a barb'd arrow, rankling in her brain. 
 Turning her very thoughts to throbs of pain. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 157 
 
 Anon her tangled locks are left alone, 
 
 And down upon the sand she meekly sits, 
 
 Hard by the foam as humble as a stone, 
 
 Like an enchanted maid beside her wits, 64a 
 
 That ponders with a look serene and tragic, 
 
 Stunn'd by the mighty mystery of magic. 
 
 Or think of Ariadne's utter trance, 
 
 Craz'd by the flight of that disloyal traitor. 
 
 Who left her gazing on the green expanse 
 
 That swallow'd up his track, — yet this would mate her, 
 
 Ev'n in the cloudy summit of her woe. 
 
 When o'er the far sea-brim she saw him, go. 
 
 For even so she bows, and bends her gaze 
 
 O'er the eternal waste, as if to sum 650 
 
 Its waves by weary thousands all her days, 
 
 Dismally doom'd ! meanwhile the billows come. 
 
 And coldly dabble with her quiet feet. 
 
 Like any bleaching stones they wont to greet. 
 
 And thence into her lap have boldly sprung. 
 
 Washing her weedy tresses to and fro. 
 
 That round her crouching knees have darkly hung. 
 
 But she sits careless of waves' ebb and flow. 
 
 Like a lone beacon on a desert coast. 
 
 Showing where all her hope was wreck' d and lost. 
 
 Yet whether in the sea or vaulted sky, 
 She knoweth not her love's abrupt resort. 
 So like a shape of dreams he left her eye, 
 Winking with doubt. Meanwhile, the churl's report 
 Has throng' d the beach with many a curious face, 
 That peeps upon her from its hiding place. 
 
 And here a head, and there a brow half seen. 
 
 Dodges behind a rock. Here on his hands, 
 
 A mariner his crumpled cheelts doth lean 
 
 Over a rugged crest. Another stands, 670 
 
 Holding his harmful arrow at the head, 
 
 Still check'd by human caution and strange dread. 
 
158 HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 CXIII 
 
 One stops his ears, — another dose beholder 
 
 Whispers unto the next his grave surmise ; 
 
 This crouches down, — and just above his shoulder, 
 
 A woman's pity saddens in her eyes. 
 
 And prompts her to befriend that lonely grief, 
 
 With all sweet helps of sisterly relief. 
 
 And down the sunny beach she paces slowly, 
 With many doubtful pauses by the way ; 
 Grief hath an influence so hush'd and holy — 
 Making her twice attempt, ere she can lay 
 Her hand upon that' sea-maid's shoulder white. 
 Which makes her startle up in wild affright. 
 
 And, like a seal, she leaps into the wave 
 
 That drowns the shrill remainder of her scream ; 
 
 Anon the sea fills up the watery cave, 
 
 And seals her exit with a foamy seam, — 
 
 Leaving those baffled gazers on the beach, 
 
 Turning in uncouth wonder each to each. 690 
 
 Some watch, some call, some see her head emerge, 
 Wherever a brown weed falls through the foam ; 
 Some point to white eruptions of the Surge : — 
 But she is vanish'd to her shady home, 
 Under the deep, inscrutable, — and there 
 Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair. 
 
 Now here, the sighing winds, before unheard. 
 
 Forth from their cloudy caves begin to blow, 
 
 Till all the surface of the deep is stirr'd. 
 
 Like to the panting grief it hides below ; 700 
 
 And heav'n is cover'd with a stormy rack. 
 
 Soiling the waters with its inky black. 
 
 The screaming fowl resigns her finny prey. 
 And labours shoreward with a bending wing. 
 Rowing against the wind her toilsome way ; 
 Meanwhile, the curling billows chafe, and fling 
 Their dewy frost still further on the stones, 
 That answer to the wind with hollow groans. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 159 
 
 CXIX 
 
 And here and there a fisher's far-off bark 
 
 Flies with the sun's last glimpse upon its sail, 710 
 
 Like a bright flame amid the waters dark, 
 
 Watch'd with the hope and fear of maidens pale ; 
 
 And anxious mothers that upturn their brows, 
 
 Freighting the gusty wind with frequent vows. 
 
 For that the horrid deep has no sure brack 
 
 To guide love safe into his homely haven. 
 
 And lo ! the storm grows blacker in its wrath, 
 
 O'er the dark billow brooding like a raven. 
 
 That bodes of death and widow's sorrowing, 
 
 Under the dusky covering of his wing. 720 
 
 And so day ended. But no vesper spark 
 Hung forth its heavenly sign ; but sheets of flame 
 Play'd round the savage features of the dark. 
 Making night horrible. That night, there came 
 A weeping maiden to high Sestos' steep. 
 And tore her hair and gaz'd upon the deep. 
 
 And wav'd aloft her bright and ruddy torch. 
 
 Whose flame the boastful wind so rudely fann'd, 
 
 That oft it would recoil, and basely scorch 
 
 The tender covert of her sheltering hand ; 730 
 
 Which yet, for love's dear sake, disdain'd retire, 
 
 And, like a glorying martyr, brav'd the fire. 
 
 For that was love's own sign and beacon guide 
 Across the Hellespont's wide weary space, 
 Wherein he nightly struggled with the tide ; 
 Look what a red it forges on her face, 
 As if she blush'd at holding such a light, 
 Ev'n in the unseen presence of the night ! 
 
 Whereas her tragic cheek is truly pale, 
 
 And colder than the rude and ruffian air 740 
 
 That howls into her ear a horrid tale 
 
 Of storm, and wreck, and uttermost despair. 
 
 Saying, ' Leander floats amid the surge. 
 
 And those are dismal waves that sing his dirge.' 
 
i6o HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 And hark ! — a grieving voice, trembling and faint, 
 
 Blends with the hollow sobbings of the sea ; 
 
 Like the sad music of a siren's plaint, 
 
 But shriller than Leander's voice should be. 
 
 Unless the wintry death had changed its tone, — 
 
 Wherefore she thinks she hears his spirit moan. 750 
 
 For now, upon each brief and breathless pause. 
 Made by the raging winds, it plainly calls 
 On Hero ! Hero ! — whereupon she draws 
 Close to the dizzy brink, that ne'er appals 
 Her brave and constant spirit to recoil. 
 However the wild billows toss and toil. 
 
 ' Oh ! dost thou live under the deep deep sea ? 
 
 I thought such love as thine could never die ; 
 
 If thou hast gain'd an immortality, 
 
 From the kind pitying sea-god, so will I ; 760 
 
 And this false cruel tide that used to sever 
 
 Our hearts, shall be our common home for ever ! 
 
 'There we will sit and sport upon one billow. 
 And sing our ocean ditties all the day. 
 And lie together on the same green pillow, 
 That curls above us with its dewy spray ; 
 And ever in one presence live and dwell, 
 Like two twin pearls within the selfsame shell.' 
 
 One moment, then, upon the dizzy verge 
 
 She stands ; — with face upturn'd against the sky ; 770 
 
 A moment more, upon the foamy surge 
 
 She gazes, with a calm despairing eye ; 
 
 Feeling that awful pause of blood and breath 
 
 Which life endures when it confronts with death ; — 
 
 Then from the giddy steep she madly springs, 
 
 Grasping her maiden robes, that vainly kept 
 
 Panting abroad, like unavailing wings, 
 
 To save her from her death. — The sea-maid wept, 
 
 And in a crystal cave her corse enshrin'd. 
 
 No meaner sepulchre should Hero find ! 780 
 
i6i 
 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 
 
 FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS 
 
 To J. H. Reynolds, Esq. 
 
 My dear Reynolds, — 
 You will remember ' Lycus.' — It was written in the pleasant spring-time of our 
 friendship, and I am glad to maintain that association by connecting your name with 
 the Poem. It will gratify me to find that you regard It with the old partiality for the 
 writings of each other, which prevailed in those days. For my own sake, I must regret 
 that your pen goes now into far other records than those which used to delight me. 
 
 Your true Friend and Brother, 
 
 T. Hood. 
 THE ARGUMENT 
 
 Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water Nymph, 
 who desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives her 
 an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse ; but the horrible 
 effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur. 
 
 Who hath ever been lured- and bound by a spell 
 
 To wander, fore-doom'd, in that circle of hell 
 
 Where Witchery works with her will like a god, 
 
 Works more than the wonders of time at a, nod, — 
 
 At a word, — at a touch, — at a flash of the eye. 
 
 But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie, 
 
 Things born of a wish — to endure for a thought. 
 
 Or last for long ages — to vanish to nought, 
 
 Or put on new semblance ? O Jove, I had given 
 
 The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven, lo 
 
 And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether 
 
 They kept the world's birth-day and brighten'd together ! 
 
 For I lov'd them in terror, and constantly dreaded 
 
 That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded, 
 
 The face I might dote on, should live out £he lease 
 
 Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease : 
 
 And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream 
 
 To another — each horrid — and drank of the stream 
 
 Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaft'd 
 
 Swift poison, and never should breathe from the draught, — 20 
 
 Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up 
 
 When he pledg'd her, and Fate clos'd his eyes in the cup. 
 
 And I pluck' d of the fruit with held breath, and a fear 
 
 That the branch would start back and scream out in my ear ; 
 
 For once, at my suppering, I pluck'd in the dusk 
 
 An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk ; 
 
 But by daylight my Angers were crimson'd with gore. 
 
 And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core ; 
 
 And once — only once — for the love of its blush, 
 
 G 
 
i63 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 
 
 I broke a bloom bough, but there came such a gush 30 
 
 On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright. 
 
 While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the sight ; 
 
 And oh ! such an agony thrill'd in that note. 
 
 That my soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat, 
 
 As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand 
 
 Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd ! 
 
 There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee, 
 As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree, — 
 Oh ! for innocent death, — and to suddenly win it, 
 I drank of the stream, Isut no poison was in it ; 40 
 
 I plung'd in its waters, but ere I could sink. 
 Some invisible fate puU'd me back to the brink ; 
 I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height, 
 But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight ; 
 I ran at my fears — they were fears and no more, ' 
 For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar. 
 But moan'd, — all their brutaliz'd flesh could not smother, 
 The horrible truth, — we were kin to each other ! 
 
 They were mournfully gentle, and group'd for relief, 
 All foes in their skin, but all friends in their grief : 50 
 
 The leopard was there, — baby-mild in its feature ; 
 And the tiger, black barr'd, with the gaze of a creature 
 That knew gentle pity ; the bristle-back' d boar. 
 His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore ; 
 And the laughing hyena — ^but laughing no more ; 
 And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise 
 Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes ; 
 The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine 
 Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine ; 
 
 And the elephant stately, with more than its reason, «o 
 
 How thoughtful in sadness ! but this is no reason 
 To reckon them up from the lag-bellied toad 
 To the mammoth,, whose sobs shook his ponderous load. 
 There were woes of all shapes, wretched forms, when I came, 
 That hung down their heads with a human-like shame ; 
 The elephant hid in the boughs, and the bear 
 Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair ; 
 And the womanly soul turning sick with disgust, 
 Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crust ; 
 While all groan'd their groans into one at their lot, 70 
 
 As I brought them the image of what they were not. 
 
 Then rose a wild sound of the human voice choking 
 Through vile brutal organs — ^low tremulous croaking ; 
 Cries swallow'd abruptly — deep animal tones 
 Attun'd to strange passion, and full-uttD:'d groans ; 
 All shuddering weaker, till hush'd in a pause 
 Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yearning jaws ; 
 
LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 163 
 
 And I guess'd that those horrors were meant to tell o'er 
 
 The tale of their woes ; but the silence told more 
 
 That writhed on their tongues ; and I knelt on the sod, 80 
 
 And pray'd with my voice to the cloud-stirring God, 
 
 For the sad congregation of supplicants there, 
 
 That upturn'd to his heaven brute faces of prayer ; 
 
 And I ceased, and they utter'd a moaning so deep. 
 
 That I wept for my heart-ease, — but they could not weep. 
 
 And gazed with red eye-balls, all wistfully dry. 
 
 At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye. 
 
 Then I motion'd them round, and, to soothe their distress, 
 
 1 caress'd, and they bent them to meet my caress, 
 
 Their necks to my arm, and their heads to my palm, 90 
 
 And with poor grateful eyes suffer'd meekly and calm 
 
 Those tokens of kindness, withheld by hard fate 
 
 From returns that might chill the warm pity to hate ; 
 
 So they passively bow'd — save the serpent, that leapt 
 
 To my breast like a, sister, and pressingly crept 
 
 In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses blister'd 
 
 My lips in rash love, — then drew backward, and glister'd 
 
 Her eyes in my face, and loud hissing affright, 
 
 Dropt down, and swift started away from my sight ! 
 
 This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot, loo 
 
 Turn'd brute in my soul, though my body was not 
 When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces, 
 That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places, 
 And dash'd off bright tears, till their fingers were wet. 
 And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet : 
 But I fled — though they stretch'd out their hands, all entangled 
 With hair, and blood-stain'd of the breasts they had mangled, — 
 Though they call'd — and perchance but to ask, had I seen 
 Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been : 
 But I stay'd not to hear, lest the story should hold no 
 
 Some hell-form of words, some enchantment once told, 
 Might translate me in flesh to a brute ; and I dreaded 
 To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded 
 With some pity, — and love in that pity perchance — 
 To a thing not all lovely ; for once at a glance 
 Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder 
 That flow'd like a long silver rivulet under 
 The long fenny grass, with so lovely a breast. 
 Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest ? 
 
 So I roam'd in that circle of horrors, and Fear 120 
 
 Walk'd with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near 
 Cluster'd trees for their gloom — not to shelter from heat- 
 But lest a brute-shadow should grow at my feet ; 
 And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place. 
 Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face. 
 
i64 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 
 
 In the horrible likeness of demons, (that none 
 
 Could see, like invisible flames in the sun ;) 
 
 But grew to one monster that seized on the light, 
 
 Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night ; 
 
 Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the South ; 130 
 
 Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth 
 
 Engenders of slime in the land of the pest, 
 
 Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West, 
 
 Bringing Night on their wings ; and the bodies wherein 
 
 Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin. 
 
 Many -handed, that blent in one phantom of fight 
 
 Like a Titan, and threatfuUy warr'd with the light ; 
 
 I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close. 
 
 When they rush'd on that shadowy Python of foes ; 
 
 That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws, 140 
 
 With flapping of wiiigs, and fierce grasping of claws. 
 
 And whirls of long tails : — I have seen the quick flutter 
 
 Of fragments dissever'd,^-and necks stretch'd to utter 
 
 Long screamings of pain, — the swift motion of blows, 
 
 And wrestling of arms — to the flight at the close. 
 
 When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings. 
 
 And flew on the whirlwind that foUow'd their wings. 
 
 Thus they fled — not forgotten — but often to grow 
 Like fears in ray eyes, when I walk'd to and fro 
 In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen i3» 
 
 The warm touch of kisses, but clean oir unclean 
 I knew not, nor whether the love I had won 
 Was of heaven or hell — till one day in the sun. 
 In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing 
 Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling 
 On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky. 
 Half-seen and half-dream.'d in the soul of his eye. 
 And when in my musings I gaz'd on the stream, 
 In motionless trances of thought, there would seem 
 A face like that face, looking upward through mine ; 160 
 
 With its eyes full of love, and the dim-drowned shine 
 Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that blue 
 Serene : — there I stood for long hours but to view 
 Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted 
 Towards me, and wink'd as the water-weed drifted 
 Between ; but the fish knew that presence, and plied 
 Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside. 
 
 Three I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things 
 
 That once had been wonders — the fishes with wings, 
 
 And the glimmer of magnified eyes that look'd up 170 
 
 From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup. 
 
 And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam. 
 
 Slow winding along like a tide in the stream. 
 
LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 165 
 
 Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, methought 
 
 Held me dear in the pearl of her eye — and I brought 
 
 My wish to that fancy ; and often I dash'd 
 
 My limbs in the water, and suddenly splash'd 
 
 The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink, 
 
 Chill'd by watery fears, how that Beauty might sink 
 
 With my life in her arms to her garden, and bind me i8a 
 
 With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me 
 
 In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear, 
 
 Like a spider-caught bee, — and in aid of that fear 
 
 Came the tardy remembrance — Oh falsest of men ! 
 
 Why was not that beauty remember'd till then ? 
 
 My love, my safe love, whose glad life would have run 
 
 Into mine — like a drop — that our fate might be one, 
 
 That now, even now, — may-be, — clasp'd in a dream, 
 
 That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream, 
 
 And gaz'd with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother 190 
 
 On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another ! 
 
 Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of my mind, 
 Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind 
 On her crystalline iace, while I painfully leapt 
 To the bank, and shook off the curst waters, and wept 
 With my brow in the reeds ; and the reeds to my ear 
 Bow'd, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear. 
 Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one 
 That loved me, — but oh to fly from her, and shun 
 Her love like a pest — though her love was as true zoo 
 
 To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue ; 
 For why should I love her with love that would bring 
 All misfortune, like Hate, on so joyous a thing ? 
 Because of her rival, — even Her whose witch-face 
 I had slighted, and therefore was doom'd in that place 
 To roam, and had roam'd, where all horrors grew rank. 
 Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank ; 
 Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail 
 To our love like a blight ; and they told me the tale 
 Of Scylla, and Picus, imprison'd to speak 210 
 
 His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's beak. 
 
 Then they ceased — I had heard as the voice of my star 
 That told me the truth of my fortunes — thus far 
 I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush 
 Of deep meditation, — when lo ! a light crush 
 Of the reeds, and I turn'd and look'd round in the night 
 Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipp'd of the light 
 Narrow-winking, the realized nymph of the stream, 
 Rising up from the wave with the bend and the gleam 
 Of a fountain, and o'er her white arms she kept throwing 220 
 
 Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and flowing 
 
166 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 
 
 In falls to her feet, and the blue waters roU'd 
 
 Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold. 
 
 Sun-spangled, gold-broider'd, and fled far behind, 
 
 Like an infinite train. So she came and reclin'd 
 
 In the reeds, and I hunger'd to see her unseal 
 
 The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal 
 
 The blue that was in them ; and they ope'd, and she rais'd 
 
 Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed 
 
 With her eyes on my eyes ; but their colour and shine 230 
 
 Was of that which they look'd on, and mostly of mine — 
 
 For she loved me, — except when she blush'd, and they sank, 
 
 Shame-humbled, to number the stones on the bank. 
 
 Or her play-idle fingers, while lisping she told me 
 
 How she put on her veil, and in love to behold me. 
 
 Would wing through the sun till she fainted away 
 
 Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay 
 
 In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eyes 
 
 In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies. 
 
 But now they were heal'd, — O my heart, it still dances 240 
 
 When I think of the charm of her changeable glances, 
 
 And my image how small when it sank in the deep 
 
 Of her eyes where her soul was, — Alas ! now they weep. 
 
 And none knoweth where. In what stream do her eyes 
 
 Shed invisible tears ? Who beholds where her sighs 
 
 Flow in eddies, or sees the ascent of the leaf 
 
 She has pluck'd with her tresses ? Who listens her grief 
 
 Like a far fall of waters, or hears where her feet 
 
 Grow emphatic among the loose pebbles, and beat 
 
 Them together ? Ah ! surely her flowers float adown 250 
 
 To the sea unaccepted, and little ones drown 
 
 For need of her mercy, — even he whose twin-brother 
 
 Will miss him for ever ; and the sorrowful mother 
 
 Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss 
 
 And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is. 
 
 Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain ! 
 
 We loved, — how we loved ! — for I thought not again 
 
 Of the woes that were whisper'd like fears in that place 
 
 If I gave me to beauty. Her face was the face 
 
 Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that were drown'd 260 
 
 For my absence, — her arms were the arms that sought round, 
 
 And clasp'd me to nought ; for I gazed and became 
 
 Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name 
 
 For two loves, and called ever on /Egle, sweet maid 
 
 Of the sky-loving waters, — and was not afraid 
 
 Of the sight of her skin ; — for it never could be, 
 
 Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me ! 
 
 Thus our bliss had endured for a time-shorten'd space. 
 Like a day made of three, and the smile of her face 
 Had been with me for joy, — when she told me indeed 270 
 
 Her love was self-task'd with a work that would need 
 
LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 167 
 
 Some short hours, for in truth 'twas the veriest pity 
 
 Our love should not last, and then sang me a, ditty, 
 
 Of one with warm lips that should love her, and love her 
 
 When suns were burnt dim and long ages past over. 
 
 So she fled with her voice, and I patiently nested 
 
 My limbs in the reeds, in still quiet, and rested 
 
 Till my thoughts grew extinct, and I sank in a sleep 
 
 Of dreams, — but their meaning was hidden too deep 
 
 To be read what their woe was ; — but still it was woe 280 
 
 That was writ on all faces that swam to and fro 
 
 In that river of night ; — and the gaze of their eyes 
 
 Was sad,^ — and the bend of their brows, — and their cries 
 
 Were seen, but I heard not. The warm touch of tears 
 
 Travell'd down my cold cheeks, and I shook till my fears 
 
 Awaked me, and lo ! I was couch'd in a bower, 
 
 The growth of long summers rear'd up in an hour ! 
 
 Then I said, in the fear of my dream, I will fly 
 
 From this magic, but could not, because that my eye 
 
 Grew love-idle among the rich blooms ; and the earth 290 
 
 Held me down with its coolness of touch, and the mirth 
 
 Of some bird was above me, — who, even in fear, 
 
 Would startle the thrush ? and methought there drew near 
 
 A form as of ^gle, — but it was not the face 
 
 Hope made, and I knew the witch-Queen of that place. 
 
 Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a Death 
 
 Which I fear'd, and yet fled not, for want of my breath. 
 
 There was thought in her face, and her eyes were not raised 
 
 From the grass at her foot, but I saw, as I gazed. 
 
 Her spite — and her countenance changed with her mind 300 
 
 As she plann'd how to thrall- me with beauty, and bind 
 
 My soul to her charms, — and her long tresses play'd 
 
 From shade into shine and from shine into shade, 
 
 Like a day in mid-autumn, — first fair, O how fair ! 
 
 With long snaky locks of the adderblack hair 
 
 That clung round her neck, — those dark locks that I prize. 
 
 For the sake of a maid that once loved me with eyes 
 
 Of that fathomless hue, — but they changed as they roU'd, 
 
 Andbrighten'd, and suddenly blazed into gold 
 
 That she comb'd into flames, and the locks that fell down 310 
 
 Turn'd dark as they fell, but I slighted their brown, 
 
 Nor loved, till I saw the light ringlets shed wild, 
 
 That innocence wears when she is but a child ; 
 
 And her eyes, — O I ne'er had been witch'd with their shine. 
 
 Had they been any other, my Mf(le, than thine ! 
 
 Then I gave me to magic, and gazed till I madden'd 
 In the full of their light, — but I sadden'd and sadden'd 
 The deeper I look'd,— till I sank on the snow 
 Of her bosom, a thing made of terror and woe. 
 
 And answer'd its throb with the shudder of fears, 3^ 
 
 And hid my cold eyes from her eyes with my tears, 
 
1 68 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 
 
 And strain'd her white arms with the still languid weight 
 
 Of a fainting distress. There she sat like the Fate 
 
 That is nurse unto Death, and bent over in shame 
 
 To hide me from her— the true ^gle— that came 
 
 With the words on her lips the false witch had foregiv'n 
 
 To make me immortal — for now I was even 
 
 At the portals of Death, who but waited the hush 
 
 Of world-sounds in my ear to cry welcome, and rush 
 
 With my soul to the banks of his black-flowing river. 330 
 
 would it had flown from my body for ever, 
 
 Ere I hsten'd those words, when I felt with a start, 
 
 The life blood rush back in one throb to my heart. 
 
 And saw the pale lips where the rest of that spell 
 
 Had perish'd in horror — and heard the farewell 
 
 Of that voice that was drown' d in the dash of the stream ! 
 
 How fain had I foUow'd, and plunged with that scream 
 
 Into death, but my being indignantly lagg'd 
 
 Through the brutalized flesh that I painfully dragg'd 
 
 Behind me : — ' O Circe ! O mother of Spite I 340 
 
 Speak the last of that curse ! and imprison me quite 
 
 In the husk of a brute, — that no pity may name 
 
 The man that I was, — that no kindred may claim 
 
 The monster I am ! Let me utterly be 
 
 Brute-buried, and Nature's dishonour with me 
 
 Uninscribed ! ' — But she listen'd my prayer, that was praise 
 
 To her malice, with smiles, and advised me to gaze 
 
 On the river for love,^ — and perchance she would make 
 
 In pity a maid without eyes for my sake. 
 
 And she left me like Scorn. Then I ask'd of the wave, 35" 
 
 What monster I was, and it trembled and gave 
 
 The true shape of my grief, and I turn'd with my face 
 
 From all waters for ever, and fled through that place. 
 
 Till with horror more strong than all magic I pass'd 
 
 Its bounds, and the world was before me at last. 
 
 There I wander'd in sorrow, and shunn'd the abodes 
 Of men, that stood up in the likeness of Gods, 
 But I saw from afar the warm shine of the sun 
 On their cities, where man was a million, not one ; 
 And I saw the white smoke of their altars ascending, 360 
 
 That show'd where the hearts of the many were blending. 
 And the wind in my face brought shrill voices that came 
 From the trumpets that gather'd whole bands in one fame 
 As a chorus of man, — and they stream'd from the gates 
 Like a dusky libation pour'd out to the Fates. 
 But at times there were gentler processions of peace 
 That I watch'd with my soul in my eyes till their cease. 
 There were women ! there men I but to me a third sex 
 
 1 saw them all dots — yet I loved them as specks : 
 
 And oft to assuage a sad yearning of eyes 370 
 
 I stole near the city, but stole covert-wise 
 
LYCUS, THE CENTAUR 169 
 
 Like a, wild beast of love, and perchance to be smitten 
 
 By some hand that I rather had wept on than bitten ! 
 
 Oh, I once had a haunt near a cot where a mother 
 
 Daily sat in the shade with her child, and would smother 
 
 Its eyelids in kisses, and then in its sleep 
 
 Sang dreams in its ear of its manhood, while deep 
 
 In a thicket of willows I gazed o'er the brooks 
 
 That murmur'd between us and kiss'd them with looks ; * 
 
 But the willows unbosom'd their secret, and never 380 
 
 I retam'd to a spot I had startled for ever, 
 
 Though I oft long'd to know, but could ask it of none. 
 
 Was the mother still fair, and how big was her son ?■ 
 
 For the haunters of fields they all shunn'd me by flight, 
 The men in their horror, the women in fright; 
 None ever remain'd save a child once that sported 
 Among the wild bluebells, and playfully courted 
 The breeze ; and beside him a speckled snake lay 
 Tight strangled, because it had hiss'd him away 
 From the flow'r at his finger ; he rose and drew near 390 
 
 Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear. 
 But with strength of black locks and with eyes azure bright 
 To grow to large manhood of merciful might. 
 He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel 
 The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel. 
 And question'd my face with wide eyes ; but when under 
 My lids he saw tears, — for I wept at his wonder. 
 He stroked me, and utter'd such kindliness then. 
 That the once love of women, the friendship of men 
 In past sorrow, no kindness e'er came like a kiss 400 
 
 On my heart in its desolate day such as this ! 
 And I yearn'd at his cheeks in my love, and down bent, 
 And lifted him up in my arms with intent 
 To kiss him, — but he cruel-kindly, alas ! 
 Held out to my lips a pluck'd handful of grass ! 
 Then I dropt him in horror, but felt as I fled 
 The stone he indignantly hurl'd at my head. 
 That dissever'd ray ear, — but I felt not, whose fate 
 Was to meet more distress in his love than his hate ! 
 
 Thus I wander'd, companion'd of grief and forlorn, ^'o 
 
 Till I wish'd for that land where my being was born, 
 But what was that land with its love, where my home 
 Was self-shut against me ; for why should I come 
 Like an after-distress to my grey-bearded father, 
 With a blight to the last of his sight ?— let him rather 
 Lament for me dead, and shed tears in the urn 
 Where I was not, and still in fond memory turn 
 To his son even such as he left him. Oh, how 
 Could I walk with the youth once my fellows, but now 
 
 G3 
 
170 LYCUS. THE CENTAUR 
 
 Like Gods to my humbled estate ?— or how bear 420 
 
 The steeds once the pride of my eyes and the care 
 
 Of my hands ? Then I turn'd me self-banish'd, and came 
 
 Into Thessaly here, where I met with the same 
 
 As myself. I have heard how they met by a stream 
 
 In games, and were suddenly changed by a scream 
 
 That made wretches of many, as she roU'd her wild eyes 
 
 Against heav'n, and so vanish'd. — The gentle and wise 
 
 Lose their thoughts in deep studies, and others their ill 
 
 In the mirth of mankind where they mingle them still. 
 
 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT 
 
 Alas ! that breathing Vanity should go 
 Where Pride is buried,^like its very ghost, 
 
 Uprisen from the naked bones below. 
 In novel flesh, clad in the silent boast 
 
 Of gaudy silk that flutters to and fro. 
 Shedding its chilling superstition most 
 
 On young and ignorant natures — as it wont 
 
 To haunt the peaceful churchyard of Bedfont ! 
 
 Each Sabbath morning, at the hour of prayer, 
 Behold two maidens, up the quiet green 
 
 Shining, far distant, in the summer air 
 
 That flaunts their dewy robes and breathes between 
 
 Their downy plumes, — sailing. as if they were 
 Two far-off ships, — until they brush between 
 
 The churchyard's humble walls, and watch and wait 
 
 On either side of the wide open'd gate. 
 
 And there they stand — with haughty necks before 
 
 God's holy house, that points towards the skies- 
 Frowning reluctant duty from the poor, 
 
 And tempting homage from unthoughtful eyes : 
 And Youth looks lingeriiig from the temple door. 
 
 Breathing its wishes in unfruitful sighs. 
 With pouting lips, — forgetful of the grace. 
 Of health, and smiles, on the heart-conscious face ;- 
 
 Because that Wealth, which has no bliss beside, 
 May wear the happiness of rich attire ; 
 
THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT 171 
 
 And those two sisters, in their silly pride, 
 
 May change the soul's warm glances for the fire 
 
 Of lifeless diamonds ; — and for health deny'd, — 
 
 With art, that blushes at itself, inspire 30 
 
 Their languid cheeks — and flourish in a glory 
 
 That has no life in life, nor after-story. 
 
 The aged priest goes shaking his grey hair 
 
 In meekest censuring, and turns his eye 
 Earthward in grief, and heavenward in pray'r. 
 
 And sighs, and clasps his hands, and passes by.' 
 Good-hearted man ! what sullen soul would wear 
 
 Thy sorrow for a garb, and constantly 
 Put on thy censure, that might win the praise 
 Of one so grey in goodness and in days ? 40 
 
 Also the solemn clerk partakes the shame 
 Of this ungodly shine of human pride, 
 
 And sadly blends his reverence and blame 
 In one grave bow, and passes with a stride 
 
 Impatient : — many, a red-)iooded dame 
 
 Turns her pain'd head, but not her glance, aside 
 
 From wanton dress, and marvels o'er again. 
 
 That heaven hath no wet judgments for the vain, 
 
 ' I have a lily in the bloom at home,' 
 
 Quoth one, ' and by the blessed Sabbath day so 
 
 I'll pluck my lily in its pride, and come 
 
 And read a lesson upon vain array ; — 
 And when stifif silks are rustling up, and some 
 
 Give place, I'll shake it in proud eyes and say-^ 
 Making my reverence, — " Ladies, an' you please, 
 King Solomon's not half so fine as these." ' 
 
 Then her meek partner, who has nearly run 
 
 His earthly course,—' Nay, Goody, let your text 
 
 Grow in the garden. — We have only one — 
 
 Who knows that these dim eyes may see the next ? 60 
 
 Summer will come, again, and suinmer sun, 
 And lilies too,— but I were sorely vext 
 
 To mar my garden, and cut short the blow 
 
 Of the last lily I may live to grow.' 
 
173 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT 
 
 IX 
 
 ' The last ! ' quoth she, ' and though the last it were— 
 Lo ! those two wantons, where they stand so proud 
 
 With waving plumes, and jewels in their hair. 
 And painted clieeks, like Dagons to be bow'd 
 
 And curtsey'd to !— last Sabbath after pray'r, 
 
 I heard the little Tomkins ask aloud 70 
 
 If they were angels— but I made him know 
 
 God's bright ones better, with a bitter blow ! ' 
 
 X 
 
 So speaking, they pursue the pebbly walk 
 That leads to the white porch the Sunday throng, 
 
 Hand-coupled urchins in restrained talk, 
 
 And anxious pedagogue that chastens wrong, 
 
 And posied churchwarden with solemn stalk, 
 And gold-bedizen'd beadle flames along. 
 
 And gentle peasant clad in bufi and green. 
 
 Like a meek cowslip in the spring serene ; 80 
 
 XI 
 
 And blushing niaiden — ^modestly array'd 
 
 In spotless white, — still conscious of the glass ; 
 
 And she, the lonely widow, that hath made 
 A sable covenant with grief, — alas! 
 
 She veils her tears under th6 deep, deep shade. 
 While the poor kindly-hearted, as they pass. 
 
 Bend to unclouded childhood, and caress 
 
 Her boy, — so rosy ! — and so fatherless ! 
 
 Thus, as good Christians ought, they all draw near 
 
 The fair white temple to the timely call 90 
 
 Of pleasant bells that tremble in the ear. — 
 
 Now the last frock, and scarlet hood, and shawl 
 
 Fade into dusk, in the dim atmosphere 
 
 Of the low porch, and heav'n has won them all, 
 
 — Saving those two, that turn aside and pass 
 
 In velvet blossom, where all flesh is grass. 
 
 Ah me ! to see their silken manors trail'd 
 In purple luxuries; — with restless gold, — 
 
 Flaunting the grass where widowhood has wail'd 
 In blotted black, — over the heapy mould 
 
 Panting wave-wantonly ! They never quail' d 
 How the warm vanity abused the cold ; 
 
 Nor saw the solemn faces of the gone 
 
 Sadly uplooking through transparent stone : 
 
THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT 173 
 
 But swept their dwellings with unquiet light, 
 Shocking the awful presence of the dead ; 
 
 Where gracious natures would their eyes benight, 
 Nor wear their being with a, lip too red, 
 
 Nor move too rudely in the summer bright 
 Of sun, but put staid sorrow in their tread. 
 
 Meting it into steps, with inward breath. 
 
 In very pity to bereaved death. 
 
 Now in the church, time-sober'd minds resign 
 To solemn pray'r, and the loud chaunted hymn,- 
 
 With glowing picturings of joys divine 
 Painting the mistlight where the roof is dim ; 
 
 But youth looks upward to the window shine. 
 Warming with rose and purple and the swim 
 
 Of gold, as if thought-tinted by the stains 
 
 Of gorgeous light through many-colour'd panes ; 
 
 Soiling the virgin snow wherein God hath 
 Enrobed his angels, — and with absent eyes 
 
 Hearing of Heav'n, and its directed path. 
 
 Thoughtful of slippers, — and the glorious skies 
 
 Clouding with satin, — till the preacher's wrath 
 Consumes his pity, and he glows and cries. 
 
 With a deep voice that trembles in its might. 
 
 And earnest eyes grown eloquent in light : 
 
 ' O that the vacant eye would learn to look 
 On very beauty, and the heart embrace 
 
 True loveliness, and from this holy book 
 
 Drink the warm-breathing tenderness and grace 
 
 Of love indeed ! O that the young soul took 
 Its virgin passion from the glorious face 
 
 Of fair religion, and address'd its strife. 
 
 To win the riches of eternal life ! 
 
 ' Doth the vain heart love glory thar is none, 
 
 And the poor excellence of vain attire ? 
 O go, and drown your eyes against the sun. 
 
 The visible ruler of the starry quire, H" 
 
 Till boiling gold in giddy eddies run. 
 
 Dazzling the brain with orbs of living fire ; 
 And the faint soul down darkens into night, 
 And dies a burning martyrdom to light. 
 
174 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT 
 
 ' O go, and gaze, — when the low winds of ev'n 
 Breathe hymns, and Nature's many forests nod 
 
 Their gold-crown'd heads ; and the rich blooms of heav'n 
 Sun-ripen'd give their blushes up to God ; 
 
 And mountain-rocks and cloudy steeps are riv'n 
 
 By founts of fire, as smitten by the rod ijo 
 
 Of heavenly Moses, — that your thirsty sense 
 
 May quench its longings of magnificence ! 
 
 ' Yet suns shall perish — stars shall fade away — 
 
 Day into' darkness — darkness into death — 
 Death into silence ; the warm light of day. 
 
 The blooms of summer, the rich glowing breath 
 Of even — all shall wither and decay. 
 
 Like the frail furniture of dreams beneath 
 The touch of morn — or bubbles of rich dyes 
 That break and vanish in the aching eyes.' i6o 
 
 They hear, soul-blushing, and repentant shed 
 
 Unwholesome thoughts in wholesome tears, and pour 
 
 Their sin to earth, — and with low drooping head 
 Receive the solemn blessing, and implore 
 
 Its grace — then soberly with chasten'd tread. 
 They meekly press towards the gusty door, 
 
 With humbled eyes that go to graze upon 
 
 The lowly grass — like him of Babylon. 
 
 The lowly grass ! — O water-constant mind ! 
 
 Fast-ebbing holiness ! — soon-fading grace 170 
 
 Of serious thought, as if the gushing wind 
 
 Through the low porch had wash'd it from the face 
 For ever ! — How they lift their eyes to find 
 
 Old vanities. — Pride wins the very place 
 Of meekness, like a bird, and flutters now 
 With idle wings on the curl-conscious brow ! 
 
 And lo ! with eager looks they seek the way 
 Of old temptation at the lowly gate ; 
 
 To feast on feathers, and on vain array. 
 
 And painted cheeks, and the rich glistering state 
 
 Of jewel-sprinkled locks. — But where are they. 
 The graceless haughty ones that used to wait 
 
 With lofty neck, and nods, and stiffen'd eye ? 
 
 None challenge the old homage bending by. 
 
THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT 1^75 
 
 In vain they look for the ungracious bloom 
 
 Of rich apparel where it glow'd before, — 
 For Vanity has faded all to gloom, 
 
 And lofty Pride has stiffen'd to the core. 
 For impious Life to tremble at its doom, — 
 
 Set for a warning token evermore, ,90 
 
 Whereon, as now, the giddy and the wise 
 Shall gaze with lifted hands and wond'ring eyes. 
 
 XXV 
 
 The aged priest goes on each sabbath morn, 
 But shakes not sorrow under his grey hair ; 
 
 The solemn clerk goes lavender' d and shorn. 
 Nor stoops his back to the ungodly pair ; — 
 
 And ancient lips that pncker'd up in scorn. 
 Go smoothly breathing to the house of pray'r ; 
 
 And in the garden-plot, from day to day. 
 
 The lily blooms its long white life away. 200 
 
 XXVI 
 
 And where two haughty maidens use to be. 
 
 In pride of plume, where plumy Death had trod, 
 
 Trailing their gorgeous velvets wantonly. 
 Most unmeet pall, over the holy sod ; — 
 
 There, gentle stranger, thou may'st only see 
 
 Two sombre Peacocks. Age, with sapient nod 
 
 Marking the spot, still tarries to declare 
 
 How they once lived, and wherefore they are there '. 
 
 * [On its original appearance in the London Magasine^ October, 1822, this poem had the 
 following note appended : — 
 
 If any man, in nis unbelief, should doubt the truth and manner of this occurrence, he may in an 
 easy way be assured thereof to his satisfaction^ by going to Bedfont, a journey of some thirteen 
 miles, where, in the churchyard, he may with his own eyes behold the two peacocks. They seem 
 at first sight to be of yew-tree, which they greatly resemble, but on drawing nearer, ne will 
 perceive cut therein the date 1704— being, without doubt, the year of their transformation.] 
 
1/6 
 
 MINOR POEMS 
 
 A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW 
 
 Oh, when I was a tiny boy 
 
 My days and nights were full of joy, 
 
 My mates were blithe and kind ! — 
 No wonder that I sometimes sigh. 
 And dash the tear-drop from my eye, 
 
 To cast a look behind ! 
 
 A hoop was an eternal round 
 
 Of pleasure. In those days I found 
 
 A top a joyous thing ; — 
 But now those past delights I drop, lo 
 My head, alas ! is all my top, 
 
 And careful thoughts the string ! 
 
 My marbles — once my bag was 
 
 stor'd, — 
 Now I must play with Elgin's lord. 
 
 With Theseus for a taw ! 
 My playful horse has slipt his string. 
 Forgotten all his capering. 
 
 And harness'd to the law ! 
 
 My kite — how fast and far it flew ! 
 Whilst I, a sort of Franklin, drew 20 
 
 My pleasure from the sky ! 
 'Twas paper'd o'er with studious 
 
 themes. 
 The tasks I wrote — my present dreams 
 
 Will never soar so high ! 
 
 My joys are wingless all and dead ; 
 My dumps are made of more than lead; 
 
 My flights soon find a fall ; 
 My fears prevail, my fancies droop, 
 Joy never cometh with a hoop. 
 
 And seldom with a call 1 30 
 
 My football 's laid upon the shelf ; 
 I am a shuttlecock myself 
 
 The world knocks to and fro ; — 
 My archery is all unlearn'd. 
 And grief against myself has turn'd 
 
 My arrows and my bow ! 
 
 No more in noontide sun I bask ; 
 My authorship 's an endless task, 
 
 My head 's ne'er out of school : 
 My heart is pain'd with scorn and 
 slight, 40 
 
 I have too many foes to fight. 
 
 And friends grown strangely cool ! 
 The very chum that shared my cake 
 Holds out so cold a hand to shake, 
 
 It makes me shrink and sigh : — 
 On this I will not dwell and hang. 
 The changeling would not feel a pang 
 
 Though these should meet his eye ! 
 
 No skies so blue or so serene 49 
 
 As then ; — no leaves look half so green 
 
 As cloth'd theplay-ground tree ! 
 All things I lov'd are alter'd so, 
 Nor does it ease my heart to know 
 
 That change resides in me ! 
 
 O, for the garb that mark'd the boy, 
 The trowsers made of corduroy, 
 
 Well ink'd with black and red ; 
 Thecrownlesshat,ne'erdeem'danill — 
 It only let the sunshine still 
 
 Repose upon my head ! fio 
 
 O, for the riband round the neck ! 
 The careless dog's-ears apt to deck 
 
 My book and collar both ! 
 How can this formal man be styled 
 Merely an Alexandrine child, 
 
 A boy of larger growth ? 
 
 O, for that small, small beer anew ! 
 And (heaven's own type) that mild 
 sky-blue 
 That wash'd my sweet meals down ; 
 The master even ! — and that small 
 Turk 70 
 
 That fagg'd me ! — worse is now my 
 work — 
 A fag for all the town ! 
 
A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW 
 
 177 
 
 O, for the lessons learn'd by heart ! 
 Ay, though the very birch's smart 
 
 Should mark those hours again ; 
 I'd ' kiss the rod,' and be resign'd 
 Beneath the stroke, and even find 
 
 Some sugar in the cane I 
 
 The Arabian Nights rehears'd in bed ! 
 The Fairy Tales in school-time read,8a 
 
 By stealth, 'twixt verb and noun ! 
 The angel form that always walk'd 
 In all my dreams, and look'd and 
 talk'd 
 
 Exactly like Miss Brown I 
 
 The omne bene — Christmas come ! 
 The prize of merit, won for home — 
 
 Merit had prizes then ! 
 But now I write for days and days, 
 
 For fame — a deal of empty praise, 
 Without the silver pen ! 90 
 
 Then home, sweet home ! the crowded 
 
 coach — 
 The joyous shout — the loud ap- 
 proach — 
 The winding horns like rams' ! 
 The meeting sweet that made me thrill, 
 The sweetmeats almost sweeter stilt. 
 No ' satis ' to the ' jams ! ' — 
 
 When that I was a tiny boy 
 
 My days and nights were full of joy, 
 
 My mates were blithe and kind ! 
 No wonder that I sometimes sigh, 100 
 And dash the tear-drop from my eye, 
 
 To cast a look behind ! 
 
 FAIR INKS' 
 
 O SAW ye not fair Ines ? 
 She 's gone into the West, 
 To dazzle when the sun is down, 
 And rob the world of rest : 
 She took our daylight with her, 
 The smiles that we love best. 
 With morning blushes on her cheek, 
 And pearls upon her breast. 
 
 turn again, fair Ines, 
 
 Before the fall of night, 10 
 
 For fear the Moon should shine alone. 
 And stars unrivall'd bright ; 
 And blessed will the lover be 
 That walks beneath their light. 
 And breathes the love against thy 
 cheek 
 
 1 dare not even write ! 
 
 Would I had been, fair Ines, 
 That gallant cavalier, 
 Who rode so gaily by thy side, 
 And whisper'd thee so near ! — 
 
 Were there no bonny dames at home 
 Or no true lovers here. 
 That he should cross the seas to win 
 The dearest of the dear ? 
 
 I saw thee, lovely Ines, 
 Descend along the shore. 
 With bands of noble gentlemen. 
 And banners wav'd before ; 
 And gentle youth and maidens gay. 
 And snowy plumes they wore ; — 30 
 Itwould have been a beauteous dream, 
 — If it had been no more ! 
 
 Alas, alas, fair Ines, 
 She went away with song, 
 With Music waiting on her steps. 
 And shoutings of the throng ; 
 But some were sad, and felt no mirth. 
 But only Music's wrong, 
 In sounds that .sang Farewell, Fare- 
 well, 
 To her you've loved so long. 40 
 
1/8 
 
 Farewell, farewell, fair Ines, 
 That vessel never bore 
 So fair a lady on its deck, 
 Nor danc'd so light before, — 
 
 FAIR INES 
 
 Alas for pleasure on the sea. 
 
 And sorrow on the shore ! 
 
 The smile that blest one lover's 
 
 heart 
 Has broken many more ! 
 
 THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER 
 
 Summer is gone on swallows' wings, 
 And Earth has buried all her flowers : 
 No more the lark, the linnet sings, 
 But Silence sits in faded bowers. 
 There is a shadow on the plain 
 Of Winter ere he comes again, — 
 There is in woods a solemn sound 
 Of hollow warnings whisper'd round. 
 As Echo in her deep recess 
 For once had turn'd a prophetess. lo 
 Shuddering Autumn stops to list. 
 And breathes his fear in sudden sighs. 
 With clouded face, and hazel eyes 
 That quench themselves, and hide in 
 mist. 
 
 Yes, Summer 's gone like pageant 
 bright ; 
 Its glorious days of golden light 
 Are gone — the mimic suns that quiver, 
 Then melt in Time's dark-flowing river. 
 Gone the sweetly-scented breeze 
 That spoke in music to the trees ; 20 
 Gone for damp and chilly breath. 
 As if fresh blown o'er marble seas. 
 Or newly from the lungs of Death. — 
 Gone its virgin roses' blushes. 
 Warm as when Aurora rushes 
 Freshly from the god's embrace. 
 With all her shame upon her face. 
 Old Time hath laid them in the mould; 
 Sure he is blind as well as old. 
 Whose hand relentless never spares 30 
 Young cheeks so beauty-bright as 
 
 theirs ! 
 Gone are the flame-ey'd lovers now 
 From where so blushing-blest they 
 
 tarried 
 Under the hawthorn's blossom- 
 bough, 
 Gone; forDayand Night are married. 
 
 All the light of love is fled :— 
 Alas ! that negro breasts should hide 
 The lips that were so rosy red, 
 At morning and at even-tide ! 
 
 Delightful Summer ! then adieu 40 
 Till thou shalt visit us anew : 
 But who without regretful sigh 
 Can say, adieu, and see thee fly ? 
 Not he that e'er hath felt thy pow'r, 
 His joy expanding like a flow'r 
 That cometh after rain and snow, 
 Looks up at heaven, and learns to 
 
 glow : — 
 Not he that fled from Babel-strife 
 To the green sabbath-land of life, 49 
 To dodge duUCare'mid cluster'd trees, 
 And cool his forehead in the breeze, — 
 Whose spirit, weary-worn perchance. 
 Shook from its wings a weight of grief, 
 And perch'd upon an aspen leaf, 
 For every breath to make it dance. 
 
 Farewell ! — on wings of sombre 
 stain. 
 That blacken in the last blue skies, 
 Thou fly'st ; but thou wilt come 
 
 again 
 On the gay wings of butterflies. 
 Spring at thy approach will sprout 60 
 Her new Corinthian beauties out, 
 Leaf-woven homes, where twitter- 
 words 
 Will grow to songs, and eggs to birds ; 
 Ambitious buds shall swell to flowers. 
 And April smiles to sunny hours. 
 Bright days shall be, and gentle 
 
 nights 
 Full of soft breath and echo-lights, 
 As if the god of sun-time kept 
 His eyes half open while he slept. 
 
THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER 
 
 179 
 
 Roses shall be where roses were, 70 
 
 Not shadows, but reality ; 
 
 As if they never perish'd there, 
 
 But slept in immortality : 
 
 Nature shall thrill with new delight, 
 
 And Time's relumin'd river run 
 
 Warm as young blood, and dazzling 
 
 bright. 
 As if its source were in the sun ! 
 
 But say, hath Winter then no 
 charms ? 
 Is there no joy, no gladness warms 
 His aged heart ? no happy wiles 80 
 To cheat the hoary one to smiles ? 
 Onward he comes — the cruel North 
 Pours his furious whirlwind forth 
 Before him — and we breattie th e breath 
 Of famish'd bears that howl to death. 
 Onward he comes from rocks that 
 
 blanch 
 O'er solid streams that never flow. 
 His tears all ice, his locks all snow, 
 Just crept from some huge ava- 
 lanche — 
 A thing half-breathing and half- warm, 
 As if one spark began to glow 91 
 
 Within some statue's marble form. 
 Or pilgrim stiffen'd in the storm. 
 O ! will not Mirth's light arrows fail 
 To pierce that frozen coat of mail ? 
 O ! will not Joy but strive in vain 
 To light up those glaz'd eyes again ? 
 
 No ! take him in, and blaze the oak. 
 And pour the wine, and warm the ale ; 
 His sides shall shake to many a joke, 
 His tongue shall thaw in many a tale, 
 His eyes grow bright, his heart be gay. 
 And even his palsy charm'd away. 103 
 What heeds he then the boisterous 
 
 shout 
 Of angry winds that scold without. 
 Like shrewish wives at tavern door ? 
 What heeds he then the wild uproar 
 Of billows bursting on the shore ? 
 In dashing waves, in howling breeze, 
 There is a music that can charm him ; 
 When safe, and shelter'd, and at ease. 
 He hears the storm that cannot harm 
 him, 112 
 
 But hark! those shouts! that sudden 
 
 din 
 Of little hearts that laugh within. 
 O J take him where the youngsters 
 
 play. 
 And he will grow as young as they I 
 They come ! they come I each blue- 
 
 ey'd Sport, 
 The Twelfth-Night King and all his 
 
 court — 
 'Tis Mirth fresh crown'd with misle- 
 
 toe! 
 Music with her merry fiddles, 120 
 
 Joy ' on light fantastic toe,' 
 Wit with all his jests and riddles. 
 Singing and dancing as they go. 
 And Love, young Love, among the 
 
 rest, 
 A welcome — nor unbidden guest. 
 
 But still for Summer dost thou 
 
 grieve ? 
 Then read our Poets — they shall 
 
 weave 
 A garden of green fancies still. 
 Where thy wish may rove at will. 
 They have kept for after treats 130 
 The essences of summer sweets, 
 And echoes of its songs that wind 
 In endless music through the mind : 
 They have stamp'd in visible traces 
 The ' thoughts that breathe,' in words 
 
 that shine — 
 The flights of soul in sunny places — 
 To greet and company with thine. 
 These shall wing thee on to flow'rs — 
 The past or future, that shall seem 
 All the brighter in thy dream 140 
 
 For blowing in such desert hours. 
 The summer never shines so bright 
 As thought of in a winter's night ; 
 And the sweetest loveliest rose 
 Is in the bud before it blows. 
 The dear one of the lover's heart 
 Is painted to his longing eyes. 
 In charms she ne'er can realize — 
 But when she turns again to part. 
 Dream thou then, and bind thy 
 
 brow 150 
 
 With wreath of fancy roses now. 
 
i8o 
 
 THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER 
 
 And drink of Summer in the cup 
 Where the Muse hath mix'd it up ; 
 The ' dance, and song, and sun-burnt 
 
 mirth,' 
 With the warm nectar of the earth : 
 
 Drink ! 'twill glow in every vein, 
 And thou shalt dream the winter 
 
 through : 
 Then waken to the sun again. 
 And find thy Summer Vision true I 
 
 SONG 
 
 FOR MUSIC 
 
 A LAKE and a fairy boat 
 
 To sail in the moonlight clear, — 
 
 And merrily we would float 
 
 From the dragons that watch us here ! 
 
 Thy gown should be snow-white silk, 
 And strings of orient pearls. 
 
 Like gossamers dipp'd in milk, 
 Should twine with thy raven curls I 
 
 Red rubies should deck thy hands, 9 
 And diamonds should be thy dow'r— 
 But Fairies have broke their wands. 
 And wishing has lost its pow'r ! 
 
 ODE 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn 
 Stand shadowless like Silence, listening 
 To silence, for no lonely bird would sing 
 Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn. 
 Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn ; — 
 Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright 
 With tangled gossamer that fell by night, 
 Pearling his coronet of golden corn. 
 
 Where are the songs of Summer ? — With the sun. 
 
 Oping the dusky eyelids of the south. 
 
 Till shade and silence waken up as one. 
 
 And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth. 
 
 Where are the merry birds ? — Away, away. 
 
 On panting wings through the inclement skies, 
 
 Lest owls should prey 
 
 Undazzled at noon-day. 
 And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes. 
 
ODE 
 
 Where are the blooms of Summer ? — In the west, 
 
 Blushing their last to the last sunny hours, 
 
 When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest 20 
 
 Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs 
 
 To a most gloomy breast. 
 Where is the pride of Summer, — the green prime, — 
 The many, many leaves all twinkUng ? — Three 
 
 On the moss'd elm ; three on the naked lime 
 Trembling, — and one upon the old oak tree ! 
 
 Where is the Dryads' immortality ? — 
 Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, 
 Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through 
 
 In the smooth holly's green eternity. 30 
 
 The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard. 
 
 The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain. 
 
 And honey bees have stor'd 
 The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells ; 
 The swallows all have wing'd across the main ; 
 But here the Autumn melancholy dwells, 
 
 And sighs her tearful spells 
 Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain. 
 Alone, alonej 
 Upon a mossy stone. 
 She sits and reckons up the dead and gone 
 With the last leaves for a love-rosary. 
 Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily. 
 Like a dim picture of the drowned past 
 In the hush'd mind's mysterious far away. 
 Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last 
 Into that distance, grey upon the grey. 
 
 O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded 
 
 Under the languid downfall of her hair : 
 
 She wears a coronal of flowers faded S" 
 
 Upon her forehead, and a face of care ; — 
 
 There is enough of wither'd every where 
 
 To make her bower, — and enough of gloom ; 
 
 There is enough of sadness to invite. 
 
 If only for the rose that died, — whose doom 
 
 Is Beauty's, — she that with the living bloom 
 
 Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light ; — 
 
 There is enough of sorrowing, and quite 
 
 Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,— 
 
 Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl ; 60 
 
 Enough of fear and shadowy despair, 
 
 To frame her cloudy prison for the soul I 
 
l82 
 
 BALLAD 
 
 Spring it is cheery, 
 
 Winter is dreary, 
 Green leaves hang, but the brown 
 must fly ; 
 
 When he 's forsaken, 
 
 Wither'd and shaken 
 What can an old man do but die ? 
 
 Love will not clip him, 
 
 Maids will not Up him, 
 Maud and Marian pass, him by ; 
 
 Youth it is sunny, lo 
 
 Age has no honey, — 
 What can an old man do but die ? 
 
 June it was jolly, 
 
 O for its folly ! 
 A dancing leg and a laughing eye ; 
 
 Youth may be silly, 
 
 Wisdom is chilly, — 
 What can an old man do but die ? 
 
 Friends, they are scanty, 
 Beggars are plenty, 
 
 If he has followers, I know why ; 
 Gold 's in his clutches, 
 (Buying him crutches !) — 
 
 What can an old man do but die ? 
 
 HYMN TO THE SUN 
 
 Giver of glowing light ! 
 Though but a god of other days, 
 The kings and sages 
 Of wiser ages 
 Still live and gladden in thy genial 
 rays ! 
 
 King of the tuneful lyre,. 
 Still poets' hymns to thee belong ; 
 Though lips are cold 
 Whereon of old 
 Thy beams all turn'd to worshipping 
 and song ! lo 
 
 Lord of the dreadful bow, 
 None triumph now for Python's 
 death ; 
 
 But thou dost save 
 From hungry grave 
 The life that hangs upon a summer 
 breath. 
 
 Father of rosy day, 
 No more thy clouds of incense rise ; 
 But waking flow'rs 
 At morning hours, 
 Give out their sweets to meet thee in 
 the skies. 20 
 
 God of the Delphic fane. 
 No more thou listenest to hymns sub- 
 lime ; 
 But they will leave 
 On winds at- eve, 
 A solemn echo to the end of time. 
 
 TO A COLD BEAUTY 
 
 Lady, wouldst thou heiress be 
 To Winter's cold and cruel part ? 
 
 When he sets the rivers free 
 
 Thou dost still lock up thy heart ; — 
 
 Thou that shouldst outlast the snow. 
 
 But in the^hiteness of thy brow. 
 
 Scorn and cold neglect are made 
 For winter gloom and winter wind, 
 
 But thou wilt wrong the summer air. 
 Breathing it to words unkind, — 10 
 
 Breath which only should belong 
 
 To love, to sunlight, and to song ! 
 
TO A COLD BEAUTY 
 
 183 
 
 When the little buds unclose, 
 
 Red, and white, and pied, and blue, 
 
 And that virgin flow'r, the rose. 
 Opes her heart to hold the dew. 
 
 Wilt thou lock thy bosom up 
 
 With no jewel in its cup ? 
 
 Let not cold December sit 
 
 Thus in Love's peculiar throne ; — 20 
 Brooklets are not prison'd now, 
 
 But crystal frosts are all agone. 
 And that which hangs upon the spray. 
 It is no snow, but flow'r of May ! 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 The Autumn skies are flush'd with 
 
 gold, 
 And fair and bright the rivers run ; 
 These are but streams of winter cold, 
 And painted mists that quench the 
 
 sun. 
 
 II 
 In secret boughs no sweet birds sing. 
 In secret boughs no bird can shroud ; 
 
 These are but leaves that take to wing, 
 And wintry winds that pipe so loud. 
 
 'Tis not trees' shade, but cloudy 
 
 glooms 
 That on the cheerless vallies fall, 10 
 The flowers are in their grassy tombs. 
 And tears of dew are on them all. 
 
 RUTH 
 
 She stood breast high amid the corn, 
 Clasp'd by the golden light of morn. 
 Like the sweetheart of the sun, 
 Who many a glowing kiss had won. 
 
 On her cheek an autumn flush. 
 Deeply ripened ; — such a blush 
 In the midst of brown was born, 
 Like red poppies grown with corn. 
 
 Round her eyes her tresses fell, 
 Which were blackest none could tell, 10 
 
 But long lashes veil'd a light, 
 That had else been all too bright. 
 
 And her hat, with shady brim, 
 Made her tressy forehead dim ; — 
 Thus she stood amid the stooks. 
 Praising God with sweetest looks : — 
 
 Sure, I said, heav'n did not mean. 
 Where I reap thou shouldst but glean. 
 Lay thy sheaf adown and come. 
 Share my harvest and my home. 20 
 
 THE SEA OF DEATH 
 
 A FRAGMENT 
 
 Methought I saw 
 
 Life swiftly treading over endless space ; 
 And, at her foot-print, but a bygone pace. 
 The ocean-past, which, with increasing wav 
 Swallow'd her steps like a pursuing grave. 
 
1 84 THE SEA OF DEATH 
 
 Sad were my thoughts that anchor'd silently 
 On the dead waters of that passionless sea, 
 Unstirr'd by any touch of living breath : 
 Silence hung over it, and drowsy Death, 
 Like a gorged sea-bird, slept with folded wings 
 On crowded carcases — sad passive things 
 That wore the thin grey surface, hke a veil 
 Over the calmness of their features pale. 
 
 And there were spring-faced cherubs that did sleep 
 
 Like water-lilies on that motionless deep, 
 
 How beautiful ! with bright unrufiSed hair 
 
 On sleek unfretted brows, and eyes that were 
 
 Buried in marble tombs, a pale eclipse 1 
 
 And smile-bedimpled cheeks, and pleasant lips, 
 
 Meekly apart, as if the soul intense 
 
 Spake out in dreams of its own innocence : 
 
 And so they lay in loveliness, and kept 
 
 The birth-riight of their peace, that Life e'en wept 
 
 With very envy of their happy fronts ; 
 
 For there were neighbour brows scarir'd by the brunts 
 
 Of strife and sorrowing — where Care had set 
 
 His crooked autograph, and iharr'd the jet 
 
 Of glossy, locks with hollow eyes forlorn, 
 
 And lips that curl'd in bitterness and scorn — 
 
 Wretched, — as they had breathed of this world's pain. 
 
 And so bequeath'd it to the world again 
 
 Through the beholder's heart in heavy sighs. 
 
 So lay thisy garmented in torpid light. 
 Under the pall of a transparent night. 
 Like solemn apparitions luU'd sublime 
 To everlasting rest, — and with them Time 
 Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face 
 Of a dark dial in a sunless place. 
 
 30 
 
 BALLAD 
 
 She's up and gone, the graceless Girl! 
 
 And robb'd my failing years ; 
 My blood before was thin and cold 
 
 But now 'tis turn'd to tears ; — 
 My shadow falls upon my grave, 
 
 So near the brink I stand. 
 She might have staid a little yet, 
 
 And led me by the hand ! 
 
 Aye, call her on the barren moor, 
 And call her on the hill, 10 
 
 'Tis nothing but the heron's cry, 
 And plovers answer shrill ; 
 
 My child is fiown on wilder wings. 
 
 Than they have ever spread, 
 And I may even walk a waste 
 
 That widen'd when she fled. 
 Full many a thankless child has been, 
 
 But never one like mine ; 
 Her meat was served on plates of gold, 
 
 Her drink was rosy wine ; 20 
 
 But now she'll share the robin's food, 
 
 And sup the common rill, 
 Before her feet will turn again 
 
 To meet her father's will ! 
 
i85 
 
 I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER 
 
 I REMEMBER, I remember, 
 The house where I was born, 
 The little window where the sun 
 Came peeping in at morn ; 
 He never came a wink too soon. 
 Nor brought too long a day. 
 But now, I often wish the night 
 Had borne my breath away ! 
 
 I remember, I remember, 
 The roses, red and white. 
 The vi'lets, and the lily-cups, 
 Those flowers made of light ! 
 The lilacs where the robin built. 
 And where my brother set 
 The laburnum on his birthday,— 
 The tree is living yet ! 
 
 I remember, I remember, 
 
 Where I was used to swing, 
 
 And thought the air must rush as fresh 
 
 To swallows ou the wing ; 20 
 
 My spirit flew in feathers then, 
 
 That is so heavy now. 
 
 And summer pools could hardly cool 
 
 The fever on my brow ! 
 
 I remember, I remember. 
 
 The fir trees dark and high ; 
 
 I used to think their slender tops 
 
 Were close against the sky : 
 
 It was a childish ignorance. 
 
 But now 'tis little joy 30 
 
 To know I'm farther off from heav'n 
 
 Than when I was a boy. 
 
 BALLAD 
 
 Sigh on sad heart, for Love's eclipse, 
 
 And Beauty's fairest queen, 
 Tho' 'tis not for. my peasant lips 
 
 To soil her name between : 
 A king might lay his sceptre down, 
 
 But I am poor and nought. 
 The brow should wear a golden crown 
 
 That wears her in its thought. 
 
 The diamonds glancing in her hair. 
 
 Whose sudden beams surprise, 10 
 Might bid such humble hopes beware 
 
 The glancing of her eyes ; 
 Yet looking once, I look'd too long, 
 
 And if my love is sin. 
 Death follows on the heels of wrong, 
 
 And kills the crime within. 
 
 Her dress seem'd wove of lily leaves. 
 
 It was so pure and fine, 
 O lofty wears, and lowly weaves. 
 
 But hoddan grey is mine ; 20 
 
 And homely hose must step apart, 
 Where garter'd princes stand. 
 
 But may he wear my love at heart 
 That wins her lily hand ! 
 
 Alas ! there 's far from russet frize 
 
 To silks and satin gowns. 
 But I doubt if God made like degrees. 
 
 In courtly hearts and clowns. 
 My father wrong'd a maiden's mirth, 
 
 And brought her cheeks to blame,3o 
 And all that 's lordly of my birth, 
 
 Is my reproach and shame ! 
 
 'Tis vain to weep, — 'tis vain to sigh, 
 
 'Tis vain this idle speech. 
 For where her happy pearls do lie. 
 
 My tears may never reach ; 
 Yet when I'm gone, e'en lofty pride 
 
 May say of what has been. 
 His love was nobly born and died, 
 
 Tho' all the rest was mean ! 4° 
 
1 86 
 
 BALLAD 
 
 My speech is rude, — but speech is weak 
 
 Such love as mine to tell, 
 Yet had I words, I dare hot speak, 
 
 So, Lady, fare thee well ; 
 
 I will not wish thy better state 
 Was one of low degree, 
 
 But I must weep that partial fate 
 Made such a churl of me. 
 
 THE WATER LADY 
 
 Alas, the moon should ever beam 
 To show Whatman should never see! — 
 I saw a maiden on a stream. 
 And fair was she ! 
 
 I staid awhile, to see her throw 
 Her tresses back, that all beset 
 The fair horizon of her brow 
 With clouds of jet. 
 
 I staid a little while to view 
 Her cheek, that wore in place of red lo 
 The bloom of water, tender blue. 
 Daintily spread. 
 
 I staid to watch, a little space. 
 Her parted lips if she would sing ; 
 The waters closed above her face 
 With many a ring. 
 
 And sfiU I staid a little more, 
 Alas ! she never comes again ; 
 I throw my flow'rs from the shore, 
 And watch in vain. 20 
 
 I know my life will fade away, 
 I know that I must vainly pine. 
 For I am made of mortal clay. 
 But she 's divine ! 
 
 THE EXILE 
 
 The swallow with summer 
 
 Will wing o'er the seas. 
 The wind that I sigh to 
 
 Will visit thy trees. 
 The ship that it hastens 
 
 Thy ports will contain. 
 But me — 1 must never 
 
 See England again ! 
 
 There 's many that weep there 
 But one weeps alone. 
 
 For the tears that are falling 
 So far from her own ; 
 
 So far from thy own, love. 
 We know not our pain ; 
 
 If ileath is between us. 
 Or only the main. 
 
 When the white cloud reclines 
 
 On the verge of the sea, 
 I fancy the white cliffs, 
 
 And dream upon thee ; 
 But the cloud spreads its wings 
 
 To the blue heav'n and flies. 
 We never shall meet, love, 
 
 Except in the skies ! 
 
 TO AN ABSENTEE 
 
 O'er hill, and dale, and distant sea. 
 Through all the miles that stretch be- 
 tween, 
 My thought must fly to rest on thee. 
 And would, though worlds should in- 
 tervene. 
 
 Nay, thou art now so dear, me- 
 
 thinks 
 The farther we are forc'd apart, 
 Affection's firm elastic links 
 But bind the closer round the 
 
 heart. 
 
TO AN ABSENTEE 
 
 187 
 
 For now we sever each from each, 
 I learn what I have lost in thee ; 10 
 Alas ! that nothing less could teach, 
 How great indeed my love should be ! 
 
 Farewell ! I did not know thy worth, 
 But thou art gone, and now 'tis priz'd: 
 So angels walk'd unknown on earth. 
 But when they flew were recogniz'd ! 
 
 SONG 
 
 The stars are with the voyager 
 
 Wherever he may sail ; 
 The moon is constant to her time ; 
 
 The sun will never fail ; 
 But follow, follow round the world. 
 
 The green earth and the sea ; 
 So love is with the lover's heart, 
 
 Wherever he may be. 
 
 Wherever he may be, the stars 
 
 Must daily lose their light ; jc 
 
 The moon will veil her in the shade ; 
 
 The sun will set at night. 
 The sun may set, but constant love 
 
 Will shine when he 's away ; 
 So that dull night is never night, 
 
 And day is brighter day. 
 
 ODE TO THE MOON 
 
 Mother of light ! how fairly dost thou go 
 Over those hoary crests, divinely led ! — 
 Art thou that huntress of the silver bow 
 Fabled of old ? Or rather dost thou tread 
 Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below. 
 Like the wild Chamois from her Alpine snow, 
 Where hunter never climb'd, — secure from dread ? 
 How many antique fancies have I read 
 Of that mild presence ! and how many wrought ! 
 
 Wondrous and bright, 
 
 Upon the silver light. 
 Chasing fair figures with the artist. Thought ! 
 
 What art thou like ? Sometimes I see thee ride 
 
 A far-bound ga.lley on its perilous way. 
 
 Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray ;- 
 
 Sometimes behold thee glide, 
 Cluster'd by all thy family of stars. 
 Like a lone widow, through the welkin wide. 
 Whose pallid cheek the midnight sorrow mars ;— 
 Sometimes I watch thee on from steep to steep, 
 Timidly lighted by thy vestal torch, 
 Till in some Latmian cave I see thee creep. 
 To catch the young Endymion asleep, — 
 Leaving thy splendour at the jagged porch ! — 
 
1 88 ODE TO THE MOON 
 
 Oh, thou art beautiful, howe'er it be ! 
 
 Huntress, or Dian, or whatever nam'd ; 
 
 And he, the veriest Pagan, that first fram'd 
 
 A silver idol, and ne'er worshipp'd thee ! — 
 
 It is too late, or thou should'st have my knee ; 
 
 Too late now for the old Ephesian vows, 30 
 
 And not divine the crescent on thy brows ! — 
 
 Yet, call thee nothing but the mere mild Moon, 
 
 Behind those chestnut boughs. 
 Casting their dappled shadows at my feet ; 
 I will be grateful for that simple boon, 
 In many a thoughtful verse and anthem sweet, 
 And bless thy dainty face whene'er we meet. 
 
 In nights far gone, — ay, far away and dead, — 
 
 Before Care-fretted with a lidless eye, — 
 
 I was thy wooer. on my little bed, 40 
 
 Letting the early hours of rest go by. 
 
 To see thee flood the heaven with milky light. 
 
 And feed thy snow-white swans, before I slept ; 
 
 For thou wert then purveyor of my dreams, — 
 
 Thou wert the fairies' armourer, that kept 
 
 Their burnish'd helms, and crowns, and corslets bright, 
 
 Their spears, and glittering mails ; 
 And ever thou didst spill in winding streams 
 
 Sparkles and midnight gleams. 
 For fishes to new gloss their argent scales ! — so 
 
 Why sighs ?— why creeping tears ?— why clasped hands ?— 
 
 Is it to count the boy's expended dow'r ? 
 
 That fairies since have broke their gifted wands ? 
 
 That young Delight, Uke any o'erblown flow'r. 
 
 Gave, one by one, its sweet leaves to the ground ? — 
 
 Why then, fair Moon, for all thou mark'st no hour. 
 
 Thou art a sadder dial to old Time 
 
 Than ever I have found 
 On sunny garden-plot, or moss-grown tow'r, 
 Motto'd with stern and melancholy rhyme. £0 
 
 Why should I grieve for this ? — O I must yearn, 
 Whilst Time, conspirator with Memory, 
 Keeps his cold ashes in an ancient urn, 
 Richly emboss'd with childhood's revelry. 
 
ODE TO THE MOON 189 
 
 With leaves and cluster'd fruits, and flowers eterne, — 
 (Eternal to the world, though not to me,) 
 Aye there will those brave sports and blossoms be, 
 The deathless wreath, and undecay'd festoon. 
 
 When I am hears'd within, — 
 Less than the pallid primrose to the Moon, 70 
 
 That now she watches through a vapour thin. 
 
 VII 
 
 So let it be : — Before I liv'd to sigh. 
 
 Thou wert in Avon, and a thousand rills, 
 
 Beautiful Orb ! and so, whene'er I lie 
 
 Trodden, thou wilt be gazing from thy hills. 
 
 Blest be thy loving light, where'er it spills. 
 
 And blessed thy fair face, O Mother mild ! 
 
 Still shine, the soul of rivers as they run, 
 
 Still lend thy lonely lamp to lovers fond. 
 
 And blend their plighted shadows into one : — 80 
 
 Still smile at even on the bedded child, 
 
 And close his eyelids with thy silver wand ! 
 
 TO 
 
 Welcome, dear Heart, and a most kind good-morrow ; 
 The day is gloomy, but our looks shall shine : — 
 Flow'rs I have none to give thee, but I borrow 
 Their sweetness in a. verse to speak for thine. 
 
 Here are red roses, gather 'd at thy cheeks,^- 
 The white were all too happy to look white : 
 For love the rose, for faith the lily speaks ; 
 It withers in false hands, but here 'tis bright ! 
 
 Dost love sweet Hyacinth ? Its scented leaf 
 Curls manifold, — all love's delights blow double : 
 'Tis said this ilow'ret is inscribed with grief, — 
 But let that hint of a forgotten trouble. 
 
 I pluck'd the Primrose at night's dewy noon ; 
 Like Hope, it show'd its blossoms in the night ; — 
 'Twas, like Endymion, watching for the Moon ! 
 And here are Sun-flowers, amorous of light ! 
 
 These golden Buttercups are April's seal, — 
 The Daisy stars her constellations be : 
 These grew so lowly, I was forced to kneel, 
 Therefore I pUick no Daisies but for thee ! 
 Here 's Daisies for the morn. Primrose for gloom, 
 Pansies and Roses for the noontide hours : — 
 A wight once made a dial of their bloom, — 
 So may thy life be measur'd out by flow'rs ! 
 
igo 
 
 THE FORSAKEN 
 
 The dead are in their silent graves, 
 And the dew is cold above, 
 And the living weep and sigh. 
 Over dust that once was love. 
 
 Once I only wept the dead, 
 
 But now the living cause my pain : 
 
 How couldst thou steal me from my 
 
 tears. 
 To leave me to my tears again ? 
 
 My Mother rests beneath the sod, — 
 Her rest is calm and very deep : lo 
 
 I wish'd that she could see our loves, — 
 But now I gladden in her sleep. 
 Last night unbound my raven locks, 
 The morning saw them turn'd to gray, 
 Once they were black and well-belov'd, 
 But thou art chang'd, — and so are 
 
 they! 
 The useless lock I gave thee once, 
 To gaze upon and think of me. 
 Was ta'en with smiles, — but this was 
 
 torn 
 In sorrow that I send to thee ! so 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 The Autumn is old. 
 The sere leaves are flying ; — 
 He hath gather'd up gold. 
 And now he is dying ; — 
 Old age, begin sighing ! 
 
 The vintage is ripe. 
 The harvest is heaping ; — 
 But some that have sow'd 
 Have no riches for reaping ;— 
 Poor wretch, fall a-weeping ! 
 
 The year 's in the wane. 
 There is nothing adorning. 
 The night has no eve. 
 And the day has no morning ;- 
 Cold winter gives warning. 
 
 The rivers run chill. 
 
 The red sun is sinking. 
 
 And I am grown old, 
 
 And life is fast shrinking ; — 
 
 Here 's enow for sad thinking ! ; 
 
 ODE TO MELANCHOLY 
 
 Come, let us set our careful breasts. 
 Like Philomel, against the thorn. 
 To aggravate the inward grief. 
 That makes her accents so forlorn ; 
 The world has many cruel points. 
 Whereby our bosoms have been torn. 
 And there are dainty themes of grief. 
 In sadness to outlast the morn, — 
 True honour's dearth, affection's 
 death, 9 
 
 Neglectful pride, and cankering scorn. 
 With all the piteous tales that tears 
 Have water'd since the world was born. 
 
 The world ! — it is a wilderness, 
 Where tears are hung on every tree ; 
 For thus my gloomy phantasy 
 Makes all things weep with me ! 
 Come let us sit and watch the sky, 
 And fancy clouds, where no clouds be ; 
 Grief is enough to blot the eye. 
 And make heav'n black with misery. 20 
 Why should birds sing such merry 
 
 notes, 
 Unless they were more blest than we ? 
 No sorrow ever chokes their throats, 
 Except sweet nightingale ; for she 
 
ODE TO MELANCHOLY 
 
 191 
 
 Was born to pain our hearts the more 
 With her sad melody. 
 Why shines the sun, except that he 
 Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide, 
 And pensive shades for Melancholy, 
 When all the earth is bright beside ? 
 Let clay wear smiles, and green grass 
 wave, 31 
 
 Mirth shall not win us back again. 
 Whilst man is made of his own grave. 
 And fairest clouds but gilded rain I 
 
 I saw my mother in her shroud. 
 Her cheek was cold and very pale ; 
 And ever since I've look'd on all 
 As creatures doom'd to fail ! 
 Why do buds ope, except to die ? 
 Ay, let us watch the roses wither, 40 
 And think of our loves' cheeks ; 
 And oh, how quickly time doth fly 
 To bring death's winter hither ! 
 Minutes, hours, days, and weeks. 
 Months, years, and ages shrink to 
 
 nought ; 
 An age past is but a thought t 
 
 Ay, let us think of Him a while. 
 That, with a coffin for a boat. 
 Rows daily o'er the Stygian moat. 
 And for our table choose a tomb : 50 
 There 's dark enough in any skull 
 To charge with black a raven plume ; 
 And for the saddest funeral thoughts 
 A winding sheet hath ample room. 
 Where Death, with his keen-pointed 
 
 style. 
 Hath writ the common doom. 
 How wide the yew tree spreads its 
 
 gloom. 
 And o'er the dead lets fall its dew, 
 As if in tears it wept for them. 
 The many human families 60 
 
 That sleep around its stem ! 
 
 How cold the dead have made these 
 
 stones. 
 With natural drops kept ever wet ! 
 Lo ! here the best, the worst, the 
 
 world 
 Doth now remember or forget. 
 
 Are in one common ruin hurl'd, 
 And love and hate are calmly met ; 
 The loveliest eyes that ever shone. 
 The fairest hands, and locks of jet. 
 Is't not enough to vex our souls, 70 
 And fill our eyes, that we have set 
 Our love upon a rose's leaf, 
 Our hearts upon a violet ? 
 Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet ; 
 And, sometimes, at their swift decay 
 Beforehand we must fret : 
 The roses bud and bloom again ; 
 But love may haunt the grave of love, 
 And watch the mould in vain. 
 
 O clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art 
 mine, 80 
 
 And do not take my tears amiss ; 
 For tears must flow to wash away 
 A thought that shows so stern as this : 
 Forgive, if somewhile I forget. 
 In woe to come, the present bliss. 
 As frighted Proserpine let fall 
 Her flowers at the sight of Dis, 
 Ev'n so the dark and bright will kiss. 
 The sunniest things throw sternest 
 
 shade. 
 And there is ev'n a happiness 90 
 
 That makes the heart afraid ! 
 
 Now let us with a spell invoke 
 
 The fuU-orb'd moon to grieve our 
 
 eyes ; 
 Not bright, not bright, but, with a 
 
 cloud 
 Lapp'd all about her, let her rise 
 All pale and dim, as if from rest 
 The ghost of the late buried sun 
 Had crept into the skies. 
 The Moon ! she is the source of sighs, 
 The very face to make us sad ; 100 
 If but to think in other times 
 The same calm quiet look she had. 
 As if the world held nothing base. 
 Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad ; 
 The same fair light that shone in 
 
 streams. 
 The fairy lamp that charm'd the lad ; 
 For so it is, with spent delights 
 She taunts men's brains, and makes 
 
 them mad. 
 
192 ODE TO MELANCHOLY 
 
 All things are touch'd with Melan- 
 choly, 
 Born of the secret soul's mistrust, no 
 To feel her fair ethereal wings 
 Weigh'd down with vile degraded 
 
 dust ; 
 Even the bright extremes of joy 
 Bring on conclusions of disgust. 
 
 Like the sweet blossoms of the May, 
 Whose fragrance ends in must. 
 O give her, then, her tribute just. 
 Her sighs and tears, and musings holy! 
 There is no music in the life 119 
 
 That sounds with idiot laughter solely; 
 There's not a string attun'd to mirth, 
 But has its chord in Melancholy. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 ON MISTRESS NICELY, A PATTERN FOR HOUSEKEEPERS 
 Written after seeing Mrs. Davenport in the character, at Covent Garden. 
 
 She was a woman peerless in her station. 
 
 With household virtues wedded to her name ; 
 
 Spotless in linen, grass-bleach'd in her fame. 
 And pure and clear-starch'd in her conversation ; 
 Thence in my Castle of Imagination 
 
 She dwells for evermore, the dainty dame. 
 
 To keep all airy draperies from shame, 
 And all dream furnitures in preservation : 
 
 There walketh she with keys quite silver bright, 
 In perfect hose, and shoes of seemly black. 
 
 Apron and stomacher of lily-white. 
 And decent order follows in her track : 
 
 The burnish'd plate grows lustrous in her sight. 
 And polish'd floors and tables shine her back. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKSPEARE 
 
 How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky 
 
 The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled ! 
 
 Hues of all flow'rs that in their ashes lie, 
 
 Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed. 
 
 Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red, — 
 
 Like exhalations from the leafy mould. 
 
 Look here how honour glorifies the dead, 
 
 And warms their scutcheons with a glance of gold !- 
 
 Such is the memory of poets old. 
 
 Who on Parnassus' hill have bloom'd elate ; 
 
SONNET 193 
 
 Now they are laid nnder their marbles cold, 
 And turn'd to clay,, whereof they were create ; 
 But God Apollo hath them all enroU'd, 
 And blazon'd on the very clouds of fate I 
 
 SONNET 
 
 TO FANCY 
 
 Most delicate Ariel ! submissive thing, 
 Won by the mind's high magic to its hest, — 
 Invisible embassy, or secret guest, — 
 Weighing the light air on a lighter wing ; — 
 Whether into the midnight moon, to bring 
 Illuminate visions to the eye of rest, — 
 Or rich romances from the florid West, — 
 Or to the sea, for mystic whispering, — 
 Still by thy charm'd allegiance to the will, 
 The fruitful wishes prosper in the brain. 
 As by the fingering of fairy skill, — 
 Moonlight, and waters, and soft music's strain, 
 Odours, and blooms, and my Miranda's smile, 
 Making this dull world an enchanted isle. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 TO AN ENTHUSIAST 
 
 Young ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth. 
 
 Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind. 
 
 And still a large late loVe of all thy kind, 
 
 Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth,- 
 
 For all these gifts, I, know not, in fair sooth. 
 
 Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind 
 
 Thine eyes with tears,— that thou hast not resign'd 
 
 The- passionate fire and freshness of thy youth : 
 
 For as the current of thy life shall flow, 
 
 Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain'd, 
 
 Through flow'ry valley or unwholesome fen, 
 
 Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe 
 
 Thrice cursed of thy race, — thou art ordain'd 
 
 To share beyond the lot of common men. 
 
194 
 
 SONNET 
 
 It is not death, that sometime in a sigh 
 
 This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight ; 
 
 That sometime these bright stars, that now reply 
 
 In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night ; 
 
 That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, 
 
 And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow ; 
 
 That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal spright 
 
 Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below ; 
 
 It is not death to know this, — but to know 
 
 That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves 
 
 In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go 
 
 So duly and so oft,— and when grass waves 
 
 Over the past-away, there may be then 
 
 No resurrection in the minds of men. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 By ev'ry sweet tradition of true heart§, 
 
 Graven by Time, in love with his own lore ; 
 
 By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts. 
 
 Wherein Love died to be alive the more ; 
 
 Yea, by the sad impression on the shore. 
 
 Left by the drown'd Leander, to endear 
 
 That coast for ever, where the billow's roar 
 
 Moaneth for pity in the Poet's ear ; 
 
 By Hero's faith, and the foreboding tear 
 
 That quench'd her brand's last twinkle in its fall ; 
 
 By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear 
 
 That sigh'd around her flight ; I swear by all. 
 
 The world shall find such pattern" in my act. 
 
 As if Love's great examples still were lack'd. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 ON RECEIVING A GIFT 
 
 Look how the golden ocean shines above 
 Its .pebbly stones, and magnifies their girth ;• 
 So does tlie bright and blessed light of love 
 Its own things glorify, and raise their worth. 
 As weeds seem flowers beneath the flattering brine, 
 And stones like gems, and gems as gems indeed. 
 Even so our tokens shine ; nay, they outshine 
 Pebbles and pearls, and gems and coral weed ; 
 
SONNET • 195 
 
 For where be ocean waves but half so clear, 
 
 So calmly constant, and so kindly warm, 10 
 
 As Love's most mild and glowing atmosphere, 
 
 That hath no dregs to be upturn'd by storm ? 
 
 Thus, sweet, thy gracious gifts are gifts of price. 
 
 And more than gold to doting Avarice. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 The curse of Adam, the old curse of all. 
 
 Though I inherit in this feverish life 
 
 Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife. 
 
 And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall. 
 
 Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall 
 
 I taste, through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife. 
 
 Then what was Man's lost Paradise ! — how rife 
 
 Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall ! 
 
 Such as our own pure passion still might frame, 
 
 Of this fair earth, and its delightful bow'rs. 
 
 If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came 
 
 To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flow'rs ; — 
 
 But oh ! as many and such tears are ours. 
 
 As only should be shed for guilt and shame ! 
 
 SONNET 
 
 Love, dearest Lady, such as I would speak, 
 Lives not within the humour of the eye ; — 
 Not being but an outward phantasy. 
 That skims the surface of a tinted cheek, — 
 Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak, 
 As if the rose made summer, — and so lie 
 Amongst the perishable things that die. 
 Unlike the love which I would give and seek : 
 Whose health is of no hue — to feel decay 
 With cheeks' decay, that have a, rosy prime. 
 Love is its own great loveliness alway. 
 And takes new lustre from the touch of time ; 
 Its bough owns no December and no May, 
 But bears its blossom into Winter's clime. 
 
196 
 SONNET 
 
 SILENCE 
 
 There is a silence where hatli been no sound, 
 Tiiere is a silence where no sound may be, 
 In the cold grave — under the deep deep sea. 
 
 Or in wide desert where no life is found, 
 
 Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound ; 
 No voice is hush'd — no life treads silently. 
 But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free. 
 
 That never spoke, over the idle ground : 
 
 But in green ruins, in the desolate walls 
 Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, 
 
 Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls. 
 And owls, that flit continually between. 
 
 Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, 
 
 There the true Silence is,, self-conscious and alone. 
 
THE EPPING HUNT 
 
 (1829. Second Edition 1830) 
 
 'HUNTS ROASTED ' 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 Striding in the Steps of Strutt — the historian of the old English Sports — the author 
 of the following pages has endeavoured to record a yearly revel, already fast hastening 
 to decay. The Easter Chase will soon be numbered with the pastimes of past times : 
 its dogs will have had their day, and its Deer will be Fallow. A few more seasons, 
 and this City Common Hunt will become uncommon. 
 
 In proof of this melancholy decadence, the ensuing epistle is inserted. It was penned 
 by an underling at the Wells, a person more accustomed to riding than writing. 
 
 ' Sir, — About the Hunt. In anser to your Innqueries, their as been a great falling 
 off laterally, so much so this year that there was nobody allmost. We did a mear 
 nothing provisionally, hardly a Bottle extra, wich is a proof in Pint. In short our 
 Hunt may be sad to be in the last Stag of a decline. 
 
 ' I am, Sir, 
 ' With respects from Your humble Servant, 
 
 ' Bartholomew Rutt.' 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION' 
 
 The Publisher begs leave to say, that he has had the following letter from the 
 Author of this little book : — 
 
 Dear Sir, — I am much gratified to learn from you, that the Epping Hunt has had 
 such a run, that it is quite exhausted, and that you intend therefore to give the work 
 what may be called ' second wind' by a new impressibn. 
 
 I attended the last Anniversary of the Festival, and am concerned to say that the 
 sport does not improve, but appears an ebbing as well as Epping custom. The run 
 was miserable indeed ; but what was to be expected ? The chase was a Doe, and, 
 consequently, the Hunt set off with the Hind part before. It was, therefore, quite in 
 character, for so many Nimrods to start, as they did, before the hounds, but which, as 
 you know, is quite contrary to the Lex Tallyho-nis, or Laws of Hunting. 
 
 I dined with the Master of the Revel, who is as hale as ever, and promises to reside 
 some time in the Wells ere he kicks the bucket. He is an honest, hearty, worthy man, 
 and when he dies there will be ' a cry of dogs ' in his kennel. 
 
 I am. Dear Sir, yours, &c. 
 
 T. Hood. 
 Wincbmore Hill, June, 1830. 
 
198 
 
 THE EPPING HUNT 
 
 ' On Mondaj' they began to \mnl.'—CAmy Chase. 
 
 John Huggins was as bold a man 
 
 As trade did ever know, 
 A warehouse good he had, that stood 
 
 Hard by the church of Bow. 
 
 There people bought Dutch cheeses 
 round. 
 
 And single Glos'ter flat, — 
 And English butter in a lump, 
 
 And Irish — ^in a pat^ 
 
 Six days a week beheld him stand. 
 His business next his heart, lo 
 
 At counter with his apron tied 
 About his counter-part. 
 
 -The seventh in a sluice-house boxj 
 He took his pipe and pot ; 
 
 On Sundays for eel-piety, 
 A very noted spot. 
 
 Ah, blest if he, had never gone 
 
 Beyond its rural shed ! 
 One Easter-tide, some evil guide 
 
 Put Epping in his head ! 20 
 
 Epping for butter justly fam'd. 
 And pork in sausage pop't ; 
 
 Where winter time, or summer time, 
 Pig's flesh is always chop't. 
 
 But famous more, as annals tell. 
 
 Because of Easter chase ; 
 There ev'ry year, 'twixt dog and deer, 
 
 There is a gallant race. 
 
 With Monday's sun John Huggins 
 rose, 
 
 And slapt his leather thigh, 30 
 
 And sang the burthen of the song, 
 
 ' This day a stag must die.' 
 
 For all the live-long day before. 
 
 And all the night in bed. 
 Like Beckford, he had nourish 'd 
 ' Thoughts 
 
 On Hunting ' in his head. 
 
 Of horn and morn, and hark and bark, 
 And echo's answering sounds, 
 
 AU poet's wit hath ever writ 
 
 In dog-Te\ verse of hounds. 40 
 
 Alas ! there was no warning voice 
 
 To whisper in his ear. 
 Thou art a fool in leaving Cheap 
 
 To go and hunt the deer I 
 
 No thought he had of twisted spine, 
 
 Or broken arms or legs ; 
 Not chicken-hearted he, altho' 
 
 'Twas whisper'd of his eggs ! 
 
 Ride out he would,and hunt hewould, 
 Nor dreamt of ending ill ; 50 
 
 Mayhap with Dr. Ridout's fee, 
 And Surgeon Hunter's bill. 
 
 So he drew on his Sunday boots. 
 
 Of lustre superfine ; 
 The liquid black they wore that day, 
 
 Was Warren-ted to shine. 
 
 His yellow buckskins fitted close. 
 
 As once, upon a stag ; 
 Thus well eqvSipt he gaily skipt, 
 
 At once upon his nag. 60 
 
 But first to him that held the rein, 
 A crown he nimbly flung ; 
 
 For holding of the horse ? — why, no — 
 For holding of his tongue. 
 
 To say the horse was Huggins' own, 
 
 Would only be a brag ; 
 His neighbour Fig and he went halves 
 
 Like Centaurs, in a nag. 
 
 And he that day had got the gray. 
 Unknown to brother cit ; 70 
 
 The horse he knew would never tell, 
 Altho' it was a tit. 
 
 A well-bred horse he was I wis, 
 
 As he began to show. 
 By quickly ' rearing up within 
 
 The way he ought to go.' 
 
 But Huggins, like a wary man, 
 Was ne'er from saddle cast ; 
 
 Resolved, by going very slow, 
 
 On sitting very fast. 80 
 
THE EPPING HUNT 
 
 199 
 
 And so he jogged to Tot'n'am Cross 
 An ancient town well known, 
 
 Where Edward wept for Eleanor 
 In mortar and in stone. 
 
 A royal game of fox and goose, 
 
 To play on such a loss ; 
 Wherever she sets down her arts, 
 
 Thereby he put a cross. 
 
 Now Huggins had a crony here, 
 That Uved beside the way ; 90 
 
 One that had promised sure to be 
 His comrade for the day. 
 
 Whereas the man had chang'd his 
 mind. 
 
 Meanwhile upon the case ! 
 And meaning not to hunt at all, 
 
 Had gone to Enfield Chase. 
 
 Forwhy.his spouse hadmade him vow 
 
 To let a game alone. 
 Where folks that ride a bit of blood. 
 
 May break a bit of bone. 100 
 
 ' Now, be his wife a plague for life ! 
 
 A coward sure is he : ' 
 Then Huggins turned his horse's head 
 
 And crossed the bridge of Lea. 
 
 Thence slowly on thro' Laytonstone, 
 Past many a Quaker's box, — 
 
 No friends to hunters after deer, 
 Tho' followers of a Fox. 
 
 And many a score behind — before — 
 The self-sajne route inclin'd, no 
 
 And minded all to march one way. 
 Made one great march of mind. 
 
 Gentle and simple, he and she. 
 And swell, and blood, and prig ; 
 
 And some had carts, and someachaise, 
 According to their gig. 
 
 Some long-ear'd jacks, some knacker's 
 hacks, 
 
 (However odd it sounds,) 
 Let out that day to hunt, instead 
 
 Of going to the hounds I 120 
 
 And some had horses of their own. 
 And some were forced to job it ; 
 
 And some, while they inclin'd to Hunt 
 Betook themselves to Cob-it. 
 
 All sorts of vehicles and vans, 
 Bad, middling, and the smart ; 
 
 Here roll'd along the gay barouche, 
 And there a dirty cart 1 
 
 And lo ! a cart that held a. squad 
 Of costermonger line ; 130 
 
 With one pooi; hack, like Pegasus, 
 That slav'd for all the Nine ! 
 
 Yet marvel not at any load. 
 That any horse might drag ; 
 
 When all, that morn, at once were 
 drawn 
 Together by a stag ! 
 
 Now when they saw John Huggins go 
 
 At such a sober pace ; 
 ' Hallo ! ' cried they ; ' come, trot 
 away. 
 
 You'll never see the chase ! ' 140 
 
 But John, as grave as any judge, 
 
 Made answers quite as blunt ; 
 ' It will be time enough to trot, 
 
 When I begin to hunt ! ' 
 And so he paced to Woodford Wells, 
 
 Where many a horseman met. 
 And letting go the reins, of course, 
 
 Prepared for heavy wet. 
 And lo ! within the crowded door. 
 
 Stood Rounding, jovial elf ; 150 
 Here shall the Muse frame no excuse. 
 
 But frame the man himself. 
 A snow white head, a merry eye, 
 
 A cheek of jolly Iblush ; 
 A claret tint laid on by health. 
 
 With master reynard's brush ; 
 A hearty frame, a courteous bow, 
 
 The prince he learn'd it from ; 
 His age about three-score and ten. 
 
 And there you have Old Tom. 160 
 In merriest key I trow was he, 
 
 So many guests to boast ; 
 So certain congiregations meet. 
 
 And elevate the host. 
 ' Now welcome, lads,' quoth he, ' and 
 prads. 
 
 You're all in glorious luck : 
 Old Robin has a run to-day, 
 
 A noted forest buck. 
 
300 
 
 THE EPPING HUNT 
 
 ' Fair Mead 's the place, where Bob 
 and Tom, 
 
 In red already ride ; 170 
 
 'Tis but a step, and on a horse 
 
 You soon may go a stride.' 
 
 So ofE they scamper'd, man and horse, 
 As time and temper .press 'd ; — 
 
 But Huggins, hitching on a tree, 
 Branch' d off from all the rest. 
 
 Howbeit he tumbled down in time 
 To join with Tom and Bob, 
 
 All in Fair Mead, which held that day 
 Its own fair meed of mob. 1 80 
 
 Idlers to wit — no Guardians some. 
 
 Of Tattlers in a squeeze ; 
 Ramblers, in heavy carts and vans, 
 
 Spectators, up in trees. 
 
 Butchers on backs of butchers' hacks, 
 That shambled to and fro' ! 
 
 Bakers intent upon a buck, 
 Neglectful of the dough I 
 
 Change Alley Bears to speculate. 
 As usual, for a fall ; 1 90 
 
 And greeni and scarlet runners, such 
 As never climb'd a wall ! 
 
 'Twas strange to think what difference 
 
 A single creature made ; 
 A single stag had caused a whole 
 
 Stognation in their trade. 
 
 Now Huggins from his saddle rose. 
 And in the stirrups stood ; 
 
 And lo ! a little cart that came 
 Hard by a little wood. 200 
 
 In shape like half a hearse, — tho' not 
 
 For corpses in the least ; 
 For this contained the deer alive, 
 
 And not the dear deceased I 
 
 And now began a sudden stir, 
 And then a sudden shout. 
 
 The prison-doors were opened wide, 
 And Robin bounded out ! 
 
 His antler'd head shone blue and red, 
 Bedeck'd with ribbons fine ; 210 
 
 Like other bucks that come to 'list 
 The hawbucks in the line. 
 
 One curious gaz3 of mild amaze, 
 He turn'd and shortly took : 
 
 Then gently ran adown the mead, 
 And bounded o'er the brook. 
 
 Now Huggins,. standing far aloof. 
 
 Had never seen the deer. 
 Till all at once he saw the beast 
 
 Come charging in his rear. 220 
 
 Away he went, and many a score 
 
 Of riders did the same, 
 On horse and ass — like high and low 
 
 And Jack pursuing game ! 
 
 Good Lord ! to see the riders now, 
 Thrown off with sudden whirl, 
 
 A score within the purling brook, 
 Enjoy'd their ' early purl.' 
 
 A score were sprawling on the grass, 
 And beavers fell in show'rs ; 230 
 
 There was another Floorer there. 
 Beside the Queen of Flowers ! ■ 
 
 Some lost their stirrups, some their 
 whips. 
 
 Some had no caps to show ; 
 But few, like Charles at Charing Cross, 
 
 Rode on in Statue quo. 
 
 ' O dear ! O dear ! ' now might you 
 hear, 
 
 ' I've surely broke a bone ; ' 
 ' My head is sore,' — with many more 
 
 Such speeches from the thrown. 240 
 
 Howbeit their wailings never mov'd 
 
 The wide Satanic clan. 
 Who grinned, as once thedevilgrinn'd. 
 
 To see the fall of Man. 
 
 And hunters good, that understood. 
 
 Their laughter knew no bounds, 
 To see the horses ' throwing off," 
 
 So long before the hounds. 
 For deer must have due course of law, 
 
 Like men the Courts among ; 250 
 Before those Barristers the dogs 
 
 Proceed to ' giving tongue.' 
 
 But now Old Robin's foes were set, 
 
 That fatal taint to find. 
 That always is scent after him, 
 
 Yet always left behind. 
 
THE EPPING HUNT 
 
 201 
 
 And here observe how dog and man 
 A different temper shows, 
 
 What hound resents that he is sent 
 To follow his own nose ? i6o 
 
 Towler and Jowler — howlers all, 
 No single tongue was mute ; 
 
 The stag had led a hart, and lo ! 
 The whole pack foUow'd suit. 
 
 No spur he lack'd, fear stuck a knife 
 And fork in either haunch ; 
 
 And every dog he knew had got 
 An eye-tooth to his paunch ! 
 
 Away, away ! he scudded like 
 
 A ship before the gale ; zjo 
 
 Now flew to ' hills we know not of," 
 Now, nun-like, took the vale. 
 
 Another squadron charging now, 
 Went pfi at furious pitch ; — 
 
 A perfect Tam o' Shanter mob, 
 Without a single witch. 
 
 But who was he with flying skirts, 
 
 A hunter did endorse. 
 And like a poet seem'd to ride 
 
 Upon a winged horse, — 280 
 
 A whipper in ? no whipper in : 
 A huntsman ? no such soul : 
 
 A connoisseur, or amateur ? 
 Why yes, — a Horse Patrol. 
 
 A member of police, for whom 
 
 The county found a nag. 
 And, like Acteon in the tale. 
 
 He found himself in stag ! 
 
 Away they went then dog and deer. 
 And hunters all away, — 290 
 
 The maddest horses never knew 
 Mad staggers such as they ! ■ 
 
 Some gave a shout, some roU'd about, 
 And antick'd as they rode. 
 
 And butchers whistled on their curs, 
 And milkmen tally -ho' d ! 
 
 About two score there were, not more, 
 . That gallopped in the race ; 
 The rest, alas ! lay on the grass, 
 As once in Chevy Chase I 300 
 
 But even those that gallopped on. 
 Were fewer every minute, — 
 
 The field. kept getting more select. 
 Each thicket served to thin it. 
 
 For some puUed up, and left the hunt. 
 
 Some fell in miry bogs. 
 And vainly rose and ' ran a muck,' 
 
 To overtake the dogs. 
 
 And some, in charging hurdle stakes, 
 
 W^ere left bereft'of sense, 310 
 
 What else could be premised of blades 
 
 That never learn'd to fence ? 
 But Rounding, Tom,and Bob,no gate. 
 
 Nor hedge nor ditch could stay ; 
 O'er all th^y went, and did the work 
 
 Of leap years in a day ! 
 
 And by their side see Muggins ride, 
 As fast as he could speed ; 
 
 For, like Mazeppa, he was quite 
 At mercy of his steed. 320 
 
 No means he had, by timely check, 
 
 The gallop to remit, 
 For firm and fast, between his teeth, 
 
 The biter held the bit. 
 
 Trees raced along, all Essex fled 
 Beneath him as he sate, — 
 
 He never saw a county go 
 At such a county rate ! 
 
 ■' Hold hard ! hold hard ! you'll lame 
 the dogs : ' 
 
 Quoth Huggiiis, ' So I do,^ 330 
 I've got the saddle well in hand, 
 
 And hold as hard as you I ' 
 
 Good lord ! to see him ride along. 
 And throw his arms about, 
 
 As if with stitches in the side. 
 That he was drawing out ! 
 
 And now he bounded up and down. 
 
 Now like a jelly shook : 
 Till bump'd and gall'd— yet not where 
 Gall, 
 
 For bumps did ever look ! 340 
 
 And rowing with his legs the while, 
 
 As tars are apt to ride ; 
 With every kick he gave a prick, 
 
 Deep in the horse's side I 
 
 H 3 
 
THE EPPING HUNT 
 
 But soon the horse was well avenged, 
 
 For cruel smart of spurs, 
 For, riding through a moor, he pitched 
 
 His master in a furze ! 
 
 Where sharper set than hunger is 
 He squatted all forlorn ; 350 
 
 And like a bird was singing out 
 While sitting on a thorn ! 
 
 Right glad was he, as well might be. 
 
 Such cushion to resign : 
 ' Possession is nine points,' but his 
 
 Seemed more than ninety-nine. 
 
 Yet worse than all the prickly points 
 
 That enter'd in hiis skin. 
 His nag was ruttning off the while 
 
 The thorns wei-e running in ! 360 
 
 Now had a Papist seen his sport, 
 
 Thus, laid upon the shelf, 
 Altho' no horse he had to cross, 
 
 He might have cross'd himself. 
 
 Yet surely still the wind is ill 
 That none can say is fair ; 
 
 A jolly wight there was, that rode 
 Upon a sorry mare ! 
 
 A sorry mare that surely came 
 
 Of pagan blood and bone ; 370 
 
 For down upon her knees she went, 
 To many a stock and stone ! 
 
 Now seeing Huggins' nag adrift. 
 This farmer, shrewd and sagfe, 
 ■ Resolv'd, by changing horses here. 
 To hunt another stage ! 
 
 Tho' felony, yet who would let 
 
 Another's horse alone. 
 Whose neck is placed in jeopardy 
 
 By riding on his own ? 380 
 
 And yet the conduct of the man 
 Seemed honest-like and fair ; 
 
 For he seem'd willing, horse and all. 
 To go before the mare I 
 
 So up on Huggins' horse he got, 
 
 And swiftly rode away. 
 While Huggins mounted on the mare 
 
 Done brown upon a bay ! 
 
 And off they set, in double chase. 
 For such was fortune's whim^ 390 
 
 The farmer rode to hunt the stag, 
 And Huggins hunted him ! 
 
 Alas ! with one that rode so well 
 
 In vain it was to strive ; 
 A dab was he, as dabs should be — 
 
 All leaping and alive ! 
 
 And here of Nature's kindly care 
 
 Behold a curious proof, 
 As nags are meant to leap, she puts' 
 
 A frog in every hoof ! : 400 
 
 Whereas the mare, altho' her share 
 
 She had of hoof and frog, 
 On coming to a gate stopp'd short 
 
 As stiff as any log ; 
 
 Whilst Huggins in the stirrup stood 
 With neck like neck of crane. 
 
 As sings the Scottish song — ' to see 
 The gate his hart had gane.' 
 
 And, lo ! the dim and distant hunt 
 Diminish'd in a trice : 4K1 
 
 The steeds, like Cinderella's team, 
 Seem'd dwindling into mice ; 
 
 And, far remote, each scarlet coat 
 Soon flitted like a spark, — 
 
 Tho' still the forest murmur'd back 
 An echo of the bark ! 
 
 But sad at soul John Huggins tum'd :' 
 No comfort he could find ; 
 
 Whilst thus the ' Hunting Chorus ' 
 sped. 
 To stay five bars behind. 420 
 
 For tho' by dint of spur he got 
 
 A leap in spite of fate — 
 Howbeit there was no toll at all, 
 
 They could not clear the gate. 
 
 And, like Fitzjames, he cursed the 
 hunt. 
 
 And sorely cursed the day. 
 And mused a new Gray's elegy 
 
 On his departed gray ! 
 
 Now many a sign at Woodford town 
 Its Inn-vitation tells : 430 
 
 But Huggins, full of ills, of course 
 Betook him to the Wells, 
 
THE EPPING HUNT 
 
 203 
 
 \\here Rounding tried to cheer him up 
 With many a merry laugh : 
 
 But Huggins thought of neighbour Fig, 
 And call'd for half-and-half. 
 
 Yet, spite of drink, he could not blink 
 Remembrance of his loss ; 
 
 To drown a care like his, required 
 Enough to drown a. horse. 440 
 
 When thus forlorn, a merry horn 
 Struck up without the door, — 
 
 The mounted mob were all return'd ; 
 The Epping Hunt was o'er ! 
 
 And many a horse was taken out 
 
 Of saddle, and of shaft ; 
 And men, by dint of drink, became 
 
 The only ' beasts of draught.' 
 
 For now begun a harder run 
 On wine, and gin, and beer ; 430 
 
 And overtaken men discuss'd 
 The overtaken deer. 
 
 How far he ran, and. eke how fast. 
 And how at bay he stood, 
 
 Deerlike, resolved to sell his life 
 As dearly as he could ; — 
 
 And how the hunters stood aloof. 
 
 Regardful of their lives. 
 And shunn'd abeast, whose very horns 
 
 They knew could handle knives! 460 
 
 How Huggins stood when he was 
 rubb'd 
 
 By help and ostler kind. 
 And when they cleaned the clay before, 
 
 How ' worse remain'd behind.' 
 
 And one, how he had found a horse 
 
 Adrift — a goodly gray ! 
 And kindly rode the nag, for fear 
 
 The nag should go astray. 
 
 Now Huggins, when he heard the tale, 
 Jump'd up with sudden glee ; 470 
 
 ' A goodly gray ! why, then, I say 
 That gray belongs to me ! 
 
 ' Let me endorse again my horse, 
 DeUver'd safe and sound ; 
 
 And, gladly, I will give the man 
 A bottle and a pound ! ' 
 
 The wine was drunk,— the money paid , 
 Tho' not without remorse. 
 
 To pay another man so much, 
 
 For riding on his horse ; — 480 
 
 And let the chase again take place 
 For many a long, long year — 
 
 John Huggins will not ride again 
 To hunt the Epping Deer ! 
 
 Thus pleasure oft eludes our grasp. 
 Just when we think to grip her ; 
 
 And hunting after Happiness, 
 We only hunt a slipper, 
 
COMIC MELODIES 
 
 A SERIES OF HUMOROUS BALLADS, DUETTS, AND TRIOS 
 (1830) 
 
 ' A Ookrul Song a doleful look retraces 
 But merry Music maketh merry faces.' 
 
 LIEUTENANT LUFF 
 
 All you that are too fond of Wine, 
 
 Or any other stuff, 
 Take -warning by the dismal fate 
 
 Of one Lieutenant Luff. 
 A sober man he might have been, 
 
 Except in one regard, 
 he did not like soft water. 
 
 So he took to drinking hard I 
 
 Said he, ' Let others fancy slops, 
 
 And talk in praise of Tea, 10 
 
 But I am no BoAemian, 
 
 So do not like Bohea. 
 If Wine 's a poison, so is Tea, 
 
 Tho' in another shape : 
 What matter whether one is kill 'd 
 
 By canister or grape ! ' 
 
 According to this kind of taste 
 
 Did he indulge his drouth. 
 And being fond of Port, he made 
 
 A port-Yio\& of his mouth ! 20 
 
 A single pint he might have sipp'd 
 
 And not been out of sorts, 
 In geologic phrase — the rock 
 
 He split upon was quarts ! 
 
 To ' hold the mirror up to vice ' 
 
 With him was hard, alas ! 
 The worse for wine he often was. 
 
 But not ' before a glass ' ! 
 No kind and prudent friend he had 
 
 To bid him drink no more, — 30 
 The only chequers in his course 
 
 Were at a tavern door ! 
 
 Full soon the sad effects of this 
 
 His frame began to show, — 
 For that old enemy the gout 
 
 Had taken him in toe ! 
 And joined with this an evil came 
 
 Of quite another sort, — 
 For while he drank, himself, his purse 
 
 Was getting ' something short.' 40 
 
 For want of cash he soon had pawn'd 
 
 One half that he possess'd. 
 And drinking show'd him duplicates 
 
 Beforeha,nd of the rest ! 
 So now his Creditors resolved 
 
 To seize on his assets, — 
 For why — they found that his halj- 
 pay 
 
 Did not half pay his debts. 
 
 But Luff contriv'd a novel mode 
 
 His Creditors to chouse ; 50 
 
 For his own execution he 
 
 Put into his own house ! 
 A pistol to the muzzle charg'd 
 
 He took devoid of fear ; 
 Said he, ' This barrel is my last. 
 
 So now for ray last bier ! ' 
 
 Against his lungs he aim'd the slugs, 
 
 And not against his brain, 
 So he blew out his lights — and none 
 
 Could blow them in again ! 60 
 
 A Jury for a Verdict met, 
 
 And gave it in these terms : — 
 ' We find as how as certain slugs 
 
 Has sent him to the worms 1 ' 
 
205 
 
 THE SHIP LAUNCH 
 
 SUNG BY MR. MATHEWS IN THE ENTERTAINMENT CALLED 
 ' THE SPRING MEETING ' 
 
 The day is bright, the wind is light, 
 
 And gay with flags and streamers ; 
 From side to side old Thames's tide 
 
 Is mobb'd with boats and steamers. 
 Put up, my Dear, the bottled beer. 
 
 And pack the mutton haunch now. 
 Then off we go, row. Brothers, row. 
 
 And let us see the launch now. 
 
 So off we go, row. Brothers, row. 
 And let us see the launch now, lo 
 
 So off we go, row, Brothers, row, 
 And let us see the launch now ! 
 
 \ 
 
 The gallant Ship is on the slip. 
 
 Her banners waving o'er her ; 
 And now she slides, away she glides, 
 
 And drives the foam before her. 
 Long may she brave the wind and wave. 
 
 And foil the foe's endeavour ; 
 Now let us say ' Huzza, huzza, 
 
 Our wooden walls for ever ! ' jo 
 
 Now off we go, row. Brothers, row, 
 For we have seen the launch now. 
 
 Now off we go, row. Brothers, row. 
 For we have seen the launch now. 
 
 GOG AND MAGOG 
 
 A GUILDHALL DUET 
 
 MAGOG 
 
 Why, Gog, I say, it 's after One, 
 And yet no dinner carv'd ; 
 
 Shall we endure this sort of fun, 
 And stand here to be starv'd ? 
 
 I really think our City Lords 
 
 Must be a shabby set 
 I've stood here since King Charles's 
 time, 
 
 And had no dinner yet ! 
 
 MAGOG 
 
 I vow I can no longer stay ; 
 
 I say, are we to dine to-day ? lo 
 
 GOG 
 
 My hunger would provoke a saint, 
 I've waited till I'm sick and faint ; 
 I'll tell you what, they'll starve us 
 
 both, 
 I'll tell you what, they'll stop our 
 
 growth. 
 
 MAGOG 
 
 I wish I had a round of Beef 
 My hungry tooth to charm ; 
 
 I've wind enough in my inside 
 To play the Hundredth Psalm. 
 
 And yet they feast beneath our eyes 
 Without the least remorse ; ao 
 
 This very week I saw the Mayor 
 A feeding like a Horse ! 
 
 MAGOG 
 
 Such loads of fish, and flesh, and fowl. 
 To think upon it makes me growl 1 
 
 I wonder where the fools were taught. 
 That they should keep a Giant short ! 
 They'll stop our growth, they'll stop 
 
 our growth ; 
 They'll starve us both, they'll starve 
 , us both ! 
 
2o6 
 
 GOG AND MAGOG 
 
 MAGOG 
 
 They said, a Hundred Years ago, 
 That we should dine at One ; 30 
 
 Why, Gog, I say, our meat by this 
 Is rather over-done. 
 
 I do not want it done at all. 
 
 So hungry is my maw. 
 Give me an Alderman in chains, 
 
 And I will eat him raw ! 
 
 MAGOG 
 
 Of starving Weavers they discuss. 
 And yet they never think of us. 
 
 I say, are we to dine to-day ; 
 
 Are we to dine to-day ? 40 
 
 GOG 
 
 Oh dear, the pang it is to feel 
 
 So mealy-mouth'd without a meal ! 
 
 MAGOG 
 
 I'll tell you what, they'll stop our 
 growth ! 
 
 GOG 
 
 I'll tell you what, they'll starve us both! 
 
 BOTH 
 
 They'll stop our growth, they'll starve 
 us both ! 
 
 VALENTINE'S DAY 
 
 Surely the mornin' Cupid was born in 
 Ought to be kept, 'tis Valentine's day, 
 
 Father and Mother, Sister and Brother ; 
 
 This, that and t'other may preach as they may. 
 
 But nothing shall hinder a peep at the winder 
 To see if the Postman is over the way. . . . 
 
 Their hearts they go pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, 
 Flutter'd and flurried on Valentine's Day. 
 
 Sure, of all days that ever were dated, 
 Valentine's Day is the fullest of news ; 
 
 Then ev'ry lass expects to be mated 
 
 And Cupid goes round collecting his dues ! 
 
 And levies a door-rate, like parish or poor-rate. 
 By getting the Postman to stand in his shoes. . . 
 
 Their hearts they go pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, 
 Flutter'd and flurried on Valentine's Day. 
 
 LOVE HAS NOT EYES 
 
 Of all the poor old Tobits a-groping in the street, 
 A Lover is the blindest that ever I did meet, 
 
 For he 's blind, he 's blind, he 's very blind, — 
 
 He 's as blind as any mole ! 
 
 He thinks his love the fairest that ever yet was clasp 'd, 
 Tho' her clay is overbaked, and it never has been rasp'd. 
 For he 's blind, &c. 
 
LOVE HAS NOT EYES 20; 
 
 He thinks her face an angel's, altho' it 's quite a frump's, 
 Like a toad a-taking physic, or a monkey in the mumps. 
 
 For he 's blind, &c. 10 
 
 Upon her graceful figure then how he will insist, 
 Tho' she 's aU so much awry, she can only eat a twist ! 
 For he 's blind, &c. 
 
 He'll swear that in her dancing she cuts all others out, 
 Tho' like a Gal that 's galya,nised, she throws her legs about. 
 For he 's blind, &c. 
 
 If he should have a letter in answer to his sighs, 
 He'll put it to his lips up, instead of to his eyes. 
 For he 's blind, &c. 
 
 Then if he has a meeting the question for to put, lo 
 
 In suing for her hand he'll be kneeling at her foot. 
 For he 's bUnd, &c. 
 
 Oh Love is like a furnace wherein a Lover lies. 
 And like a pig before the fire, he scorches out his eyes. 
 TUl he 's blind, &c. 
 
 THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW 
 
 SUNG BY MR. MATHEWS IN ' THE SPRING MEETING ' 
 
 How well I remember the ninth of November, 
 The Sky very foggy, the Sun looking groggy. 
 In fact, altogether pea-soup colour'd weather. 
 Shop-windows all shutter'd, the pavement all buttered. 
 Policemen paraded, the street barricaded, 
 
 And a peal from the steeple of Bow ! 
 Low women in pattens, high ladies in satins, 
 And Cousin Suburbans, in ilame-colour'd turbans. 
 Quite up to the attics, inviting rheumatics, 
 A great mob collecting, without much selecting, 
 And some, it 's a pity, are free of the city, 
 
 As your pockets may happen to know ! . . . 
 
 Such hustle and bustle, and mobbing and robbing, 
 All, all to see the Lord May'r's Show I 
 
 How well I remember the ninth of November, 
 Six trumpets on duty, as shrill as'Veluti, 
 A great City Marshall, to riding not partial. 
 The footmen, the state ones, with calves very great ones. 
 The Cook and the Scullion, well basted with bullion, 
 And the squad of each Corporate Co. 
 
208 THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW 
 
 Four draymen from Perkins, in steel and brass jerkins, 
 A Coach like a lantern, I wonder it can turn, 
 All carved like old buildings, and drawn by six gildings, 
 With two chubby faces, where sword and where mace is. 
 The late May'r, the Ex one, a thought that must vex one. 
 And the new May'r just come into blow ! . . . 
 
 Such hustle and bustle, and mobbing and robbing. 
 All, all to see the Lord May'r's Show. 
 
 How well I remember, the ninth of November, 
 
 The fine Lady May'ress, an Ostrich's heiress, 30 
 
 In best bib and tucker, and dignified pucker. 
 
 The learned Recorder, in Old Bailey order. 
 
 The Sherifis together, — with their hanging weather. 
 
 And their heads like John Anderson's pow ! 
 The Aldermen courtly, and looking 'red port My, 
 And buckler and bargemen, with other great large men. 
 With streamers and banners, held up in odd manners, 
 A mob running ' arter,' to see it by ' vater,' 
 
 And the Wharfs popping ofif as they go ! . . . 
 
 Such hustle and bustle, such mobbing and robbing, 40 
 
 All, all to see the Lord May'r's Show ! 
 
THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM, 
 THE MURDERER 
 
 (1829. Separate publication 183 1) 
 
 'TwAS in the prime of summer time, 
 
 An evening calm and cool, 
 And four-and-twenty happy boys 
 
 Came bounding out of school : 
 There were some that ran and some 
 that leapt. 
 
 Like troutlets in a pool. 
 Away they sped withgamesomeminds, 
 
 And souls untouched by sin ; 
 To a level mead they came, and tliere 
 
 They drave the wickets in : 10 
 Pleasantly shone the setting sun 
 
 Over the town of Lynn. 
 
 Like sportive deer they cours'd about. 
 
 And shouted as they ran, — 
 Turning to mirth all things of earth, 
 
 As only boyhood can ; 
 But the Usher sat remote from all, 
 
 A melancholy man ! 
 His hat was off, his vest apart, 19 
 
 To catch heaven's blessed breeze ; 
 Foraburning thoughtwas in his brow. 
 
 And his bosom ill at ease : 
 So he lean'd his head on his hands, 
 and read 
 
 The book between his knees ! 
 
 Leaf after leaf, he turn'd it o'er. 
 
 Nor ever glanc'd aside, 
 For the peace of his soul he read that 
 book. 
 
 In the golden eventide : 
 Much study had made him very lean, 
 
 And pale, and leaden-ey'd. 30 
 
 At last he shut the ponderous tome. 
 With a fast and fervent grasp 
 
 He strain'd the dusky covers close. 
 And fixed the brazen hasp : 
 
 ' Oh, God ! could I so close my mind. 
 And clasp it with a clasp ! ' 
 
 Then leaping on his feet upright, 
 Some moody turns he took, — 
 
 Nov/ up the mead, then down the 
 mead. 
 And past a shady nook, — 40 
 
 And, lo ! he saw a little boy 
 That pored upon a book ! 
 
 ' My gentle lad, what is't you read — 
 Romance or fairy fable ? 
 
 Or is it some historic page. 
 
 Of kings and crowns unstable ? ' 
 
 The young boy gave an upward 
 glance, — 
 ' It is " The Death of Abel." ' 
 
 The Usher took six hasty strides, 
 
 As smit with sudden pain, — S" 
 
 Six hasty strides beyond the place. 
 Then slowly back again ; 
 
 And down he sat beside the lad. 
 And talk'd with him of Cain ; 
 
 And, long since then, of bloody men, 
 Whose deeds tradition saves ; 
 
 Of lonely folk cut off unseen. 
 And hid in sudden graves ; 
 
 Of horrid stabs, in groves forlorn. 
 And murders done in caves ; 60 
 
210 
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM 
 
 And how the sprites of injur'd men 
 Shriek upward from the sod, — 
 
 Aye, how the ghostly hand will point 
 To show the burial clod ; 
 
 And unknown facts of guilty acts 
 Are seen in dreams from God I 
 
 He told how murderers walk the earth 
 Beneath the curse of Cain, — 
 
 With crimson clouds before their eyes. 
 And flames about their brain : 70 
 
 For blood has left upon their souls 
 Its everlasting stain ! 
 
 'And well,' quoth he, 'I know, for 
 truth. 
 Their pangs must be extreme, — 
 Woe, woe, unutterable woe, — 
 
 Who spill life's sacred stream ! 
 For why ? Methought, last night, I 
 wrought 
 A murder, in a dream ! 
 
 ' One that had never done me wrong — 
 A feeble man, and old ; 80 
 
 I led him to a lonely field, — 
 
 The moon shone clear and cold : 
 
 Now here, said I, this man shall die. 
 And I will have his gold I 
 
 ' Two sudden blows with a ragged 
 stick. 
 
 And one with a heavy stone, 
 One hurried gash with a hasty knife, — 
 
 And then the deed was done : 
 There was nothing lying at my foot 
 
 But lifeless flesh and bone ! 90 
 
 ' Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone. 
 That could not do me ill ; 
 
 And yet I fear'd him all the more. 
 For lying there so still : 
 
 There was a manhood in his look, 
 That murder could not kill ! 
 
 ' And, lo ! the universal air 
 
 Seem'd lit with ghastly flame ; — 
 Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes 
 
 Were looking down in blame : 
 I took the dead man by his hand, loi 
 
 And call'd upon his name ! 
 
 ' Oh, God ! it made me quake to see 
 Such sense within the slain ! 
 
 But when I touch'd the lifeless clay, 
 The blood gushed out amain ! 
 
 For every clot, a burning spot. 
 Was scorching in my brain ! 
 
 ' My head was like an ardent coal. 
 My heart as solid ice ; no 
 
 My wretched, wretched soul, I knew. 
 Was at the Devil's price : 
 
 A dozen times I groan 'd ; the dead 
 Had never groan 'd but twice ! 
 
 ' And now, from forth the frowning 
 sky. 
 From the Heaven's . topmost 
 height, 
 I heard a voice — the awful voice 
 
 Of the blood -avenging Sprite : — 
 
 "Thou guilty man! take up thy dead, 
 
 And hide it from my sight ! " 120 
 
 ' I took the dreary body up, 
 And cast it in a stream, — 
 
 A sluggish water, black as ink, 
 
 The depth was so extreme : — • 
 
 My gentle Boy, remember this 
 Is nothing but a dream ! 
 
 ' Down went the corse with a, hollow 
 plunge. 
 
 And vanish 'd in the pool ; 
 Anon I cleans'd my bloody hands, 
 
 And wash'd my forehead cool, 130 
 And sat among the urchins young 
 
 That evening in the school. 
 
 ' Oh, Heaven, to think of their white 
 souls. 
 
 And mine so black and grim ! 
 I could not share in childish prayer, 
 
 Nor join in Evening Hymn : 
 Like a Devil of the Pit, I seem'd, 
 
 'Mid holy Cherubim ! 
 
 ' And Peace went with them, one and 
 all. 
 
 And each calm pillow spread ; 140 
 But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain 
 
 That lighted me to bed ; 
 And drew my midnight curtains round 
 
 With fingers bloody red 1 
 
THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM 
 
 211 
 
 ' All night I lay in agony, 
 
 In anguish dark and deep ; 
 
 My fever'd eyes I dared not close, 
 But stared aghast at Sleep : 
 
 For Sin had render'd unto her 
 
 The keys of Hell to keep ! 150 
 
 ' All night I lay, in agony, 
 
 From weary chime to chime, 
 
 With one besetting horrid hint. 
 
 That rack'd me all the time, — 
 
 A mighty yearning, like the first 
 Fierce impulse unto crime ! 
 
 ' One stern tyrannic thought, that 
 made 
 
 All other thoughts its slave ; 
 Stronger and stronger every pulse 
 
 Did that temptation crave, — 160 
 Still urging me to go and see 
 
 The Dead Man in his grave ! 
 
 ' Heavily I rose up, as soon 
 As light was in the sky. 
 
 And sought the black accursed pool 
 With a wild misgiving eye ; 
 
 And I saw the Dead in the river bed, 
 For the faithless stream was dry ! 
 
 ' Merrily rose the lark, and shook 
 The dew-drop from its wing ; 170 
 
 But I never ipark'd its morning flight, 
 I never heard it sing : 
 
 For I was stooping once again 
 Under th.e horrid thing. 
 
 ' With breathless speed, like a soul in 
 chase, 
 I took him up and ran ; — 
 There was no time to dig a grave 
 
 Before the day began : 
 In a lonesome wood, with heaps of 
 leaves, 
 I hid the murder'd man ! 180 
 
 ' And all that day I read in school. 
 But my thought was otherwhere ; 
 
 As soon as the mid-day task was done. 
 In secret I was there : 
 
 And a mighty wind had swept the 
 leaves. 
 And still the corse was bare ! 
 
 ' Then down I cast me on toy face. 
 And first began to weep. 
 
 For I knew my secret then was one 
 That earth refused to keep : 190 
 
 Or land, or sea, though he should be 
 Ten thousand fathoms deep. 
 
 ' So wills the fierce avenging Sprite, 
 Till blood for blood atones ! 
 
 Ay, though he 's buried in a cave. 
 And trodden down with stones. 
 
 And years have rotted off his flesh, — 
 The world shall see his bones ! 
 
 ' Oh, God ! that horrid, horrid dream 
 Besets me now awake ! 200 
 
 Again — again, with a dizzy brain. 
 The human life I take ; 
 
 And my red right hand grows raging 
 hot. 
 Like Cranmer's at the stake. 
 
 'And still no peace for the restless clay. 
 Will wave or mould allow ; 
 
 The horrid thing pursues my soul, — 
 It stands before me now ! ' 
 
 The fearful Boy look'd up, and saw 
 Huge drops upon his brow, zio 
 
 That very night, while gentle sleep 
 The urchin eyelids kiss'd. 
 
 Two stern-faced men set out from 
 Lynn, 
 Through the cold and heavy mist; 
 
 And Eugene Aram walked between. 
 With gyves upon his wrist.' 
 
 ' The late Admiral Burney went to school at an establishment where the unhappy Eugene Aram 
 was Usher, subsequent to his crime. The Admiral stated, that Aram was generally liked b_y the 
 lioys; and that he used to discourse to them about murder^ in somewhat of the spirit which is 
 attributed tO' him in the Poem. [This was omitted when the poem was published in 1831, and its 
 place taken by a Preface which will be found in the Notes.] 
 
VERSES FROM ' TYLNEY HALL' 
 
 (1834) 
 
 [PLAY ON, YE TIMID RABBITS]" 
 
 Play on, ye timid Rabbits ! 
 For I can see ye run, 
 Ne'qr thinking of a gun. 
 
 Or of the ferret's habits. 
 
 Ye sportive Hares ! go forcing 
 The dewdrop from the bent ; 
 My mind is not intent 
 
 On greyhounds or on coursing. 
 
 Feed on, ye gorgeous Pheasants ! 
 My sight I do not vex 
 
 With cards about your necks. 
 Forestalling you for presents. 
 
 Go gazing on, and bounding, 
 
 Thou solitairy Deer ! 
 
 My fancy does not hear 
 Hounds baying, and horns sounding. 
 
 Each furr'd or feather'd creature. 
 Enjoy with me this earth. 
 Its life, its love, its mirth. 
 
 And die the death of nature ! 20 
 
 [A DECLARATION] 
 
 If to believe that dreams were truth, 
 And all the fond romance of youth ; 
 Each pictured charm that fancy prized 
 In one fair form now realized — 
 If to sum up in that dear scope 
 My all of joy, my all of hope ; 
 Where falithlessness there could be 
 
 none. 
 For all the sex was merg'd in one — 
 If to be happy in her nearness. 
 Holding her very silk in dearness ; 10 
 As if my heart could have no home 
 But where she was, or was to come — 
 If from the contact of a finger, 
 An after-liliss for days could linger. 
 
 A feeling kept secure and chaste 
 Till by the next sweet touch effac'd — 
 If to pine after pow'r and glory 
 But for one sake — if in love-story. 
 To make each tenderest phrase refer 
 All that is bright and good to her — 20 
 If with all thoughts to haunt her 
 
 bow'r 
 True as the bee is to the flow'r ; 
 Her image join'd with all day-schem- 
 ing, 
 And nightly worshipped in all dream- 
 ing^ 
 If these be signs that Love delivers, 
 I am thy lover, fair Grace Rivers ! 
 
213 
 
 [THE STREAMLET] 
 
 Still glides the gentle streamlet oa, 
 With shifting current new and 
 strange ; 
 The water that was here is gone, 
 But tjiose green shadows do not 
 change. 
 
 Serene, or ruffled by the storm. 
 On present waves, as on the past. 
 
 The mirror'd grove retains its form, 
 The self-same trees their semblance 
 cast. 
 
 The hue each fleeting globule wears, 
 That drop bequeaths it to the 
 next, 10 
 
 One picture still the surface bears,. 
 To illustrate the murmur'd text. 
 
 So, love, however time may flow. 
 Fresh hours pursuing those that 
 flee. 
 
 One constant image still shall show 
 My tide of hfe is true to thee ! 
 
 TOM TATTERS' BIRTHDAY ODE 
 
 Come all you jolly dogs, in the Grapes, and King's Head, and Green Man, 
 
 and Bell taps, 
 And shy up your hats — if you haven't hats, your paper and woollen caps, 
 Shout with me and cry Eureka ! by the sweet Parnassian River, 
 While Echo, in Warner's Wood replies. Huzza ! the young Squire for ever ! 
 
 And Vulcan, Mars, and Hector of Troy, and Jupiter and his wife. 
 And Phoebus, from his forked hill, coming down to take a knife, 
 And Mercury, and piping Pan, to the tune of ' Old King Cole,' 
 And Venus the Queen of Love, to eat an ox that was roasted whole, 
 
 * Ht * * * 
 
 Sir Mark, God bless him, loves good old times, when beards wag, and every 
 thing goes merry, 9 
 
 There'll be drinking out of gracecups, and a Boar's head chewing rosemary. 
 Maid Marian, and a Morris dance, and acting of quaint Moralities, 
 Doctor Bellamy and a Hobby horse, and many other Old Formalities. 
 
 * M * * * 
 
 But there won't be any Psalm-singing saints, to make us sad of a Monday, 
 But Bacchus will preach to us out of a barrel, instead of the methodist Bundy. 
 We'll drink to the King in good strong ale, like souls that are true and loyal. 
 And a fig for Mrs. Hanway, camomile, sage and penny-royal ; 
 And a fig for Master Gregory, that takes tipsy folks into custody. 
 He was a wise man to-morrow, and will be a wiser man yesterday. 
 
 Come fill a bumper up, my boys, and toss off every drop of it ! 19 
 
 Here 's young Squire Ringwood's health, and may he live as long as Jason, 
 Before Atropos cuts his thread, and Dick Tablet, the bungling mason, 
 Chips him a marble tea-table,- with a marble tea-urn a-top of it ? 
 Quoth Tom in Tatters. 
 
HOOD'S OWN: OR, LAUGHTER FROM 
 YEAR TO YEAR 
 
 BEING FORMER RUNNINGS OF HIS COMIC VEIN, WITH AN INFUSION 
 OF NEW BLOOD FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION 
 
 (1839) 
 
 AN ANCIENT CONCERT 
 
 BY A VENERABLE DIRECTOR 
 
 'Give ine old music — let me hear 
 
 The songs of days gone by ! '— H. F. ChoRLEY. 
 
 O ! COME, all ye who love to hear 
 An ancient song in ancient taste. 
 To whom all bygone Music 's dear 
 As verdant spots in Memory's waste I 
 Its name ' The Ancient Concert ' 
 
 wrongs, 
 And has not hit the proper clef. 
 To wit, Old Folks, to sing Old Songs, 
 To Old Subscribers rather deaf. 
 
 Away then, Hawes ! with all your 
 band ! 9 
 
 Ye beardless boys, this room desert ! 
 One youthful voice, or youthful hand, 
 Our concert-pitch would disconcert ! 
 No Bird must join our ' vocal throng,' 
 The present age beheld at font : 
 Away, then, all ye ' Sons of Song,' 
 Your Fathers are the men we want ! 
 
 Away, Miss Birch, you're in your 
 
 prime ! 
 Miss Romer, seek some other door ! 
 Go, Mrs. Shaw ! till, counting time, 
 You count you're nearly fifty-four ! 20 
 
 Go, Miss Novello, sadly young ! 
 Go, thou composing Chevalier, 
 And roam the county towns among, 
 No Newcome will be welcome here ! 
 
 Our Concert aims to give at night 
 The music that has had its day ! 
 So, Rooke, for us you cannot write 
 Till time has made you Raven grey. 
 Your score may chafm a modern ear, 
 Nay, ours, when three or fourscore old, 
 But in this Ancient atmosphere, 31 
 Fresh airs like yours would give us 
 cold ! 
 
 Go, Hawes, and Cawse, and Woodyat, 
 
 go! 
 Hence, Shirreff, with those native 
 
 curls ; 
 And Master Coward ought to know 
 This is no place for boys and girls ! 
 No Massons here we wish to see ; 
 Nor is it Mrs. Seguin's sphere, 
 
 And Mrs. B ! Oh ! Mrs. B-^ — , 
 
 Such Bishops are not reverend here ! 
 
AN ANCIENT CONCERT 
 
 215 
 
 What ! Grisi, bright and beaming 
 thus ! 4t 
 
 To sing the songs gone grey with age ! 
 
 No, Grisi, no, — but come to us 
 
 And welcome, when you leave the 
 stage I 
 
 OS, I vanhoff ! — till weak and harsh ! — 
 
 Rubini, hence 1 with all the clan ! 
 
 But come, Lablache, years hence, La- 
 blache, 
 
 A little shrivell'd thin old man ! 48 
 
 Go, Mr. Phillips, where you please 1 
 Away, Tom Cooke, and all your batch; 
 You'd run us out of breath with Glees, 
 And Catches that we could not catch. 
 Away, ye Leaders all, who lead 
 With violins, quite modern things ; 
 To guide our Ancient band we need 
 Old fiddles out of leading strings ! 
 
 But come, ye Songsters, dver-ripe, 
 That into ' childish trebles break ! ' 
 And bring, Miss Winter, bring the pipe 
 That cannot sing without a shake ! 60 
 Nay, come, ye Spinsters all, that spin 
 A slender thread of ancient voice. 
 Old notes that almost seem call'd in ; 
 At such as you we shall rejoice ! 
 
 No thund'ring Thalbergs here shall 
 
 baulk, 
 Or ride your pet D-cadence o'er. 
 But fingers with a little chalk 
 Shall, moderate, keep the score ! 
 No Broadwoods here, so full of tone. 
 But Harpsichords assist the strain : 70 
 No Lincoln's pipes, we have our own 
 Bird-Organ, built by Tubal-Cain. 
 
 And welcome ! St. Cecilians, now 
 Ye willy-nilly, ex-good fellows, 
 Who will strike up, no matter how. 
 With organs that survive their bel- 
 lows ! 
 And bring, O bring, your ancient styles 
 In which our elders lov'd to roam. 
 Those flourishes that strayed for miles, 
 Till some good fiddle led them home ! 
 
 O come, ye ancient London Cries, 81 
 When Christmas Carols erst were 
 
 sung ! 
 Come, Nurse, who dron'd the lullabies, 
 ' When Music, heavenly Maid, was 
 
 young ! ' 
 No matter how the critics treat. 
 What modern sins and faults detect. 
 The Copy-Book shall still repeat. 
 These Concerts must ' Command re- 
 spect ! ' 
 
 SONNET ON STEAM 
 
 BY AN UNDER-OSTLER 
 
 I WISH I livd a Thowsen year Ago 
 
 Wurking for Sober six and Seven milers 
 
 And dubble Stages runnen safe and slo 
 
 The Orsis cum in Them days to the Bilers 
 
 But Now by meens of Powers of Steem forces 
 
 A-turning Coches into Smoakey Kettels 
 
 The Bilers seam a Gumming to the Orses 
 
 And Helps and naggs Will sune be out of Vittels 
 
 Poor Bruits I wunder How we bee to Liv 
 
 When sutch a change of Orses is our Faits 
 
 No nothink need Be sifted in a Siv 
 
 May them Blowd ingins all Blow up their Grates 
 
 And Theaves of Osiers crib the Coles and Giv 
 
 Their blackgard Hannimuls a Feed of Slaits ! 
 
2l6 
 
 A REPORT FROM BELOW 
 
 ' Blow high, blow low.' — Sea So»£: 
 
 Suppose the couple stapding so, 
 When rushing footsteps from below 20 
 Made pulses fast and fervent ; 
 And first burst in the frantic cat, 
 All steaming like a brewer's rat. 
 And then — as white as my cravat — 
 Poor Mary May, the servant ! 
 
 Lord, how the couple's teeth did chat- 
 ter. 
 
 Master and Mistress both flew at 
 her, 
 
 • Speak ! Fire ? or Murder ? What 's 
 the matter ? ' 
 
 Till Mary getting breath, 
 
 Upon her tale began to touch 30 
 
 With rapid tongue, full trotting, such 
 
 As if she thought she had too much 
 
 To tell before her death : — 
 
 As Mister B. and Mistress B. 
 
 One night were sitting down to tea, 
 
 With toast and muffins hot — 
 
 They heard a loud and sudden bounce, 
 
 That made the very china flounce, 
 
 They could not for a time pronounce 
 
 If they were safe or shot — 
 
 For Memory brought a deed to match 
 
 At Deptford done by night— 
 
 Before one eye appeared a Patch 10 
 
 In t'other eye a Blight ! 
 
 To be belabour'd out of life, 
 Without some small attempt at strife, 
 Our nature will not grovel ; 
 One impulse mov'd both man and 
 
 dame. 
 He seized the tongs — she did the same, 
 Leaving the ruffian, if he came. 
 The poker and the shovel. 
 
 ' We was both, Ma'am, in the wash-house, Ma'am, a-standing at our tubs. 
 
 And Mrs. Round was seconding what little things I rubs ; 
 
 "Mary," says she to me, "I say" — and there she stops for coughin', 
 
 " That dratted copper flue has took to smokin' very often. 
 
 But please the pigs," — for that's her way of swearing in a passion, 
 
 " I'll blow it up, and not be set a coughin' in this fashion ! " 
 
 Well, down she takes my master's horn — I mean his horn for loading, 40 
 
 And empties every grain alive for to set the flue exploding. 
 
 Lawk, Mrs. Round ! says I, and stares, that quantum is unproper, 
 
 I'm sartin sure it can't not take a pound to sky a copper ; 
 
 You'll powder both our heads off, so I tells you, with its puff. 
 
 But she only dried her fingers, and she takes a pinch of snuff. 
 
 Well, when the pinch is over — " Teach your grandmother to suck 
 
 A powder horn," says she — Well, says I, I wish you luck. 
 
 Them words sets up her back, so with her hands upon her hips, 
 
 "Come," says she, quite in a huff, "come, keep your tongue inside your lips; 
 
 Afore ever you was born, I was well used to things like these ; 50 
 
 I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees." 
 
 So in it goes, and Bounce — O Lord ! it gives us such a rattle, 
 
 I thought we both were cannonized, like Sogers in a battle ! 
 
 Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs. 
 
 And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks. 
 
 Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut shorter 
 
 But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding water.' 
 
 I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a distance, 
 
 As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in existence ; 
 
A REPORT FROM BELOW 217 
 
 All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap 60 
 
 Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap. 
 
 Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up together. 
 
 As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather ; 
 
 But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality, 
 
 She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality. 
 
 Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed mother, 
 
 Well, she'll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in t'other. 
 
 So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute, 
 
 Lawk, sich a shirt ! thinks I, it 's well my master wasn't in it ; 
 
 Oh ! I never, never, never, never, never, see a sight so shockin' ; 70 
 
 Here lays a leg, and there a leg — I mean, you know, a stocking — ■ 
 
 Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt. 
 
 And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and black with dirt ; 
 
 But as nobody was in 'em — none but — nobody was hurt ! 
 
 Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump, 
 
 When, mercy on us ! such a groan as makes my heart to jump. 
 
 And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye, 
 
 A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky ; 
 
 Then she beckons with a finger, and so down to her I reaches, 
 
 And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches, 80 
 
 For, poor soul ! she has a husband and young orphans, as I knew ; 
 
 Well, Ma'am, you wont believe it, but it 's Gospel fact and true. 
 
 But these words is all she whispered — " Why, where is the powder blew ? " ' 
 
 ODE TO M. BRUNEL 
 
 'Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast? aworthy pioneerl ''—HamUt. 
 
 Well ! — Monsieur Brunei, 
 How prospers now thy mighty undertaking, 
 To join by a hollow way the Bankside friends 
 Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping,— 
 
 Never be stopping, 
 But poking, groping, in the dark keep making 
 An archway, underneath the Dabs and Gudgeons, 
 For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons, 
 To cross the water in inverse proportion. 
 Walk under steam-boats under the keel's ridge, 
 To keep down all extortion. 
 And without sculls to diddle London Bridge I 
 In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry. 
 Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow. 
 Hopeful at last from Middlesex to Surrey, 
 
 To give us the ' View hollow.' 
 In short it was thy aim, right north and south. 
 To put a pipe into old Thames's mouth ; 
 
2i8 ■ ODE TO M. BRUNEL 
 
 Alas ! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when 
 Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof, 20 
 
 Came, like ' a tide in the affairs of men ; ' 
 And with a mighty stormy kind of roar. 
 Reproachful of thy wrong. 
 Burst out in that old song 
 
 Of Incledon's, beginning ' Cease, rude Bore ' 
 
 Sad is it, worthy of one's tears, 
 
 Just when one seems the most successful, 
 To find one's self o'er head and ears 
 
 In difficulties most distressful ! 
 Other great speculations have been nursed, 30 
 
 Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf ; 
 But thy concern was at the worst. 
 
 When it began tb liquidate itself ! 
 But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden. 
 And languishes thy Tunnel, — so to paint. 
 Under a slow incurable complaint, 
 
 Bed-ridden ! 
 Why, when thus Thames — bed-bother'd — why repine ? 
 Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine ! 
 Yet let none think thee daz'd, or craz'd, or stupid ; 40 
 
 And sunk beneath thy own and Thames's craft ; 
 Let them not style thee some Mechanic Cupid 
 
 Pining and pouting o'er a broken shaft ! 
 I'll tell thee with thy tunnel what to do ; 
 Light up thy boxes, build a. bin or two, 
 The wine does better than such water trades : 
 
 Stick up a sign — the sign of the Bore's Head ; 
 
 I've drawn it ready for thee in black lead, 
 And make thy cellar subterrane, — Thy Shades ! 
 
 OVER THE WAY 
 
 * I sat over against a window where there stood a pot with very pretty flowers ; and 1 had my 
 eyes Oxed on it, when on a sudden the window opened, and a young lady appeared whose beauty 
 struclt me.'— Arabian Nights. 
 
 Alas ! the flames of an unhappy lover 
 About my heart and on my vitals prey ; 
 I've caught a fever that I can't get over, 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Oh ! why are eyes of hazel ? noses Grecian ! 
 I've lost my rest by night, my peace by day, 
 For want of some brown Holland or Venetian, 
 Over the way. 
 
OVER THE WAY 319 
 
 I've gazed too often, till my heart's as lost 
 As any needle in a stack of hayj 10 
 
 Crosses belong to love, and mine is crossed 
 Over the way ! 
 
 I cannot read or write, or thoughts relax — 
 Of what avail Lord Althorp or Earl Grey ? 
 They cannot ease me of my window-tax 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Even on Sunday my devotions vary. 
 And from St. Bennet Fink they go astray 
 To dear St. Mary Overy — the Mary 
 
 Over the way ! 20 
 
 Oh ! if my godmother were but a fairy, 
 With magic wand, how I would beg and pray 
 That she would change me into that canary 
 Over the way ! 
 
 I envy every thing that 's near Miss Lindo, 
 A pug, a poll, a squirrel or a jay — 
 Blest blue-bottles ! that buz about the window 
 Over the way I 
 
 Even at even, for there be no shutters, 
 
 I see her reading on, from grave to gay, 30 
 
 Some tale or poem, till the candle gutters 
 Over the way I 
 
 And then — oh ! then — while the clear waxen taper 
 Emits, two stories high, a starlike ray, 
 I see twelve auburn curls put into paper 
 Over the way ! 
 
 But how breathe unto her my deep regards, 
 Or ask her for a whispered ay or nay, — 
 Or offer her my hand, some thirty yards 
 
 Over the way ? 40 
 
 Cold as the pole she is to my adoring ; — 
 Like Captain Lyon, at Repulse's Bay, 
 I meet an icy end to my exploring 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Each dirty little Savoyard that dances 
 She looks on — Punch — or chimney-sweeps in May ; 
 Zounds ! wherefore cannot I attract her glances 
 Over the way ? 
 
 Half out she leans to watch a tumbling brat. 
 Or yelping cur, run over by a dray ; 50 
 
 But I'm in love — she never pities that ! 
 Over the way ! 
 
OVER THE WAY 
 
 I go to the same church — a love-lost labour ; 
 Haunt all her walks, and dodge her at the play ; 
 She does not seem to know she has a neighbour 
 Over the way ! 
 
 At private theatres she never acts ; 
 
 No Crown-and- Anchor balls her fancy sway ; 
 
 She never visits gentlemen with tracts 
 
 Over the way ! *" 
 
 To billets-doux by post she shows no favour — 
 In short, there is no plot that I can lay 
 To break my window-pains to my enslaver 
 Over the way ! - 
 
 I play the flute — she heeds not my chromatics — 
 No friend an introduction can purvey ; 
 I wish a fire would break out in the attics 
 Over the way ! 
 
 My wasted form ought of itself to touch her ; 
 My baker feels my appetite's decay ; 70 
 
 And as for butchers' meat — oh ! she 's my butcher 
 Over the way ! 
 
 At beef I turn ; at lamb or veal I pout ; 
 I never ring now to bring up the tray ; 
 My stomach grumbles at my dining out 
 Over the way ! 
 
 I'm weary of my life ; without regret 
 I could resign this miserable clay 
 To lie within that box of mignonette 
 
 Over the way ! 8a 
 
 I've fitted bullets to my pistol-bore ; 
 I've vowed at times to rush where trumpets bray, 
 Quite sick of number one — and number four 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Sometimes my fancy builds up castles airy, 
 Sometimes it only paints a ferme orn^e, 
 A horse — a cow — six fowls — a pig — and Mary, 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Sometimes I dream, of her in bridal white, 
 
 Standing before the altar, like a fay ; jo 
 
 Sometimes of balls, and neighbourly invite 
 Over the way ! 
 
 I've coo'd with her in dreams, like any turtle, 
 I've snatch'd her from the Clyde, the Tweed, and Xay ; 
 Thrice I have made a. grove of that one myrtle 
 Over the way 1 
 
OVER THE WAY 221 
 
 Thrice I have rowed her in a fairy shallop, 
 Thrice raced to Gretna in a neat ' po-shay,' 
 And shower'd crowns to make' the horses gallop 
 
 Over the way I 100 
 
 And thrice I've started up from dreams appalling 
 Of killing rivals in a bloody fray — - 
 There is a young man very fond of calling 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Oh ! happy man — above all kings in glory, 
 Whoever in her ear may say his say. 
 And add a tale of love to that one story 
 Over the way ! 
 
 Nabob of Arcot — Despot of Japan — 
 
 Sultan of Persia — Emperor of Cathay — ito 
 
 Much rather would I be the happy man 
 Over the way ! 
 
 With such a lot my heart would be in clover — 
 But what — O horror ! — what do I survey ! 
 Postilions and white favours ! — all is over 
 Over the way ! 
 
 A NOCTURNAL SKETCH 
 
 Even is come ; and from the dark Park, hark. 
 The signal of the setting sun — one gun ! 
 And six is sounding from the chime, prime time 
 To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain, — 
 Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out, — 
 Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade, 
 Denying to his frantic clutch much touch ; — 
 Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride 
 Four horses as no other man can span ; 
 Or in the small Olympic Pit, sit split 
 Laughing at Liston, while you quiz his phiz. 
 
 Anon Night comes, and with her wings brings things 
 Such as, with his poetic tongue. Young sung ; 
 The gas up-blazes with its/bright white light. 
 And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl. 
 About the streets and take up Pali-Mall Sal, 
 Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs. 
 
 Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash, crash, 
 Past drowsy Charley in a deep sleep, creep. 
 But frightened by Policeman B. 3, flee, 
 And while they're going, whisper low, ' No go | ' 
 
A NOCTURNAL SKETCH 
 
 Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads, 
 And sleepers waking, grumble^' Drat that cat ! ' 
 Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls 
 Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will. 
 
 Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise 
 
 In childish dreams, and with a roar gore poor 
 
 Georgy, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly ; — 
 
 But Nursemaid in a nightmare rest, chest -press'd, 
 
 Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games, 
 
 And that she hears — what faith is man's — Ann's banns 
 
 And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice : 
 
 White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out, 
 
 That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows' woes ! 
 
 30 
 
 DOMESTIC ASIDES; OR, TRUTH IN PARENTHESES 
 
 ' I REALLY take it very kind. 
 This visit, Mrs. Skinner ! 
 I have not seen you such an age — 
 (The wretch has come to dinner !) 
 
 ' Your daughters, too, what loves of 
 
 girls— 
 What heads for painters' easels ! ; 
 Come here and kiss the infant, dears, — 
 (And give it p'rhaps the measles !) 
 
 ' Your charming boys I see are home 
 From Reverend Mr. Russel's ; 10 
 
 'Twas very kind to bring them both, — 
 (What boots for my new Brussels !) 
 
 ' What ! little Clara left at home ? 
 Well now I call that shabby : 
 I should have lov'd to kiss her so, — 
 (A flabby, dabby, babby !) 
 
 ' And Mr. S., I hope he 's well, 
 Ah ! though he lives so handy. 
 He never now drops in to sup, — 
 (The better for our brandy !) 20 
 
 ' Come, take a seat — I long to hear 
 
 About Matilda's marriage ; 
 
 You^re come, of course, to spend the 
 
 day ! — 
 (Thank Heav'n, I hear the carriage !) 
 
 ' What ! must you go ? next time I 
 
 hope 
 You'll give me longer measure ; 
 Nay — I shall see you down the stairs — 
 (With most uncommon pleasure !) 
 
 ' Good-bye ! good-bye ! remember all 
 Next time you'll take your dinners ! 30 
 (Now, David, mind I'm not at home 
 In future to the Skinners !) ' 
 
 EPIGRAMS 
 
 COMPOSED ON READING A DIARY LATELY PUBLISHED 
 
 That flesh is grass is now as clear as day, 
 To any but the merest purblind pup. 
 Death cuts it down, and then, to make her hay. 
 My Lady B comes and rakes it up. 
 
EPIGRAMS 
 
 THE LAST WISH 
 
 When I resign this world so briary, 
 To have across the Styx my ferrying, 
 O, may I die without a diary ! 
 And be interr'd without a BuRY-ing ! 
 
 223 
 
 The poor dear dead have been laid out in vain, 
 Turn'd into cash, they are laid out again ! 
 
 THE DEVIL'S ALBUM 
 
 It will seem an odd whim 
 
 For a Spirit so grim 
 As the Devil to take a delight in ; 
 
 But by common renown 
 
 He has come up to town, 
 With an Album for people to v/rite in ! 
 
 On a handsomer book 
 
 Mortal never did look, 
 Of a flame-colour silk is the binding, 
 
 With a border superb, 10 
 
 Where through flowret and herb, 
 The old Serpent goes brilliantly wind- 
 ing ! 
 
 By gilded grotesques. 
 And emboss'd arabesques. 
 The whole cover, in fact, is pervaded ; 
 
 But, alas ! in a taste 
 That betrays they were traced 
 At the will of a Spirit degraded ! 
 
 As for paper — the best, 
 
 But extremely hot-pressed, za 
 Courts the pen to luxuriate upon it. 
 
 And against ev'ry blank 
 
 There 's a note on the Bank, 
 As a bribe for a sketch or a sonnet. 
 
 Who will care to appear 
 
 In the Friend's Souvenir, 
 Is a question to morals most vital ; 
 
 But fhe very first leaf. 
 
 It 's the public belief, 
 Will be fiU'd by a Lady of Title ! 
 
 THE LOST HEIR 
 
 'O where, and oh where 
 Is my bonny laddie gone ? * 
 
 One day, as I was going by 
 That part of Holborn christened High, 
 I heard a loud and sudden cry, 
 That chill'd my very blood ; , 
 And lo 1 from out a dirty alley, 
 Where pigs and Irish wont to rally, 
 I saw a crazy woman sally, 
 Bedaub'd with grease and mud. 
 She turn'd her East, she turn'd her 
 
 West, 
 Staring like Pythoness possesst, 10 
 With streaming hair and heaving 
 
 breast, 
 
 Old SotifT- 
 
 As one stark mad with grief. 
 
 This way and that she wildly 
 
 ran. 
 Jostling with woman and with 
 
 man — 
 Her right hand held a frying pan. 
 The left a lump of beef. 
 At last her frenzy seem'd to reach 
 A point just capable of speech. 
 And with a tone almost a screech, 
 As wild as ocean bird's, 20 
 
 Or female Ranter mov'd to preach, 
 She gave her ' sorrow words.' 
 
224 THE LOST HEIR 
 
 ' O Lord ! O dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick stark staring, wild ! 
 Has ever a one seen any thing about the streets like a crying lost-looking 
 
 child ? 
 Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, i£ I only knew which 
 
 way — 
 A Child as is lost about London streets, and especially Seven Dials, is a needle 
 
 in a bottle of hay. 
 I am all in a quiver — get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you little Kitty 
 
 M'Nab ! 
 You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you did, you dirty deceit- 
 ful young drab. 
 The last time as ever I see him, poor^:hing, was with my own blessed Motherly 
 
 eyes. 
 Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little dirt pies. 30 
 I wonder he left the court where he was better off than all the other young 
 
 boys. 
 With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten by- way of 
 
 toys. 
 When his Father comes home, and he always comes home as sure as ever the 
 
 clock strikes one, 
 He'll be rampant, he will, at his child being lost ; and the beef and the inguns 
 
 not done ! 
 La bless you, good folks, mind your own consarns, and don't be making 
 
 a mob in the street ; 
 O Serjeant M'Farlane ! you have not come across my poor little -lioy, have 
 
 you, in your beat ? 
 Do, good people, move on !. don't stand staring at me like a parcel of stupid 
 
 stuck pigs ; 
 Saints forbid ! but he 's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a, court for the sake 
 
 of his clothes by the prigs ; 
 He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself for a shilling 
 
 one day in Rag Fair ; 
 And his trowsers considering not very much patch'd, and red plush, they 
 
 was once his Father's best pair. 40 
 
 His shirt, it 's very lucky I'd got washing in the tub, or that might have 
 
 gone with the rest ; 
 But he'd got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a burn on the 
 
 breast. 
 He'd a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sew'd in, and not quite so much 
 
 jagg'd at the brim, 
 With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a fit, and, you'll 
 
 know by that if it 's him. 
 Except being so well dress'd, my mind would misgive, some old beggar woman 
 
 in want of an orphan. 
 Had borrow'd the child to go a begging with, but I'd rather see him laid 
 
 out in his coffin ! 
 Do, good people, move on, such a rabble of boys ! I'll break every bone of 
 
 'em I come near. 
 Go home— you're spilling the porter— go home-<-Tommy Jones, go along 
 
 home with your beer. 
 
THE LOST HEIR 225 
 
 This day is the sorrowfuUest day of my life, ever since my name was Betty 
 Morgan, 
 
 Them vile Savoyards ! they lost him once before all along of following a Monkey 
 and an Organ : 50 
 
 O my Billy — my head will turn right round — if he.'s got kiddynapp'd with 
 them Italians, 
 
 They'll make him a plaster parish image boy, they will, the outlandish tatter- 
 demalions. 
 
 Billy-^where are you, Billy ? — I'm as hoarse as a crow, with screaming for 
 ye, you young sorrow ! 
 
 And shan't have half a voice, no more I shan't, for crying fresh herrings 
 to-morrow. 
 
 Billy, you're bursting my heart in two, and my life won't be of no more 
 
 vally. 
 If I'm to see other folk's darlins, and none of mine, playing like angels in 
 
 our alley, 
 And what shall I do but cry aut my eyes, when I looks at the old three-legged 
 
 chair. 
 As Billy used to make coaches and horses of, and there a'n't no Billy there ! 
 
 1 would run all the wide world over to find him, if I only know'd where to 
 
 run. 
 Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month through stealing 
 
 a penny bun, — 60 
 
 The Lord forbid of any child of mine ! I think it would kill me rally. 
 To find my Bill holdin' up his little innocent hand at the Old Bailey. 
 For though I say it as oughtn't, yet I will say, you may search for miles 
 
 and mileses 
 And not find one better brought up, and more pretty behaved, from one end 
 
 to t'other of St.. Giles's; 
 And if I called him a beauty, it 's no lie, but only as a Mother ought to speak ; 
 You never set eyes on a more handsomer face, only it hasn't been washed 
 
 for a week ; 
 As for hair, tho' it 's red, it 's the most nicest hair when I've time to just 
 
 show it the comb ; 
 I'll owe 'em five pounds, and a blessing besides, as will only bring him safe 
 
 and sound home. 
 He 's blue eyes, and not to be call 'd a squint, though a little cast he 's certainly 
 
 , got ; 
 
 And his nose is still a good un, tho' the bridge is broke, by his falling on 
 
 a pewter pint pot ; T> 
 
 He 's got the most elegant wide mouth in the world; and very large teeth 
 
 for his age ; 
 And quite as fit as Mrs. Murdockson's child to play Cupid on the Drury Lane 
 
 Stage. 
 And then he has got such dear winning ways — but O I never never shall see 
 
 him no more ! 
 O dear ! to think of losing him just after nussing. him back from death's 
 
 door ! 
 Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, was at twenty a 
 
 penny ! 
 
 I 
 
226 
 
 THE LOST HEIR 
 
 And the threepence he'd got b,y grottoing was spent in plums, and sixty for 
 
 a child is too many. 
 And the Cholera man came and whitewash'd us all and, drat him, made 
 
 a seize of our hog. — 
 It 's no use to send the Cfier to cry him about, he 's such a blunderin' drunken 
 
 old dog ; 
 The last time he was fetched to find a lost child, he was guzzling with his 
 
 bell at the Crown, 
 And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted Mother and Father 
 
 about Town. So 
 
 Billy — where are you, Billy, I say ? come, Billy, come home, to your best of 
 
 Mothers ! 
 I'm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, they'd run over 
 
 their own Sisters and Brothers. 
 Oi: may be he 's stole by some chimbly sweeping wretch, to stick fast in narrow 
 
 flues and what not. 
 And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when the soot has ketch'd, 
 
 and the chimbly 's red hot. 
 Oh I'd give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, to clap my two 
 
 longin' eyes on his face. 
 For he 's my darlin of darlins, and if he don't soon come back, you'll see me 
 
 drop stone dead on the place. 
 I only wish I'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and wouldn't I hug 
 
 him and kiss him ! 
 Lauk ! I never knew what a precious he was — but a child don't not feel hke 
 
 a child till you miss him. 
 Why, there he is ! Punch and Judy hunting, the young wretch, it 's that 
 
 Billy as sartin as sin ! 
 But let me get him home, with a good grip of his hair, and I'm blest if he shall 
 
 have a whole bone in his skin ! oo 
 
 JOHN DAY 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD 
 'A Day after the Fair.'— ;0/rf Proverb. 
 
 John Day he was the biggest man 
 Of all the coachman-kind. 
 
 With back too broad to be conceiv'd 
 By any narrow mind. ,,, 
 
 The very horses knew his weight 
 
 When he was in the rear, 
 And wish'd his box a Christma.s-box 
 
 To come but once a yeix. 
 
 Alas ! against the shafts of love 
 
 What armour can avail ? ' lo 
 
 Soon Cupid sent an arrow through 
 - His scarlet coat of mail. 
 
 The bar-maid of the Crown he lov'd, 
 From whom he never ranged. 
 
 For tho' he changed his horses there, 
 His love he never changed. i 
 
 He thought her fairest of all fares. 
 
 So fondly love prefers ; 
 And often, among twelve outsides, 
 
 Deemed no outside like hers. 20 
 One day as she was sitting down 
 
 Beside the porter-pump — 
 He came, and knelt with all his fat, . 
 
 And made an offer plump. 
 
JOHN DAY 
 
 227 
 
 Said she, ray taste will never learn 
 
 To like so huge a man, 
 So I must beg you will come here 
 ', As little as you can. 
 
 But still he stoutly urged his suit, 
 With vows, and sighs, and tears, 30 
 
 Yet could not pierce her heart, al- 
 tho' 
 He drove the Dart for years. 
 
 In vain he wooed, in vain he sued ; 
 
 The maid was cold and proud. 
 And sent him off to Coventry, 
 
 While on his way to Stroud. • 
 
 He fretted all the way to Stroiid, 
 And thence all back to town,' 
 
 The course of love was never smooth. 
 So his went up and down, 40 
 
 At last her coldness made him pine : 
 To merely bones and skin ; 
 
 But still he loved like one resolved 
 To love through thick and thin. 
 
 Oh Mary, view my wasted back. 
 And see my dwindled calf ; ' 
 
 Tho' I have never had a wife, 
 I've lost my better half. 
 
 Alas, in vain he still assail'd, 
 
 Her heart withstood the dint ; S9 
 
 Though he had carried sixteen stone 
 He could not move a iSint. 
 
 Worn out, at last he made a vow 
 To break his being's link ; 
 
 For he was so reduced in size , 
 At nothing he could shrink. 
 
 Now some will talk in water's praise^ 
 And waste a deal of breath, 
 
 But John, tho' he drank nothing else — 
 He drank himself to death. 6a 
 
 The cruel maid that caused his love. 
 Found out the fatal close. 
 
 For looking in the butt, she saw, 
 The butt-end of his woes. 
 
 Some say. his spirit haunts the Crown, 
 
 But that is only talk — 
 For after riding all his life. 
 
 His ghost objects to walk. 
 
 NUMBER ONE 
 
 VERSIFIED FROM THE PROSE OF A YOUNG LADY 
 
 It 's very hard ! — and so it is, 
 
 "To live in such a row, — 
 
 And witness this that every Miss 
 
 But me, has got a Beau.^ 
 
 For Love goes calling up and down, 
 
 But here he seems to shun ; 
 
 I'm sure he has been asked enough 
 
 To call at Number One ! 
 
 I'm sick of all the doable knocks 
 
 That come to Number Four ! — 10 
 
 At Number Three, I often see 
 
 A, Lover at the door ; — 
 
 And one in blue, at Number-Two, 
 
 Calls daily like a dun, — 
 
 It 's very hard they come so near 
 
 And not to Number One ! 
 
 Miss Bell I hear has got a dear 
 
 Exactly to her mind, — 
 
 By sitting at the window pane 
 
 Without a bit of blind ; 20 
 
 But I go in the balcony. 
 
 Which she has never done. 
 
 Yet arts that thrive at Number Five 
 
 Don't take at Number One ! 
 
 'Tis hard with plenty in the street. 
 
 And plenty passing by, — 
 
 There 's nice young men at Number 
 
 Ten, 
 But only rather shy ; — 
 And Mrs. Smith across the way 
 Has got a grown=up son, 30 
 
 But la ! he hardly seems to know 
 There is a Number One I 
 
aaS' 
 
 NUMBER ONE 
 
 There 's Mr. Wick at Number Nine, 
 
 But he 's iatent on pelf, 
 
 And though he 's pious will not love 
 
 His neighbour as himself.^ 
 
 At Number Seven there was a sale — 
 
 The goods had quite a run 1 
 
 And here I've got my single lot 
 
 On hand at Number One ! 40 
 
 My mother often sits at work 
 
 And talks of props and stays, 
 
 And what a comfort I shall be 
 
 In Jier declining days : — 
 
 The very maids about the house 
 
 Have set me down a nun, 
 
 The sweethearts all belong to them 
 
 That call at Number One. 
 
 Once only when the flue took fire. 
 One Friday afternoon, so 
 
 Young Mr. Long came kindly in 
 And told me not to swoon ;;— 
 Why can't he come again without 
 The Phoenix and the Sun ! — 
 We cannot always Jiave a flue 
 On fire at Number One ! 
 
 I am not old ! I am not plaiii ! 
 Nor awkward in my gait — ' 
 I am not crooked like the bride 
 That went from Number Eight : — 60 
 I'm sure white satin made her look 
 As brown as any bun — 
 But even beauty h'as no chance, 
 I think, at Number One ! 
 
 At Number Six they say Miss Rose 
 
 Has slain a score of hearts. 
 
 And Cupid, for her sake, has been 
 
 Quite prodigal of darts. 
 
 The Imp they show with bended bow, 
 
 I wish he had a, gun ! — 70 
 
 But if he had, he'd never deign 
 
 To shoot with Number One ! 
 
 It 's very hard, and so it is 
 To live in such a row ! 
 And here 's a ballad singer come 
 To aggravate my woe ; — 
 
 take away your foolish song. 
 And tones enough to stun — 
 
 There is.' NsLe luck about the house,' 
 
 1 know, at Number One ! 80 
 
 THE DROWNING DUCKS 
 
 Amongst the sights that Mrs. Bond 
 Enjoy'd' yet grieved at more than 
 others. 
 Were little ducklings in a pond, 
 r Swimming ■ about beside their 
 
 mothers — 
 Small things like living waterlilies, : . 
 But yellow as the AaSo-dillies. 
 
 ' It 's very hard,' she used to moan, 
 ' That other people have their 
 
 ducklings 
 
 To grace their waters — mine alone 
 Have never any pretty chuck« 
 lings.' 10 
 
 For why ! — each little yellow navy 
 Went . down — all downy — to old 
 Davy ! 
 
 She had a lake — a pond I mean — 
 Its wave was rather thick than 
 pearly — 
 She had two ducks, their napes were 
 green — 
 She had a drake, his tail was 
 curly, — 
 Yet spite of drake, and ducks, and 
 pond, . - 
 No little ducks had Mrs. Bond ! 
 
 The birds were both the best of 
 
 mothers — 
 
 The nest had eggs — the eggs had 
 
 luck — 20 
 
 TheinfantD.'scameforthlikeothers — 
 
 But there, alas ! the matter stuck ! 
 
 Theymight as well have all died addle, 
 
 As die when they began to paddle ! 
 
THE DROWNING DUCKS 
 
 229 
 
 For when, as native instinct taught 
 her, . 
 
 The mother set her brood afloat. 
 They sank ere long right under water, 
 
 Like any over-loaded boat ; 
 They were web-footed too to see, 
 As ducks and spiders ought to be ! 30 
 
 No peccant humour in a gander 
 
 Brought havoc on her little folks, — 
 No poaching cook — a frying pander 
 To appetite, — destroyed their 
 yolks, — 
 Beneath her very eyes, Od rot 'em ! 
 They went, like plummets; to the 
 bottom. 
 
 The thing was strange — a contradic- 
 tion 
 It seem'd of nature and her works ! 
 For little ducks, beyond conviction. 
 Should float without the help of 
 corks : 40 
 
 Great Johnson it bewildered him ! 
 To hear of ducks that could not swim. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Bond ! what could she do 
 But change the breed — and she 
 tried divers 
 Which dived as all seemed born to do ; 
 No little ones were e'er survivors — 
 Like those that copy gem.s, I'm think- 
 ing, 
 They all were given to die-sinking ! 
 
 In vain their downy coats were shorn ; 
 
 They flounder'd still ! — Batch after 
 
 batch went ! 50 
 
 The little fools seem'd only born 
 
 And hatch'd for nothing but a 
 
 hatchment ! 
 
 Whene'er they launched — O sight of 
 
 wonder ! 
 Like fires the water ' got them underl' 
 
 No woman ever gave their lucks 
 A better chance than Mrs. Bond 
 did; 
 At last quite out of heart and ducks, 
 She gave her pond up, and de- 
 sponded ; 
 For Death among the water-lilies, 
 Cried 'Due ad me ' to all her dillies ! 60 
 
 But though resolved to breed no more. 
 She brooded often on this riddle — 
 Alas ! 'twas darker than before ! 
 At last about the summer's middle. 
 What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or none 
 
 did. 
 To clear the matter up the Sun did ! 
 
 The thirsty Sirius, dog-like drank 
 So deep, his furious tongue to cool. 
 
 The shallow waters sank and sank. 
 And lo, from out the wasted pool, 70 
 
 Too hot to hold them any longer, 
 
 There crawl'd some eels as big as 
 conger ! 
 
 I wish all folks would look a bit. 
 
 In such a case below the surface ; 
 But when the eels were caught and 
 split 
 By Mrs. Bond, just .think of het 
 face. 
 In each inside at once to spy 
 A duckling turn'd to giblet-pie ! 
 
 The sight at once explained the case, , 
 Making the Dame look rather silly. 
 
 The tenants of that Eely Place 81 
 
 Had found the way to Pich a dilly, 
 
 And so by under-water suction. 
 
 Had wrought the little ducks' abduc- 
 tion. 
 
230 
 
 SALLY SIMPKIN'S LAMENT 
 
 OR, JOHN JONES S KIT-CAT-ASTROPHE 
 
 'He left his body to tlie sea, 
 And made a shark his legatee.' 
 
 Bryan and Perenne. 
 
 'Oh ! what is that comes gliding in, 
 And quite in middling haste ? 
 
 It is the picture of my Jones, 
 And painted to the waist. 
 
 ' It is not painted to the life, 
 For where 's the trowsers blue ? 
 
 Oh Jones, my dear ! — Oh dear ! my 
 Jones, 
 What is become of you ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! Sally dear, it is too true, — 
 The half that you remark lo 
 
 Is come to say my other half 
 Is bit off by a shark ! 
 
 ' Oh ! Sally, sharks do things by 
 halves, 
 
 Yet most completely do ! 
 A bite in one place seems enough. 
 
 But I've been bit in two. 
 
 ' You know I once was all your own, 
 But now a shark must share ! 
 
 But let that pass — for now to you 
 I'm neither here nor there. zo 
 
 ' Alas ! death has a strange divorce 
 
 Effected in the sea. 
 It has divided me from you. 
 
 And even me from me ! 
 
 ' Don't fear my ghost will walk o' 
 nights 
 
 To haunt as people say ; 
 My ghost can't walk, for, oh ! my legs 
 
 Are many leagues away ! 
 
 ' Lord ! think when I am swimming 
 round. 
 
 And looking where the boat is, 30 
 A shark just snaps away a half. 
 
 Without ' a quarter's notice.' 
 
 ' One half ig here, the other half 
 
 Is near Columbia placed ; 
 Oh ! Sally, I have got the whole 
 
 Atlantic for my waist. 
 
 ' But now, adieu — a long adieu ! 
 
 I've solved death's awful riddle, 
 And would say more, but I am doomed 
 
 To break ofi in the middle.' 40 
 
 THE FALL 
 
 ' Down, down, down, ten thousand fathoms deep.' — Count Faihom, 
 
 Who does not know that dreadful gulf, where Niagara falls. 
 
 Where eagle unto eagle screams, to vulture vulture calls ; 
 
 Where down beneath, Despair and Death in liquid darkness grope, 
 
 And upward, on the foam there shines a rainbow without Hope ; 
 
 While, hung with clouds of Fear and Doubt, the unreturning wave 
 
 Suddenly gives an awful plunge, like life into the grave ; 
 
 And many a hapless mortal there hath dived to bale or bliss ; 
 
 One — only one — hath ever lived to rise from that abyss ! 
 
 Oh, Heav'n ' it turns me now to ice, with chill of fear extreme. 
 
 To think of my frail bark adrift on that tumultuous stream ! 
 
THE FALL 231 
 
 In vain with desperate sinews, strung by love of life and light, 
 
 I urged that coffin, tny canoe, against the current's might : 
 
 On — on — still on — direct for doom, the river rush'd in force. 
 
 And fearfully the stream of lime raced with it in its course. 
 
 My eyes I closed — I dared not look the way towards the goal ; 
 
 But still I view'd the horrid close, and dreamt it in my soul. 
 
 Plainly, as through transparent lids, I saw the fleeting shore, 
 
 And lofty trees, like winged things, flit by for evermore ; 
 
 Plainly, — but. with no prophet sense — I heard the sullen sound, 
 
 The torrent's voice — and felt the mist, like death-sweat gathering round, zo 
 
 agony 1 O life ! My home ! and those that made it sweet : 
 Ere I could pray, the torrent lay beneath my very feet. 
 
 With frightful whirl, more swift than thought, I passed the dizzy edge. 
 Bound after bound, with hideous bruise, I dashed from ledge to ledge. 
 From crag to crag, — in speechless pain, — from midnight deep to deep ; 
 
 1 did not die, — but anguish stunn'd my senses into sleep. 
 How long entranced, or whither dived, no clue I have to find : 
 At last the gradual light of life came dawning o'er my mind ; 
 
 And through my brain there thrill'd a cry, — a cry as shrill as birds' 
 
 Of vulture or of eagle kind, but this was set to words : — 30 
 
 ' It 's Edgar Huntley in his cap and nightgown, I declares ! 
 
 He 's been a walking in his sleep, and pitch'd all down the stairs ! ' 
 
 SONNET 
 
 Along the Woodford road there comes a noise 
 Of wheels, and Mr. Rounding's neat postchaise 
 Struggles along, drawn by a pair of bays, 
 With Eev. Mr. Crow and six small Boys ; 
 Who ever and anon declare their joys. 
 With trumping horns and juvenile huzzas, 
 At going home to spend their Christmas days, 
 And changing Learning's pains for Pleasure's toys. 
 Six weeks elapse, and down the Woodford way, 
 A heavy coach drags six more heavy souls, 
 But no glad urchins shout, no trumpets bray ; 
 The carriage makes a halt, the gate-bell tolls, 
 Arid little Boys walk in as dull and mum 
 As six new scholars to the Deaf and Dumb. 
 
232 
 
 THE STEAM SERVICE 
 
 'Life is but a kitiU cast.'— BuRHS. 
 
 I steamed from the Downs in the 
 
 Nancy, 
 My jib how she smoked through the 
 
 breeze ; 
 She 's a vessel as tight to my fancy 
 As ever boil'd through the salt seas. 
 
 When up the flue the sailor goes 
 
 And ventures on the pot, 
 The landsman, he no better knows, 
 
 But thinks hard is his lot. 
 
 Bold Jack with smiles each danger 
 meets. 
 
 Weighs anchor, lights the log ; lo 
 Trims up the fire, picks out the slates, 
 
 And drinks his can of grog. 
 
 Go patter to lubbers and swabs do you 
 see, 
 'Bout danger, and fear,and the like; 
 But a Boulton and Watt and good 
 Wall's-end give me ; 
 And it an't to a little I'll strike. 
 
 Though the tempest our chimney 
 
 smack smooth shall down smite. 
 
 And shiver each bundle of wood ; 
 
 Clear the wreck, stir the fire, and stow 
 
 every thing tight, 
 
 And boiling a gallop we'll scud. 20 
 
 II 
 
 Hark, the boatswain hoarsely bawl- 
 ing, 
 By shove], tongs, and poker, stand ; 
 Down the scuttle quick be hauling, 
 Down your bellows, hand, boys, 
 hand. 
 
 Now it freshens, — blow like blazes ; 
 
 Now unto the coal-hole go ; 
 Stir,boys, stir, don't mind black faces. 
 
 Up your ashes nimbly throw. 
 
 Ply your bellows,raise thewind.boys; 
 
 See the valve is clear of course ; 10 
 Let the paddles spin,don'tmind,boys. 
 
 Though the weather should be worse. 
 Fore and aft a proper draft get. 
 
 Oil the engines, see all clear ; 
 Hands up, each a sack of coal get, 
 
 Man the boiler, cheer, lads, cheer. 
 
 Now the dreadful thunder 's roaring. 
 
 Peal on peal contending clash ; 
 On our heads fierce rain falls pouring. 
 
 In our eyes the paddles splash, ao 
 One wide water all around us. 
 
 All above one smoke-black sky : 
 Different deaths at once surround us ; 
 
 Hark ! what means that dreadful 
 cry. 
 
 The funnel 's gone ! cries ev'ry tongue 
 out ; 
 
 The engineer 's washed off the deck; 
 A leak beneath the coal-hole 's sprung 
 out. 
 
 Call all hands to clear the wreck. 
 Quick, some coal, some nubbly pieces; 
 
 Come, my hearts, be stout and bold; 
 Plumb the boiler, speed decreases, 31 
 
 Four feet water getting cold. 
 
 While o'er the ship wild waves are 
 beating, 
 We for wives or children mourn ; 
 Alas ! from hence there 's no retreat- 
 ing ; 
 Alas ! to them there 's no return. 
 The fire is out — we've burst the 
 bellows. 
 The tinder-box is swamped below ; 
 Heaven have mercy on poor fellows, 
 For only that can serve us now I ^o 
 
233- 
 
 A LAY OF REAL LIFE 
 
 ' Some are born with a wooden spoon in their mouths, and some with a golden ladle.'— Gold- 
 smith. 
 'Some are born with tin rings in their noses, and some with silver ones.'— Silversmith. 
 
 Who ruined me ere I was born, 
 Sold every acre, grass or corn, 
 And left the next heir all forlorn ? 
 My Grandfather. 
 
 Who said my mother was no nurse, 
 And physicked me and made me worse. 
 Till infancy became a curse ? 
 
 My Grandmother. 
 
 Who left. me in my seventh year, 
 A comfort to my mother dear, lo 
 And Mr. Pope, the overseer ? 
 My Father. 
 
 Who let me starve, to buy her gin, 
 Till all my bones came throughray skin. 
 Then called me ' ugly little sin ? ' 
 My Mother. 
 
 Who said my mother was a Turk, 
 And took me home — and made me 
 
 work, 
 But managed half my meals to shirk ? 
 My Aunt. 20 
 
 Who 'of all earthly things' would boast, 
 ' He hated others' brats the most," 
 And therefore made.me feel my post ? 
 My Uncle. 
 
 Who got in scrapes, an endless score. 
 And alwrays laid them at my door, 
 Till many a bitter pang I bore ? 
 , , ' My Cousin. 
 
 Who took me home when mother died. 
 Again with father to reside, 30 
 
 Black shoes, clean knives, run far and 
 wide ? 
 
 My Stepmother. 
 
 Who marred my stealthy urchin joys, 
 And when I played cried ' What a 
 
 noise ! ' — 
 Girls always hector over boys — 
 My Sister. 
 
 Who used to share in what was mine. 
 Or took it all, did he incline, 
 'Cause I was eight, and he was nine ? 
 My Brother. 40 
 
 Who stroked my head, and said 'Good 
 
 lad,' 
 And gave me sixpence, ' all he had ; ' 
 But at the stall the coin was bad ? 
 My Godfather. 
 
 Who, gratis, shared my social glass, 
 But when misfortune came to pass, 
 Referr'd me to the pump ? Alas ! 
 My Friend. 
 
 Through all this weary world, in brief. 
 Who ever sympathized with grief, so 
 Or shared my joy — my sole relief ? 
 Myself. 
 
 A VALENTINE 
 
 THE WEATHER. TO P. MURPHY, ESQ., M.N.S. 
 'These, properly speaking, being esteemed.the three arms of Meteoric action. ' 
 
 Dear MurJ>hy,to improve her charms, 
 Your servant humbly begs ; 
 
 She thanks you for her leash of arms. 
 But wants a brace of legs. 
 
 Moreover, as you promise folks. 
 On certain days a drizzle ; 
 
 She thinks, in case she cannot rain, 
 She should have means to mizzle. 
 
 Some lightning too may just fall due, 
 When woods begin to moult ; 10 
 
 And if she cannot ' fork it out,' 
 She'll wish to make a 60ft / 
 
 13 
 
334 
 
 POEM,-FROM THE POLISH 
 
 Some months since a young lady was much surprised at receiving, from the Captain 
 of a Whaler a blank sheet of paper, folded in the form of a letter, and duly sealed. At 
 last, recollecting the nature of sympathetic ink, she placed the missive on a toasting- 
 fork, and after holding it to the fire for a minute or two, succeeded in thawing out the 
 following verses. 
 
 From seventy-two North latitude. 
 
 Dear Kitty, I indite ; 
 But first I'd have you understand 
 
 How hard it is to write. 
 
 Of thoughts that breathe and words 
 that burn, 
 
 My Kitty, do not think, — 
 Before I wrote these very lines, 
 
 I had to melt my ink. 
 
 Of mutual flames and lover's warmth, 
 You must not be too nice ; lo 
 
 The sheet that I am writing on 
 Was once a sheet of ice ! 
 
 The Polar cold is sharp enough 
 
 To freeze with icy gloss 
 The genial current of the soul. 
 
 E'en in a ' Man of Ross.' 
 
 Pope says that letters waft a sigh 
 
 From Indus to the Pole ; 
 But here I really wish the post 
 
 Would only ' post the coal.' 20 
 
 So chilly is the Northern blast. 
 
 It blows me through and through ; 
 
 A ton of Wallsend in a note 
 Would be a billet-doux. 
 
 In such a frigid latitude 
 
 It scarce can be a sin, 
 Should Passion cool a little, where 
 
 A Fury was iced in. 
 
 I'm rather tired of endless snow. 
 And long for coals again ; 30 
 
 And would give up a Sea of Ice 
 For some of Lambton's Main. 
 
 I'm sick of dazzling ice and snow. 
 
 The sun itself I hate ; 
 So very bright, so very cold, 
 
 Just like a summer grate. 
 
 For opodeldoc I would kneel. 
 My chilblains to anoint ; 
 
 Kate, the needle of the north 
 Has got a freezing point. 40 
 
 Our food is solids — ere we put 
 
 Our meat into our crops. 
 We take sledge-hammers to our steaks 
 
 And .hatchets to our chops. 
 
 So very bitter. is the blast. 
 So cutting is the air, 
 
 1 never have been warm but once. 
 When hugging with a bear. 
 
 One thing I know you'll like to hear, 
 Th' effect of Polar snows, so 
 
 I've left off snuff — one pinching day — 
 From leaving off ray nose. 
 
 I have no ear for music now ; 
 
 My ears both left together ; 
 And as for dancing, I have cut 
 
 My toes — it 's cutting weather. 
 
 I've said that you should have my 
 hand, 
 
 Some happy day to come ; 
 But, Kate, you only now can wed 
 
 A finger and a thumb. 6a 
 
 Don't fear that any Esquimaux 
 
 Can yffea.n me from my own ; 
 The Girdle of the Queen of Love 
 
 Is not the Frozen Zone. 
 At wives with large estates of snow 
 
 My fancy does not bite ; 
 I like to see a Bride — but not 
 
 In such a deal of white. 
 Give me for home a house of brick, 
 
 The Kate I love at Kew ! 70 
 
 A hand unchopped, — a merry eye ; 
 
 And not a nose, of blue 1 
 
TOEM,— FKOM THE POLISH 
 
 23S 
 
 To think upon the Bridge of Kew, 
 To me a bridge of sighs ; 
 
 Oh, Kate, a pair of icicles 
 Are standing in my eyes ! 
 
 God knows if I shall e'er return, 
 , In comfort to be luU'd ; 
 But if I do get back to port, 
 Pray let me have it muU'd. 
 
 8a 
 
 CONVEYANCING 
 
 O, London is the place for all. 
 
 In love with loco-motion ! 
 Still to and fro the people go 
 
 Like billows of the ocean ; 
 Machine or man, or caravan. 
 
 Can all be had for paying. 
 When great estates, or heavy weights. 
 
 Or bodies want conveying. 
 
 There 's always hacks about in packs, 
 
 Wherein you may be shaken, lo 
 And Jaryis is not always drunk, 
 
 Tho' always overtaken ; 
 In racing tricks he'll never mix. 
 
 His nags are in their last days. 
 And slow to go, altho' they show 
 
 As if they had their fast days ! 
 
 Then if you like a single horse, 
 
 This age is quite a cab-age, 
 A car not quite so small and hght 
 
 As those of our Queen Mab age ; 20 
 The horses have been broken well, 
 
 All danger is rescinded, 
 For some have broken both their knees. 
 
 And some are broken winded. 
 
 If you've a friend at Chelsea end. 
 
 The stages are worth knowing — 
 There is a sort, we call 'em short. 
 
 Although the longest going — 
 For some will stop at Hatchett's shop. 
 
 Till you gro\v faint and sicky, 30 
 Perched up behind, at last to find. 
 
 Your dinner is all dickey I 
 
 Long stages run from every yard : 
 
 But if you're wise and frugal, 
 You'll never go with any Guard 
 
 That plays upon the bugle, 
 ' Ye banks and braes,' and other lays. 
 
 And ditties everlasting. 
 Like miners going all your way. 
 
 With boring and with blasting. 40 
 
 Instead of journeys, people now 
 
 May go upon a Gurney, 
 With steam to do the horse's work. 
 
 By powers of attorney ; 
 Tho' with a load it may explode, 
 
 And you may. all be «n-done ! 
 And find you're going up to Heav'n, 
 
 Instead of up to London I 
 
 To speak of every kind of coach, 
 
 It is not my intention ; 50 
 
 But there is still one vehicle 
 
 Deserves a little mention ; 
 The world a sage has call'd a stage. 
 
 With all its living lumber. 
 And Malthus swears it always bears 
 
 Above the proper number. 
 
 The law will transfer house or land 
 
 Fot ever and a day hence, 
 For lighter things, watch, brooches, 
 rings, 
 You'll never want- conveyance ; 60 
 Ho ! stop the thief ! my handker- 
 chief ! 
 It is no sight for laughter — 
 Away it goes, and leaves my nose 
 • Tq join in running after I 
 
236 
 SONNET 
 
 Allegory— A moral vehicle.— Dicliouai-y. 
 
 I HAD a Gig-Horse, and I called him Pleasure, 
 
 Because on Sundays, for a little jaunt. 
 He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure ; 
 
 Although he sometimes kicked and shied aslant. 
 I had a Chaise, and christen'd it Enjoyment, 
 
 With yellow body, and the wheels of red. 
 Because 'twas only used for one employment, 
 
 Namely, to go wherever Pleasure led. 
 I had a wife, her nickname was Delight ; 
 
 A son called Frolic, who was never still : 
 Alas ! how often dark succeeds to bright ! 
 
 Delight was thrown, and Frolic had a spill. 
 Enjoyment was upset and shattered quite. 
 
 And Pleasure fell a splitter on Paine's Hill ! 
 
 EPICUREAN REMINISCENCES OF A SENTIMENTALIST 
 
 ' My Tables/ Meat it is, tsel it down I ^—Hamlet. 
 
 I THINK it was Spiring — but not certain 1 am — 
 
 When my passion began first to work ; 
 But I know we were certainly looking for lamb. 
 
 And the season was over for pork. 
 
 'Twas at Christmas, I think, when I met with Miss Chase, 
 
 Yes, — for IVtorris had asked me to dine, — 
 And i thought I had never beheld such a face. 
 
 Or so noble a turkey and chine. 
 
 Placed close by her side, it made others quite wild, 
 
 With sheer envy to iwitness my luck ; lo 
 
 How she bliished as I gave her some turtle, and smil'd 
 As I afterwards offered some duck. 
 
 1 looked and I languished, alas, to my cost. 
 Through three courses of dishes and meats ; 
 
 Getting deeper in love— but my heart was quite lost, 
 When it came to the -trifle 'and sweets ! 
 
 With a rent-roll that told of my houses and land. 
 
 To her parents I told my designs — 
 And then to herself I presented my hand. 
 
 With a very fine pottle of pines ! so 
 
EPICUREAN REMINISCENCES OF A SENTIMENTALIST 237 
 
 I asked her to have me (or weal or for woe, 
 
 And she did not object in the least ; — 
 I can't tell the date — but we married, I know, 
 
 Just in time to have game at the feast. 
 
 We went to it certainly was the seaside ; 
 
 For the next, the most blessed of morns, 
 I remember how fondly I gazed at my bride, 
 , Sitting down to a plateful of prawns. 
 
 O never, may mem'ry lose sight of that year. 
 
 But still hallow the time as it ought, 30 
 
 That season the ' grass ' was remarkably dear. 
 And the peas at a guinea a quart. 
 
 So happy, like hours, all our days seem'd to haste, 
 
 A fond pair, such as poets, have drawn. 
 So united in heart — so congenial in taste. 
 
 We were both of us partial to brawn 1 
 
 A long life I looked for of bliss with my bride, 
 But then Death — I ne'er dreamt about that ! 
 
 Oh there 's nothing is certain in life, as I cried, 
 
 When my turbot eloped with the cat !, 40 
 
 My dearest took ill at the turn of the year. 
 
 But the cause no physician could nab ; 
 But something it seemed Jike consumption, I fear, 
 
 It was just after supping on crab. 
 
 In vain she was doctor'd, in vain she was dosed, 
 
 Still her strength and her appetite pined ; 
 She lost relish for what she had relish'd the most. 
 
 Even salmon she deeply declin'd. 
 
 For months still I linger'd in hope and in doubt, 
 
 While her form it grew ; wasted and thin ; S" 
 
 But the last dying spark of existence went out, 
 As the oysters were just coming in ! 
 
 She died, and she left me the saddest of men 
 
 To indulge in a widower's moan, 
 Oh, I felt airthe power of solitude then. 
 
 As I ate my first natives alone ! 
 
 But when I beheld Virtue's friends in theif cloaks. 
 
 And with sorrowful crape on their hats, 
 O my grief poured a flood ! and the out-of-doors folks 
 
 Were all crying^I think it was sprats 1 60 
 
238 
 
 I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN 
 
 ' Doable, single, and the nh.'—Hoyle. 
 'This, this is SaWlaie'—Byroit. 
 
 Well, I confess, I did not guess 
 
 A simple marriage vow 
 Would make me find all womenkind 
 
 Such unkind women now ! 
 They need not, sure, as distant be 
 
 As Java or Japan, — 
 Yet every Miss reminds me this — 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 
 
 Once they made choice of my bass 
 voice 
 
 To share in each duett ; lo 
 
 So well I danced, I somehow chanced 
 
 To stand in every set : 
 They now declare I capnot sing. 
 
 And dance on Bruin's plan ; 
 Me draw ! — me paint ! — me any 
 thing ! — 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 
 
 Once I was asked advice, and task'd 
 
 What works to buy or not, 
 And ' would I read that passage out 
 
 I so admired in Scott ? ' 20 
 
 They then could bear to hear one read ; 
 
 But if I now began, 
 How they would snub, ' My pretty 
 page,' 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 
 
 One used to stitch a collar then, 
 
 Another hemmed a frill ; 
 I had more purses netted then 
 
 Than I could hope to fill. 
 I once could get a button on, 
 
 But now I never can — 30 
 
 My buttons then were Bachelor'^, — 
 
 I'm not a single man I 
 
 Oh how they hated politics 
 
 Thrust on me by papa : 
 But now my £hat — they all leave that 
 
 To entertain mamma. 
 Mamma, who praises her own self, 
 
 Instead of Jane or Ann, 
 And lays ' her girls ' upon the shelf — 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 40 
 
 Ah me, how strange it is the change. 
 
 In parlour and in hall. 
 They treat me so, if I but go 
 
 To make a morning Call. 
 If they had hair in papers once, 
 
 Bolt up the stairs they ran ; 
 They now sit still in dishabille — 
 
 I'm not a .single man ! 
 
 Miss Mary Bond was once so fond 
 
 Of Romans and of Greeks ; jo 
 
 She daily sought my cabinet. 
 
 To study my antiques. 
 Well, now she doesn't care a, dump 
 
 For ancient pot or pan. 
 Her taste at once is modernized — 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 My spouse is fond of homely life, 
 
 And all that sort of thing ; 
 I go to balls without my wife, 
 
 And never wear a ring : 60 
 
 And yet each Miss to wlipm I come, 
 
 As strange as Genghis Khan, 
 Knows by some .sign, I can't divine, — 
 
 I'm not a single man I 
 
I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN 
 
 239 
 
 Go where I will, I but intrude, 
 
 I'm left in crowded rooms. 
 Like Zimmerman on Solitude, 
 
 Or Hervey at his Tombs. 
 From head to heel, they make me feel, 
 
 Of quite another clan ; 70 
 
 Compelled to own, though left alone, 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 
 
 Miss Towne the toast, though she can 
 boast 
 
 A nose of Roman line, 
 Will turn up even that in scorn 
 
 Of compliments of mine : 
 She should have seen that I have been 
 
 Her sex's partisan, 
 And really married all I could— 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 80 
 
 'Tis hard to s^e how others fare, 
 
 Whilst I rejected stand, — 
 Will no one take my arm because 
 
 They cannot have my hand ? 
 Miss Parry, that for some would go 
 
 A trip to Hindostan, 
 With me don't care to mount a stair — 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 
 
 Some change, of course, should be in 
 force. 
 
 But, surely, not so much — 90 
 
 There may be hands I may not squeeze, 
 
 But must I never touch ? — 
 Must I forbear to hand a chair 
 
 And not pick up a fan ? 
 But I have been myself picked up — 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 
 
 Others may hint a lady's tint 
 
 Is purest red and white — 
 May say her eyes are like the skies, 
 
 So very blue and bright, — 100 
 
 / must not say that she has eyes, 
 
 Or if I so began, 
 I have my fears about my ears, — 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 
 
 I must confess I did not guess 
 
 A simple marriage vow, 
 Would make me find all womenkind 
 
 Such unkind women now ; 
 I might be hash'd to death, or 
 smash 'd, 
 
 By Mr. Pickford's van, no 
 
 Without, I fear, a single tear — 
 
 I'm not a single man ! 
 
 THE BURNING OF THE LOVE-LETTER 
 
 'Sometimes they were put to the proof, by what was called the Fiery Ordeal.'—^/.!/. Enjf. 
 
 No morning ever seemed so long ! — 
 I tried to read with all my might ! 
 In my left hand 'MyLandlord'sTales,' 
 And threepence ready in my right. 
 
 'Twas twelve at last — my heart beat 
 
 high !— 
 The Postman rattled at the door ! — 
 And just upon her road to church, 
 I dropt the ' Bride of Lammermoor ! ' 
 
 I seized the note — I flew upstairs — 9 
 Flung-to the door, and l9ck'd me in — 
 
 With panting haste I tore the seal — 
 And kiss'd the B in Benjamin ! 
 
 'Twas full of love — to rhyme with 
 
 dove — 
 And all that tender sort of thing — 
 Of sweet and meet — and heart and 
 
 dart- 
 But not a word about a ring ! — 
 
 In doubt I cast it in the flame. 
 And stood to watch the latest spark — 
 And saw the love all end in smoke — 
 Without a Parson and a Clerk ! so 
 
240 
 
 THE APPARITION 
 
 In the dead of the night, when, from beds that are turfy. 
 The spirits rise up on old cronies to call, 
 Came a shade from the Shades on a visit to Murphy, 
 Who had not foreseen such a visit at all. 
 
 ' Don't shiver and shake,' said the mild Apparition, 
 ' I'm come to your bed with no evil design ; 
 I'm the Spirit of Moore, Francis Moore the Physician, 
 Once great like yourself in the Almanack line. 
 
 Like you I was once a great prophet on weather. 
 And deem'd to possess a more prescient knack 
 Than dogs, frogs, pigs, cattle, or cats, all together, 
 The donkeys that bray, and the dillies that quack. 
 
 With joy, then, as ashes retain former passion, 
 
 I saw my old mantle lugg'd out from the shelf, 
 
 Turn'd, trimmed, and brush'd up, and again brought in fashion, 
 
 I seem'd to be almost reviving myself ! 
 
 But, oh ! from my joys there was soon a sad cantle — 
 As too many cooks make a mull of the broth — 
 To find that two Prophets were under my mantle, 
 And pulling two ways at the risk of the cloth. 
 
 Unless you would meet with an awkwardish tumble, 
 • Oh ! join like the Siamese twins in your jumps ; 
 Just fancy if Faith on her Prophets should stumble, 
 The one in his clogs, and the other in pumps ! 
 
 But think how the people would worship and wonder, 
 
 To find you ' hail fellows, , well met,' in your hail. 
 
 In one tune with your rain, and your wind, and your thunder, 
 
 ' 'Fore God,' they would cry, ' they are both in a tale ! ' 
 
 Consider the hint. 
 
 LITTLE O'P.— AN AFRICAN FACT 
 
 It was July the First, and the great hill of Howth 
 Was bearing by compass sow-west and by south. 
 And the name of the ship was the Peggy of Cork, 
 Well freighted with bacon and butter and pork. 
 Now, this ship had a captain, Macmorris by name 
 And little O'Patrick was mate of the same ; 
 
LITTLE O'P.— AN AFRICAN FACT 241 
 
 For Bristol they sail'd, but by nautical scope, 
 
 They contrived to be lost by the Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 Of all the Cork boys that the vessel could boast, 
 
 Only little O'P. made a swim to the coast ; 10 
 
 And when he reviVed from a. sort of a trance, 
 
 He saw a big Black with a very long lance. 
 
 Says the saVage, says he, in some Hotfetitot tongue, 
 
 ' Bash Kuku my gimmel bo gumborry bung ! ' 
 
 Then blew a long shell, to the fright of our elf. 
 
 And down came a hundred as black as himself. 
 
 They brought with them guattul, and pieces of klam, 
 
 The first was like beef, and the second like lamb ; 
 
 ' Don't I know,' said O'P., what the wretches are at ? 
 
 ' They're intending to eat me as soon as I'm fat ! ' 20 
 
 In terror of coming to pan, spit, or pot, 
 
 His rations of jarbul he suffer'd to rot ; 
 
 He would not touch purry or doolberry-lik, 
 
 But kept himself growing as thin as a stick. 
 
 Though broiling the climate, and parching with drouth. 
 
 He would not let chobbery enter his mOuth, 
 
 But kick'd down the krug shell, tho' sweeten'd with natt, — 
 
 ' I an't' to be pison'd the likes of a rat ! ' 
 
 At last the great Joddry got quite in a rage, 
 
 And cried, ' O mi pitticum dambally nage ! 30 
 
 The chobbery take, and put back on the shelf, 
 
 Or give me the krug shell, I'll drink it myself ! 
 
 The doolberry-lik is the best to be had. 
 
 And the purry (I chew'd it myself) is not bad ; 
 
 The jarbul is fresh, for I saw it cut out. 
 
 And the Bok that it came from is grazing about. 
 
 My jumbo I but run off to Biliary Nang, 
 
 And tell her to put on her jigger and tang. 
 
 And; go with the Bloss to the man of the sea. 
 
 And say that she comes as his Wulwul from me.' 40 " 
 
 Now Billery Nang was as Black as a sweep. 
 
 With thick curly hair like the wool of a sheep, 
 
 And the moment he spied her, said little O'P., 
 
 ' Sure the Divil is dead, and his Widow 's at me ! 
 
 But when, in the blaze of her Hottentot charms. 
 
 She came to accept him for life in her .arms. 
 
 And stretch'd her thick lips to a broad grin of love, 
 
 A Raven preparing to bill like a Dove, 
 
 With a soul full of dread he declined the grim bliss. 
 
 Stopped her Molyneux g,rms, and eluded her kiss ; 50 
 
 At last, fairly foiled, she gave up the attack. 
 
 And Joddry .began to look blacker than black ; - 
 
 ' By Mumbo ! by Jumbo ! — why here is a man. 
 
 That won't be made happy do all that I can ; 
 
 He will not be married, lodged, clad, and well fed. 
 
 Let the Rham take his shangwang and chop off his head ! ' 
 
242 
 
 THE ANGLER'S FAREWELL 
 
 'Resign'd, I kissed the rod/ 
 
 Well ! 1 think it is time to put up ! 
 For it does not accord with my 
 notions, 
 Wrist, elbow, and chine; 
 Stiff from throwing the line, 
 To tafte nothing at last by my 
 motions ! 
 
 I ground-bait my way as I go. 
 And dip in at each watery dimple : 
 
 But however I wish 
 
 To inveigle the fish, 9 
 
 To my gentle they will not p\a.y' simple! 
 
 Though my float goes so swimmingly 
 
 on. 
 My bad luck never seems to diminish; 
 It would seem that the Bream 
 Must be scarce in the stream. 
 And the Chub, tho' it's chubbj', be 
 thinnish I 
 
 Not a Trout there can be in the place. 
 Not a Grayling or Rud worth the 
 mention. 
 And although at my hook 
 With attention I look, 
 I can ne'er see my hook with a Tench 
 on ! ' 20 
 
 At a. brandling once Gudgeon would 
 
 gape. 
 But they seem upon different terras 
 now ; 
 Have they taken advice 
 Of the ' Council of Nice,' 
 And rejected their ' Diet of Worms,' 
 now ? 
 
 In vain my live minnow I spin. 
 Not a. Pike seems to think it worth 
 snatching ; 
 
 For the gut I have brought, 
 I had better have bought 
 A good rope that was used to Jack- 
 hetching ! 30 
 
 Not a nibble has ruffled my cork. 
 It is vain in this river to search then ; 
 
 I may wait till it 's night. 
 
 Without any bite. 
 And at roost-time have never a Perch 
 then ! 
 
 No Roach can I meet with — no Bleak, 
 Save what in the air is so sharp now ; 
 
 Not a Dace have I got. 
 
 And I fear it is not 39 
 
 ' Carpe diem,' a day for the Carp now ! 
 
 Oh ! there is not a one-pound prize 
 To be got in this fresh- water lottery ! 
 
 What then can I deem 
 
 Of so Ashless a stream 
 But that 'tis — like St. Mary's — Otteryl 
 
 For an Eel I have learn'd how to try, 
 By a method of Walton's own show- 
 ing,— 
 
 But a fisherman feels 
 
 Little prospect of Eels, 
 In a path that s devoted to towing! 50 
 
 I have tried all the water for miles, 
 Till I'm weary of dipping and casting, 
 
 And hungry and faint, — • 
 
 Let the Fancy just paint 
 What it is, without Fish, to be Fasting! 
 
 And the rain drizzles down very fast, 
 While my dinner-time sounds from 
 a far bell, — 
 
 So, wet to the skin, 
 
 I'll e'en back to my Inn, 59 
 
 Where at least I am sure of a Bar-hell ! 
 
■343 
 
 SEA SONG 
 
 AFTER DIBDIN 
 
 Pure water it plays a good part in 
 The swabbing the decks ahd all that — 
 And it finds its own level for sartin — 
 For it sartinly drinks very flat :■ — 
 For my part a drop of the creatur 
 I never could think was a fault, 
 For if Tars should swig water by 
 
 natur, 
 The sea would have, never been 
 
 salt !— , 
 Then off with it into a jorum , 
 And make it strong, sharpish, or 
 
 sweet, 10 
 
 For if I've any sense of decorum, 
 It never was meant to ]De neat ! — 
 
 One day when I was but half sober, — 
 Half measures I always disdain — 
 I walk'd into a shop that sold Soda, 
 And ax'd for some Water Cham- 
 pagne : — 
 Well, the lubber he drew and he drew, 
 
 boys. 
 Till I'd shipped miySix bottles or more, 
 And blow off my last limb but it 's 
 true, boys, 19 
 
 Why, I warn'thalfsodrunkas afore ! — 
 Then off with it into a jorum. 
 And make it strong, sharpish, or sweet. 
 For if I've any sense of decorum, 
 It never was meant to be neat. 
 
 STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE 
 
 'Twiddleiera, Twaddle'em, Twenty-one.* 
 * Nurse. ■' O woe ! O- woeful, woeful, woeful day f 
 
 Most lanientabfe day ! most woeful day ! 
 
 That ever, ever, I did yet behold ! 
 
 O day! O day I O day! O hateful day! 
 
 Never was seen so black a day as this ! 
 
 O woeful day! O woeful day!. 
 
 » * ' * # 
 
 Musician. Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone. 
 Nurse. Honest eood fellows, ah ! put up, put up ! 
 
 For .welryou.knpw this is 'a pitiful easel' 
 
 Romeo and yuliel. 
 
 To-DAV it is my natal day. 
 
 Three 'prenticeships have past away, 
 
 A part in work, a part in play, 
 
 Since I was bound to life I 
 This first of May I come of age, 
 A man, I enter on the stage 
 Where human passions frpt and 
 , rage. 
 
 To mingle in the strife. 
 
 It ought to be a happy date, 
 My friends, they all congratulate 10 
 That I am come to ' Man's Estate,' 
 To some, a grand event ; 
 
 But ah ! to me descent allots 
 No acres, no paternal spots 
 In Beds, Bucks, Herts, Wilts, Essex, 
 Notts, 
 Hants, Oxon, Berks, or Kent. 
 
 From John o'Groat's to Land's End 
 
 search, 
 I have not one rod, pole, or perch. 
 To pay my rent, or tithe to church. 
 
 That J can call my own. ao 
 
 Not common-right for goose or ass ; 
 Then what is Man's Estate ? Alas I 
 Six feet by two of mould and grass 
 
 When I am dust and bone. 
 
244 
 
 STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE 
 
 Reserve the feast ! The board forsake ! 
 Ne'er tap the wine — don't cut the 
 
 cake, 
 No toasts or foolish speeches make, 
 
 At which ray reason spurns. 
 Before this happy term you praise, 
 And prate about returns and days, 30 
 Just o'er my vacant rent-roll gaze, 
 
 And sum up my returns. 
 
 I know where great estates descend 
 That here is Boyhood's legal end, 
 And easily- can comprehend 
 
 How ' Manors make the Man. ' 
 But as for me, I was not born 
 To quit-rent of a peppercorn, 
 And gain no ground this blessed morn 
 
 From Beersheba to Dan. 4" 
 
 No barrels broach — no bonfires make! 
 To roast a bullock for my sake. 
 Who in the country have no stake. 
 
 Would be too like a quiz ; 
 No banners hoist— rl^t off no gun — •, 
 Pitch no marquee— devise no fun — '■ 
 But think when man is .Twenty-One 
 
 What new delights are his ! 
 
 What is the moral legal fact— 
 
 Of age to-day, I'm free, to act 50 
 
 For self — free, namely, to contract 
 
 Engagements, bonds, and debts ; 
 I'm free to give my I O U, 
 Sign, draw, accept, as majors do ; 
 And free to lose my freedom too 
 
 For want of due assets. 
 
 I am of age, to ask Miss Ball, 
 
 Or that great heiress. Miss Duval, 
 
 To go to church, hump, squint, and all, 
 
 And be nriy own for life. 60 
 
 But put such reasons on their shelves. 
 To tell the truth between ourselves, 
 I'm one of those contented elves 
 
 Who do not want a wife. 
 
 What else belongs to Manhood still ? 
 I'm old enough to make my will 
 With valid clause and codicil 
 Before in turf I lie. 
 
 But I have nothing to bequeath 
 In earth, or waters underneath, 70 
 And in all candour let me breathe, 
 I do not want to die. 
 
 Away ! if this be Manhood's forte, 
 Put by the shierry an<i the port — 
 No ring of bells — no rustic sport — 
 
 No dance — no merry pipes ! , 
 No flowery garlands — no bouquetr— , 
 No Birthday Ode to sing or say^ 
 To me it seems this is a day 
 
 For bread and cheese and swipes. 80 
 
 To justify the festive cup 
 
 What horrors here ares conjured up ! 
 
 What things of bitter bite and sup. 
 
 Poor wretched Twenty-One's ! 
 No landed lumps, but frumps and 
 
 humps, 
 (Discretion>Diiysarefarfromtrumps) 
 Domestic discord, dowdies, dumps. 
 
 Death, dockets, debts, and duns ! 
 
 If you must drink, oh drink' the King.' 
 Reform — the Church^the Press — the 
 Ring, 90 
 
 Drink Aldgate Pump — or anything, 
 
 Before a toast like this ! 
 Nay, tell me, coming thus of age, 
 Arid turning o'er this sorry page. 
 Was young Nineteen so far from sage ? 
 
 Or. young Eighteen from bliss ? 
 
 Till this dull, cold, wet, happy morn — 
 No sign of May about the thorn, — 
 Were Love and Bacchus both unborn ? 
 
 Had Beauty, not a shape ? 100 
 
 Make answer, sweet Kate Finnerty ! 
 Make answer, lads of Trinity 1 
 Who sipp'd with me Divinity, 
 
 And quaff'd the ruby grape ! 
 
 No flumniery then from flowery lips, 
 No three times three and hip-hip-hips, 
 Because I'm ripe and full of pips^ 
 
 I like a little green. 
 To put me on my solemn oath, 109 
 If sweep-like I could stop my growth 
 I would remain, and nothing loth, 
 
 A boy^-about nineteen. 
 
STANZAS ON COMING OF AGE 
 
 245 
 
 My friends, excuse me these rebukes ! 
 Were I a monarch's son, or duke's, 
 Go to the Vatican of Meux 
 
 And broach his tiggest barrels — 
 Impale whole elephants on spits — 
 Ring Tom of Lincoln till he splits, 
 And dance into St. Vitus' fits, 119 
 
 And break your winds with carols ! 
 
 But ah 1 too well you know my lot. 
 Ancestral acres greet me not, ' 
 
 My freehold 's in a garden-pot, 
 
 And barely worth a pin. 
 Away then with all festive stuff ! 
 Let Robins advertise and puff ' 
 
 My ' Man's Estate,' I'm sure enough 
 
 I shall not buy it in: 
 
 A SINGULAR EXHIBITION AT SOMERSET HOUSE 
 
 'OurCrummie is a dainty covi.'—SeoicA Song. 
 
 On that first Saturday in May, 
 When Lords and Ladies, great and 
 
 grand. 
 Repair to see what each R.A. 
 Has done since last they sought the 
 
 Strand, 
 In red, brown, yellow, green, or blue. 
 In short, what 's call'd the private 
 
 view, — 
 Amongst the guests — the deuce knows 
 
 how 
 She got in there without a row — 
 There came a large and vulgar dame 
 With arms deep red, and face the 
 
 same, lo 
 
 Showing in temper not a Saint ; 
 No one could guess for why she came, 
 Unless perchance to 'scour the Paint.' 
 
 From wall to wall she forc'd her 
 
 way, 
 Elbow 'd Lord DurKam — pok'd Lord 
 
 Grey— 
 Stamp'd Stafford's toes to inake him 
 
 move, 
 And Devonshire's Duke received a 
 
 shove ; 
 The great Lord Chancellor felt her 
 
 nudge. 
 She made the Vice, his Honour, 
 
 budge. 
 And gave a pinch to Park the Judge. 
 As for the ladies, in this stir, 21 
 
 The highest rank gave way to her. 
 
 From number one and number two,! 
 She search'd the pictures through and 
 
 through. 
 On benches stood to inspect the high 
 
 ones. 
 And squatted down to scan the shy 
 
 ones ; 
 And as she went from part to part, 
 A deeper red each cheek became, 
 Her very eyes lit up in flame, 
 That made each looker-on exclaim, 30 
 ' Really an ardent love of art ! ' 
 Alas, amidst her inquisition. 
 Fate brought her to a sad condition ; 
 She might have run against Lord 
 
 Milton, 
 Arid still have stared at deeds in oil. 
 But ah ! her picture-joy to sjpoil. 
 She came full butt on Mr. Hilton. 
 
 The Keeper mute, with staring eyes 
 
 Like a lay-figure for surprise, 
 
 At last thus stammered- oiit, ' How 
 
 now ? ' 40 
 
 Woman — where, woman, is your 
 
 ticket. 
 That ought to let you through our 
 
 vricket ? ' 
 .Says woman, ' Where is David's Cow ? ' 
 
 Said Mr. H , with expedition, 
 
 ' There 's no Cow in the Exhibition.' 
 ' No Cow ! ' — but here her tongue in 
 
 verity 
 Set off with steam and rail celerity— 
 
?46. A SINGULAR EXHIBITION AT SOMERSET HOUSE 
 
 ' No Gow-J there au't no Cow, then the more 's the shame and pity, 
 
 Hang you and the R.A.'s, and all the Hanging Committee ! 
 
 No Cow-^but hold your tongue, for you needn't talk to me — 50 
 
 You can't talk up 'the Cow, you can't, to where it ought to be — 
 
 I haven't seen a picture high or low, or any how. 
 
 Or in any of the rooms, to be compared with David's Cow ! 
 
 You. may talk of your Landseers, and of your Coopers, and your Wards, 
 
 Why hanging is too good for them, and yet here they are on cords ! 
 
 They're only fit for window frames, and shutters, and street-doors, 
 
 David will paint 'em any day at Red Lions or Blue Boars, — 
 
 Why Morland was a fool to him, at a little pig or sow — 
 
 It 's really hard it an't hung up — I could cry about the Cow ! 
 
 But I know well what it is, and why — they're jealous of David's fame, 60 
 
 But to vent it on the Cow, poor thing, is a cruelty and a shame. 
 
 Do you think it might hang bye and bye, if you cannpt hang it now ? 
 
 David has made a party up, to come and see his Cow. 
 
 If it only hung three days a week, for an example to the learners. 
 
 Why can't it hang up, turn about, with that picture of Mr. Turner's ? 
 
 Or do you think from Mr. Etty, you need apprehend a row, 
 
 If now and then you cut him down to hang up David's Cow ? 
 
 I can't think where their tastes have been, to not have such a creature, 
 
 Although I say, that should iiot say, it was prettier than Nature ; 
 
 It must be hung — and shall be hung, for, Mr. H , I vow, 70 
 
 I daren't take home the catalogue, unless it 's got the Cow ! 
 As we only want it to be seen, I should not so much care, 
 If it was only round the stone man's neck, a-coming.up the stair. 
 Or down there in the marble room, where all the figures stand. 
 Where one of them Three; Graces' might just hold it in her haud^ 
 Or may be Bailey's Charity the favour would allow, 
 It would really be a charity to hang up David's Cow. 
 We haven't nowhere else to go if you don't hang it here, 
 The Water-Colour place allows no oilman to appear — 
 
 And the British Gallery sticks to Dutch, Teniers, and Gerrard Douw, 80 
 And the Suffolk Gallery will not do — it 's not a Suffolk; Cow : 
 I wish you'd seen him painting her, he hardly took his meals 
 Till she Was painted on the board correct from head to heels ; 
 His heart and soul was in his Cow, and almost made him shabby, 
 He hardly whipp'd the boys at all, or help'd to nurse the babby. 
 And when he had her all complete and painted over red. 
 He got so grand , I really thought him going off his. head- 
 Now hang it, Mr, Hilton, do just hang it any how : 
 Poof David, he will hang himself unless you hang his. Cow.— 
 And if it 's unconvenient and drawn too big by half — 90 
 
 David shan't send next year except a very little calf.' 
 
247 
 
 I'M GOING TO BOMBAY 
 
 *NotItiiig venture, iiotliiii}); \\dL\ft^ — Oid Prov&rb. 
 'Every liidiaman has at least two mdX^^^ -^Falcotier'^ Marine Guide. 
 
 My hair is brown, my eyes are blue, 
 
 And reckon'd rather bright ; 
 
 I'm shapely, if they tell me true, 
 
 And just the proper height ; 
 
 My skin has been admired in verse. 
 
 And call'd as fair as day — 
 
 If I am fair, so much the worse, 
 
 I'm going to Bombay 1 
 
 n 
 
 At school I passed with some eclat ; 
 I learn 'd my French in France ; lo 
 De Wint gave lessons how to draw, 
 And D'Egville how to dance ; — 
 Crevelli taught me how to sing, 
 And Cramer how to play — 
 It really is the strangest thing— 
 I'm going to Bombay ! 
 
 I've been to Bath and Cheltenham 
 
 Wells, 
 But not their springs to sip — 
 To Ramsgate — not to pick up shells, — 
 To Brighton — not to dip. ao 
 
 I've tour'd the Lakes, and scour'd the 
 
 coast 
 From Scarboro' to Torquay — 
 But tho' of time I've inade the most, 
 I'm going to Bom'bay ! 
 
 By Pa and Ma I'm daily told 
 
 To marry now 's my time, 
 
 For though I'm very far from old, 
 
 I'm rather in my prime. 
 
 They say while we have any sun 
 
 We ought to make our hay — 30 
 
 And India has so hot an one, 
 
 I'm going to Bombay ! 
 
 My cousin writes from Hyderapot 
 
 My only chance to snatch, 
 
 And says the climate is so hot. 
 
 It 's sure to light a match. — 
 
 She 's married to a son of Mars, 
 
 With very handsome pay. 
 
 And swears I ought to thank my stars 
 
 I'm going to Bombay ! 40 
 
 She says that I shall much delight 
 
 To taste their Indian treats. 
 
 But what she likes may turn me quite. 
 
 Their strange outlandish meats. — 
 
 If I can eat rupees, who knows ? 
 
 Or dine, the Indian way, 
 
 On doolies and on bungalows — 
 
 I'm going to Bombay I 
 
 She says that I shall much enjoy, — 
 I don't know what she means, — so 
 To take the air and buy some toy, 
 In my own palankeens, — 
 I like to drive my pony-chair. 
 Or ride our dapple grey — • 
 But elephants are horses there — 
 I'm going to Bombay ! 
 
 Farewell, farewell, my parents dear, 
 My friends, farewell to them ! 
 And oh. What "costs a sadder tear. 
 Good-bye, to Mr. M. ! — 60 
 
 If I should find an Indian vault, 
 Or fall a tiger's prey, 
 Or steep insalt, it 's all his fault, 
 I'm going to Bombay I 
 
248 
 
 I'M GOING TO BOMBAY 
 
 That fine new teak-built ship, the Fox, 
 A. I. — Commander Bird, 
 Now lying in the London docks, 
 Will sail on May the Third ; 
 Apply for passage or for freight. 
 To Nichol, Scott, arid Gray — 70 
 
 Pa has applied and seal'd my fate — 
 I'm going to Bombay ! 
 
 My heart is full — my trunks as well ; 
 
 My mind and caps made up, 
 
 My corsets, shap'd by Mrs. Bell, 
 
 Are promised ere I sup ; 
 
 With boots and shoes, Rivarta's best. 
 
 And dresses by Duce, 
 
 And a special licence in my chest— ^ 
 
 I'm going to Bombay ! 80 
 
 ODE 
 
 TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE REMOVAL OF SMITHFIELD MARKET 
 ' Sweeping our flocks and herds.*— Z7tf«^/tfA 
 
 PHILANTHROPIC men ! 
 
 For this address I need not make apology — 
 Who aim at clearing out the Sniithfield. pen, 
 And planting further off its vile Zoology — 
 Permit me thus to tell, 
 
 1 like your efforts well, 
 
 For routing that great nest of Hornithology ! 
 
 Be not dismay'd, although repulsed at first, 
 And driven from their Horse, and Pig, and. Lamb parts, 
 Charge on ! — you shall upon their hornworks burst, n 
 
 And carry all their BwW-warks and their ifawi-parts. 
 
 Go on, ye wholesale drovers ! 
 And drive away the Smithfield flocks and herds ! 
 
 As wild as Tartar-Curds,. 
 That come so fat, and kicking, from their clovers, 
 Off with them all ! — those restive brutes, that vex 
 '- Our streets, and plunge, and lunge, and butt, and battle ; 
 
 And save the female sex 
 From being cow'd — like 16 — by the cattle I 
 
 Fancy — when droves appear on 21 
 
 The hill of Holborn, roaring from its top, — 
 Your ladies — ready, as they own, to drop. 
 Taking themselves to Thomson's with a Fear-on I 
 
 Or, in St. Martin's Lane-, 
 Scared' by a Bullock, in a frisky vein, — 
 Fancy the terror of your timid daughters. 
 
 While rushing souse 
 
 Into a coffee-house. 
 
 To find it — Slaughter's I 
 
ODE 249^ 
 
 Or iancy this : — 30 
 
 Walking along the street, some stranger Miss, 
 Her head with no such thought of danger laden, 
 When suddenly 'tis ' Aries Taurus Virgo 1 ' — 
 You don't know Latin, I translate it ergo. 
 Into your Areas a Bull throws the Maiden ! 
 
 Think of some poor old crone 
 Treated, just like a penny, with a toss 1 
 
 At that vile spot now grown 
 
 So generally known 
 For making a Cow Cross ! 40 
 
 Nay, fancy your own selves far off from stall. 
 Or shed, or shop — and tljat an Ox infuriate 
 
 Just pins you to the wall, 
 Giving you a strong dose of Oxy-Muriale I 
 
 Methinks I hear the neighbours that live round 
 
 The Market-ground 
 Thus make appeal unto their civic fellows — 
 ' 'Tis well for you that live apart — iihable 
 
 To hear this brutal Babel, 
 But our firesides are troubled with their bellows, 50 
 
 ' Folks that too freely sup 
 
 Must e'en. put up 
 With their own troubles if they can't digest ; 
 
 But we must needs regard 
 
 The case as hard 
 That others' victuals should disturb our rest. 
 That from our sleep your food should start and jump us ! 
 
 We like, ourselves, -a steak, 
 
 But, Sirs, for pity's sake ! 
 We don't want oxen at our doors to rump-us 1 60 
 
 ' If we do doze — it really is too bad I 
 We constantly are roar'd awake or rung, 
 
 Through bullocks mad 
 That run in all the ' Night Thoughts ' of our Young ! ' , 
 
 Such are the woes of sleepers — now let 's take 
 The woes of those that wish to keep a Wake ! 
 Oh think ! when Wombwell gives his annual feasts, 
 Think of these ' Bulls of Basan,' far from mild ones ; 
 
 Such fierce tame beasts. 
 That nobody much cares to see the Wild ones ! 70 
 
 Think of the Show woman, ' what shows a Dwarf,' 
 
 Seeing a red Cow come 
 
 To swallow her Tom Thumb, 
 And forc'd with broom of birch to keep her off! 
 
250 ODE 
 
 Think, too, of Messrs. Richardson and Co., 
 
 When looking at their public private boxes, < ' 
 
 To see in theback row ■ . •■ 
 Three live sheeps' heads,' a porkfer's, and an Ox's ! ' 
 Think of their Orchestra, when two horns come 
 Through, to accompany the double drum ! 
 Or, in the midst of murder and remorses, 
 
 Just when the' Ghost is certain, 
 
 A great rent in the curtain, 
 And enter two tall skeletons— of Horses ! 
 
 Great Philanthropies ! pray urge these topics 
 Upon the Solemn Councils of the Nation, 
 Get a Bill soon, and give, some noon, 
 The Bulls, a Bull of Excontmunication ! 
 Let the old Fair have fair-play as its right, 
 
 And to- each show and sight 
 Ye shall be treated with a Free List latitude ; 
 
 To Richardson's Stage Dramas, 
 
 Dio — and Cosmo — ramas. 
 
 Giants knd Indians wild. 
 
 Dwarf, Sea Bear, and Fat Child, 
 And that most rare of Shows — a Show of Gratitude ! 
 
 So 
 
 90 
 
 ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE 
 
 'Look out for squalls.'— 77<« Pilot. 
 
 O COME, dear Barney Isaacs, come. 
 Punch for one night can spare his drum 
 
 As well as pipes of Pan ! 
 Forget not, Popkips, your bassoon. 
 Nor, Mister Bray, your horn, as soon 
 
 As you can leave the Van ; 
 
 Blind Billy, bring your violin ; 
 Miss Crow, you 're great in Cherry Ripe ! 
 And Chubb,, your viol must drop in 
 Its bass to Soger Tommy's pipe. 10 
 Ye butchers, bring your bones : 
 An organ would not, be amiss ; 
 If grinding Jim has spouted his. 
 
 Lend yonrk,' good Mister Jones, 
 Do, hurdy-gurdy .Jenny, — do 
 keep sober for ail hour or two. 
 Music's charms to help to paint. 
 And, Sandy Gray, if you should not 
 Your bagpipes bring — O tuneful Scot I 
 
 Conceive the feelings of the Saint 1 zo 
 
 Miss Strummel issues an invite, 
 For music, and turn-out to-night 
 In honour of Cecilia's session ; 
 But ere you go, one moment stop. 
 And with all kindness let me drop 
 A hint to you, and your profession ; 
 Imprimis then : Pray keep within 
 The bounds to which your skill was 
 born ; 
 Let the one-handed let alone 
 Trombone, 30 
 
 Don 't — Rheumatiz ! seize the violin. 
 Or Ashmy snatch the horn ! 
 
 Don't ever to such rows give birth. 
 As if you had no end on earth. 
 Except to ' wake the lyre ; ' 
 Don't 'strike the harp," pray never do, 
 Till others long to strike it too. 
 Perpetual harping 's apt to tire ; 
 
ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE 
 
 251 
 
 Oh, I have heard such flat-and-sharp- 
 ers. 
 I've blest the head 40 
 
 Of good King Ned, 
 For scragging all those old Welsh 
 Harpers. 
 
 Pray, never, ere each tuneful doing. 
 Take a prodigious deal of wooing ; 
 And then sit down to thrum the strain. 
 As if you'd never rise again^ 
 The least Cecilia-like of things ; 
 Remember that the Saint has wings. 
 I've known Miss Strummel pause an 
 
 hour. 
 Ere she could ' Pluck the Fairest 
 
 Flower.' 50 
 
 Yet without hesitation, she 
 Plunged next into the ' Deep Deep 
 
 Sea,' 
 And when on the keys she does begin. 
 Such awful torments soon you share, 
 She really seems like Milton's ' Sin,' 
 Holding the keys of — you know 
 
 where ! 
 
 Never tweak people's ears so toughly. 
 
 That urchin-like they can't help say- 
 ing— 
 
 ' O dear ! O dear— :-you call this play- 
 ing. 
 
 But oh, it 's playing very roughly I ' 60 
 
 Oft, in the ecstasy of pain, 
 
 I've cursed all instrumental worktnen, 
 
 VVish'd 'Broadwood Thurtell'd in a 
 lane, 
 
 And Kirke White's fate to every Kirk- 
 man — 
 
 I really once delighted spied 
 
 ' Clementi Cbllard ' in Cheapside. 
 
 Another word, — don't be surpris'd, 
 Revered and ragged street Musicians, 
 You have been only half-baptis'd. 
 And each name proper, or improper, 70 
 Is not the value of a copper. 
 Till it has had the due additions, 
 Husky, Rusky, 
 Ninny, Tinny, 
 Hummel, Bummel, 
 Bowski, Wowski, 
 
 All ttese are very good selectables ; 
 But none of your plain pudding-and- 
 
 tames-^ 
 Folks that are called the hardest 
 names 
 Are music's most respectables. 80 
 Ev'ry woman, ev'ry man, 
 Look as foreign as you can, 
 Don't cut your hair, or wash 
 
 your skin. 
 Make ugly faces and begin ! 
 
 Each Dingy Orpheus gravely hears. 
 And now to show they understand iit ! 
 Miss Crow her scrannel throttle clears, 
 And all the rest prepare to band it. 
 Each scraper right for concertante, 
 Rozins the hair of Rozinante : ,90 
 
 Then all sound A, if they know which. 
 That they may join Uke birds in June ; 
 Jack Tar alone neglects to tune. 
 For he 's all over concert-pitch. 
 
 A little prelude goes before. 
 Like a knock and ring at music's door. 
 Each instrument" gives in its name ; 
 Then sitting in 
 They all begin 
 To play a musical round game. 100 
 Scrapenberg, as the eldest hand, 
 Leads a first fiddle to the band, 
 
 A second follows suit ; 
 Anon the ace of Horns comes plump 
 On the two fiddles with a trump, 
 
 Puffindorf plays a flute. 
 This sort of musical revoke. 
 The grave bassoon begins to smoke, 
 And in rather grumpy kind 
 Of tone begins to speak its mind ; no 
 The double drum is next to mix, 
 Playing the Devil on Two Sticks — 
 Clamour, clamour, 
 Hammer, hammer. 
 While now and then a pipe is heard. 
 Insisting to put in a word, 
 With all his shrilly best. 
 So to allow the little minion 
 .Time to deliver his opinion. 
 
 They take a few bars rest. 12a 
 
25? 
 
 ODE FOR ST. CECILIA'S EVE 
 
 Well, little Pipe begins — with sole 
 And small voice going thro' the hole, ' 
 
 Beseeching, 
 
 Preaching, 
 
 Squealing, 
 
 Appealing, 
 Now as high as he can go. 
 Now in language rather low. 
 And having done — begins once more. 
 Verbatim what he said before. 1 30 
 This twiddling twaddling sets on fire 
 All the old instrumental ire, 
 And fiddles for explosion ripe. 
 Put out the little squeaker's pipe ; 
 This wakes bass viol^ — and viol f oir that. 
 Seizing on innocent little B flat. 
 Shakes it like terrier shaking a rat — 
 
 They all seem michihg malicho ! 
 To judge from a rumble unawares, 139 
 The drum has had a pitch downstairs ; 
 And the trumpet rash. 
 By a violent crash, 
 Seems splitting somebody's calico ! 
 The viol too groans in deep distress, 
 As if he suddenly grew sick ; 
 And one rapidfiddle sets off express, — 
 
 Hurrying, 
 
 Scurrying, 
 
 Spattering, 
 
 Clattering, , ,150 
 To fetch him a Doctor of Music. 
 This tumult sets the Haut-boy crying 
 Beyond the Piano's pacifying, 
 
 The cymbal 
 
 Gets nimble. 
 
 Triangle 
 
 Must wrangle. 
 The band is becoming most martial of 
 bands, 
 When just in the middle, 
 A quakerly fiddle, 160 
 
 Proposes a general shaking of hands ! 
 
 Quakingi' 
 Shaking, 
 Quivering, 
 
 Shivering, \ 
 
 Long bow — short bow — each bow 
 
 drawing : 
 Some like filing,-:-some like sawing ; 
 At last the'se agitations cease. 
 And tKey all get 
 The flageolet, 170 
 
 To breathe ' a piping time of peace.' 
 
 Ah, too deceitful charm. 
 Like light'ning before death. 
 For Scrapenberg to rest his arm, 
 
 And Puffindorf get breath ! 
 Again without remorse or pity. 
 They play ' The Storming of a City,' 
 Miss S. herself compos'd and plann'd 
 
 it— 
 When lo ! at this renew'd attack. 
 Up jumps a little man in black, — x8o 
 ' The very Devil cannot stand: it 1 ' 
 And with that, 
 Snatching hat, 
 (Not his own,) 
 Off is flown. 
 Thro' the door. 
 In his black. 
 To come back. 
 Never, never, never more ! 
 
 O Music 1 praises thou hast had, 19a 
 From Dryden and from Pope, 
 
 For thy good notes, yet none I 
 hope. 
 But I, e'er praised the bad. 
 
 Yet are not saint and sinner even ? 
 
 Miss Strummel on Cecilia's level ? 
 
 One drew an angel down from heaven ! 
 
 The other scar'd away the Devil ! 
 
A BLOW-UP 
 
 ' Here we (to up, up, up.'— TXe Lay of the First Minstrel. 
 
 Near Battle, Mr. Peter Baker 
 Was Powder-maker, 
 Not Alderman .Flower's flour, — the white that puffs 
 And primes and loads heads bald, or grey, or chowder, 
 Figgins and Higgins, Fippins, Filby, — Crowder, 
 Not vile apothecary's pounded stuffs. 
 But something blacker, bloodier, and louder, 
 .Gun-powder ! 
 
 This stuff, as people know, is semper 
 Eadem j very hasty in its temper — 
 Like Honour that resents the gentlest taps, 
 Mere semblances of blows, however slight ; 
 So powder fires, although you only p'rhaps 
 
 Strike light. 
 To make, it therefore, is a ticklish business. 
 And sometimes gives both head and heart a dizziness. 
 For as all human flash and fan^cy minders. 
 Frequenting fights and Powder-works well know, 
 There seldom is a mill without a blow, 
 Sometimes upon the 'grinders. 
 But then — the melancholy phrase to softer), 
 Mr. B.'s mill transpir'd so very often ! 
 And advertised — than all Price Currents louder, 
 ' Fragments look up — there is a rise in Powder,' 
 So frequently, it caused the neighbours' wonder, — 
 And certain people had the inhumanity 
 To lay it all . to Mr. Baker's vanity. 
 That h6 might have to say — ' That was my thunder ! ' 
 
 One day — so goes the tale. 
 
 Whether, with iron hoof, 
 
 Not sparkle-proof, 
 Some niilhy-hammer struck upon a nail, — 
 Whether some glow-worm of the Guy Faux stamp. 
 Crept in the building, with Unsafety Lamp — 
 One day this mill that had by water ground; 
 Became a sort of windmill and blew round. 
 With bounce that went in sound as far as Dover, it 
 Sent half the workmen sprawling to the sky ; - 
 Besides some visitors who gained, thereby. 
 What they ' had asked — permission ' to go over it ! ' 
 Of course it was a very hard and high blow, 
 And. somewhat differed from what 's called a flyblow. 
 
254 A BLOW-UP 
 
 At Cowes' Regatta, as I once observed, 
 
 A pistol-shot made twenty vessels start ; 
 
 If such a sound could terrify oak's heart, 
 
 Think how this crash the human nerve unnerved. 
 
 In fact it was a very awful thing, — ' ■ 
 
 As people know that have been used to battle, 
 
 In springing either mine or mill, you spring 
 
 A precious rattle ! ' S" 
 
 The dunniest heard it — poor old Mr. F. 
 Doubted for once if be was ever deaf ; 
 Through Tunbridge town it caused most strange alarms, 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Fogg, 
 
 Who lived like cat and dDg, 
 Were shocked for once into each other's arms. 
 Miss M. the miUiner — her fright so strong. 
 Made a great gobble-stitch six inches long ; . 
 The veriest quakers Quaked against their wish ; 
 The ' Best of Sons ' was taken unawares, 6a 
 
 And kicked the ' Best of Parents ' down the stairs : 
 The steadiest servant dropped the China dish ; 
 A thousand started, though there was but one 
 Fated to win, and that was Mister Dunn, 
 Who struck convulsively, and hooked a fish 1 
 
 Miss Wiggins, with some grass upon her fork, 
 Toss'd it just like a haymaker at work ; 
 Her sister not in any better case, 
 
 For taking wine, ' ' 
 
 With nervous Mr. Pyne, 70 
 
 He jerked his glass of Sherry in her face. 
 
 Poor Mistress Davy, 
 Bobb'd off her -bran-new turjban in the gravy ; 
 While Mr. Davy' at the lower end, 
 Preparing for a Goose a carver's labour, 
 Darted his two-pronged weapon in his neighbour, 
 As if for once he meant to help a friend. 
 
 The nurse-maid telling little ' Jack-a-Nbrey,' 
 
 ' Bo-peep,' and ' Blue-cap ' at the house's top, 
 
 Scream'd, and let Master Jereiniah drop 8q 
 
 From a fourth storey ! 
 Nor yet did matters any better go 
 With Cook and Housemaid in the realms below ; 
 As for the Laundress, timid Martha Gunning, 
 Expressing faintness and her fears by fits 
 And st£CrtS,-^she came at last but to her wits. 
 By falling in the ale that John left running. 
 
 Grave Mr. Miles, the meekest of mankind. 
 Struck all at once, deaf, stupid, dumb, and blind. 
 
A BLOW.UP 255 
 
 Sat in his chaise some moments like a corse, 90 
 
 Then coming to his mind, 
 
 Was shocked to find, 
 Only a pair of shafts without a horse. 
 Out scrambled all the Misses from Miss Joy's I 
 From Prospect House, for urchins small and big, 
 
 Hearing the awful noise, 
 
 Out rushed a flood of boys. 
 Floating a man in black, without a wig ; — 
 Some carried out one treasure, some another, — 
 
 Some caught their tops and taws up in a hurry,- ' loo 
 
 Some saved Chambaud, some rescued Lindley Mufray, 
 But little Tiddy carried' his big brother ! 
 
 Sick of such terrors. 
 The Tunbridge folks .resolv'd that truth should dwell 
 No longer secret in a Tunbridge Well, 
 But to warn Baker of his dangerous errors ; 
 Accordingly to bring the point to pass. 
 They call'd a meeting of the broken glass, 
 The shatter'd chimney pots, and scatter'd tiles. 
 
 The damage of each part, no 
 
 And packed it in a cart. 
 Drawn by the horse that ran ifrom Mr. Miles ; 
 While Doctor Babblethorpe, the worthy Rector, 
 And Mr. Gammage, cutler to George Rex, 
 And some few more, whose names would only vex, 
 Went as a deputation to the Ex- 
 Powder-proprietor and Mill-director. 
 
 Now Mr. Baker's dwelling-house had pleased 
 
 Along with mill-materials to roam, 
 
 And for a time thfe deputies were teased, 120 
 
 To find the noisy gentleman at home ; 
 
 At last they found him with undamaged skin, , 
 
 Safe at the Tunbridgie Arms — not out — but Inn, 
 
 . The worthy Rector, with uncommon zeal, 
 Soon put his spoke in for the common weal — 
 A grave, old gentlemanly kind of Urban, — 
 The piteous tale of Jeremiah moulded, 
 
 And then unfolded, 
 By way of climax, Mrs. Davy's turban ; 
 He told how auctioneering Mr. Pidding ' 130 
 
 Knock'd down a lot without a bidding, — 
 How Mr. Miles, in fright, had giv'n his mare. 
 
 The whip she wouldn't bear, — ^ 
 
 At Prospect House, how Doctor OateS, not Titus, 
 
 Danced like Saint Vitusi — 
 And Mr. Beak, thro' Powder's misbehaving, 
 
 Cut off his nose whilst shaving ; — 
 
256 
 
 A BLOW-UP 
 
 When suddenly, with words that seem'd like swearing, 
 
 Beyond a Licenser's belief or bearing — 
 
 Broke in the stuttering, sputtering Mr. Gammage — 140 
 
 ' Who is to pay us. Sir ' — he argued thus, 
 
 ' For loss of cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus — 
 
 Cus-custom, and the dam-dam-dam-dam-damage ? ' 
 
 Now many a person had been fairly puzzled 
 
 By such assailants, and completely muzzled ; 
 
 Baker, however, was not dash'd with ease — 
 
 But proved he practised after their own system, 
 
 And with small ceremony soon dismiss'd 'em. 
 
 Putting these words into their ears like fleas : 
 
 ' If I do have a blow, well, where 's the oddity ? 150 
 
 I merely do as other tradesmen do. 
 
 You, Sir, — and you — and you ! 
 I'm only puffing off my own commodity ! ' 
 
 THE GHOST 
 
 A VERY SERIOUS BALLAD 
 
 * ril be your second.' — Lision, 
 
 In Middle Row, some years ago. 
 There lived one Mr. Brown ; 
 
 And many folks considered him 
 The stoutest man in town. 
 
 But Brown and stout will both wear 
 
 ■ out, 
 
 One Friday he died hard, 
 And left a widow'd wife to mourn, 
 
 At twenty pence a yard. 
 
 Now widow B. in two short months 
 Thought mourning quite a tax, 10 
 
 And wish'd, like Mr. Wilberforce, 
 To manumit her blacks. ' 
 
 With Mr. Street she soon was sweet ; 
 
 The thing thus came about : 
 She asked him in at home, and then 
 
 At church he asked her out ! 
 
 Assurance such as this the man 
 
 In ashes could not stand ; 
 So like a Phoenix he rose up 
 
 Against the Hand in Hand. 39 
 
 One dreary night the angry sprite 
 Appeared before her view ; 
 
 It came a little after one. 
 But she was after two ! 
 
 ' Oh Mrs. B., oh Mrs. B. ! 
 
 Are these your sorrow's deeds, 
 Already getting up a flame, 
 
 To burn yoiir widow's weeds ? 
 
 ' It 's not so long since I have left 
 For aye the mortal scene ; 30 
 
 My Memory — like Rogers's, 
 Should still be bound in green ! 
 
 ' Yet if my face you still retrace 
 
 I almost have a doubt — 
 I'm like an old Forget-Me-Not, 
 
 With all the leaves torn out 1 
 
 ' To think that on that finger joint 
 Another pledge should cling ; 
 
 Oh Bess ! upon my very soul. 
 
 It struck like, "Knock and Ring." 40 
 
THE GHOST 
 
 257 
 
 ' A ton of marble on my breast 
 
 Can't hinder my return ; 
 Your conduct, Ma'am, has set my 
 blood 
 
 A-boillng in my urn ! 
 
 ' Remember, oh I remember, how 
 The marriage rite did run, — 
 
 If ever we one flesh should be, 
 'Tis now — when I have none ! 
 
 'And you, Sir — once a bosom friend — 
 Of perjured faith convict, so 
 
 As ghostly toe can give no blow. 
 Consider you are kick'd. 
 
 ' A hollow voice is all I have. 
 
 But this I tell you plain, 
 Marry come up ! — you marry, Ma'am, 
 
 And I'll come up again.' 
 
 More he had said, but chanticleer 
 The spritely shade did shock 
 
 With sudden crow, and off he went, 
 Like fowling-piece at cock I eo 
 
 ODE TO MADAME HENGLER 
 
 FIREWORK-MAKER TO VAUXHALL 
 
 Oh, Mrs. Hengler ! — Madame, — I beg pardon ; 
 Starry Enchantress of the Surrey Garden ! 
 Accept an Ode not meant as any scoff — 
 The Bard were bold indeed at thee to quiz, 
 Whose squibs are far more popular than his ; 
 Whose works are much more certain to go off. 
 
 Great is thy fame, but not a silent fame ; 
 With many a bang the public ear it courts ; 
 And yet thy arrogance we never blame. 
 But take thy merits from thy own reports. 
 Thou hast indeed the most indulgent backers, 
 We make no doubting, misbelieving comments. 
 Even in thy most bounceable of moments ; 
 But lend our ears implicit to thy crackers ! — 
 Strange helps to thy applause too are not missing, 
 
 Thy Rockets raise thee, 
 
 And Serpents praise thee. 
 As none beside are ever praised — by hissing ! 
 
 Mistress of Hydropyrics, 
 Of glittering Pindarics, Sapphics, Lyrics, 
 Professor of a Fiery Necromancy, 
 Oddly thou charmest the politer sorts 
 
 With midnight sports, 
 Partaking very much of flash and fancy ! 
 
 What thoughts had shaken all 
 In olden time at thy nocturnal revels, — 
 
 Each brimstone ball, 
 They would have deem'd an eyeball of the Devil's ! 
 
 K 
 
2^58 ODE TO MADAME HENGLER 
 
 But now thy flaming Meteors cause no fright^ 
 A modern Hubert to the royal ear, 30 
 
 Might whisper without fear, 
 ' My Lord, they say there were five moons to-night ! 
 Nor would it raise one superstitious notion 
 To hear the whole description fairly out :— 
 ' One fixed — which t'other four whirl'd round about 
 With wond'rous motion.' 
 
 Such are the very sights 
 Thou workest, Queen of Fire, on earth and heaven, 
 Between the hours of midnight and eleven. 
 
 Turning our English to Arabian Nights, 40 
 
 With blazing mounts, and founts, and scorching dragons, 
 
 Blue stars and white. 
 
 And blood-red light. 
 And dazzling Wheels fit for Enchanters' waggons. 
 Thrice lucky woman ! doing things that be 
 With other folks past benefit of parson ; 
 For burning, no Burn's Justice falls on thee, 
 Altho' night- after night the public see 
 Thy Vauxhall palaces all end in Arson ! 
 
 Sure thou wast never born _ S" 
 
 Like old Sir Hugh, with water in thy head, 
 
 Nor lectur'd night and morn 
 Of sparks and flames to have an awful dread. 
 Allowed by a prophetic dam and sire 
 
 To play with fire. 
 O didst thou never, in those days gone by. 
 Go carrying about — no schoolboy prouder — 
 Instead of waxen doll a httle Guy ; 
 Or in thy pretty pyrotechnic vein. 
 
 Up the parental pigtail lay a train, 60 
 
 To. let ofE all his powder ? 
 
 Full of the wildfire of thy youth, 
 Did'st never in plain truth. 
 Plant whizzing Flowers in thy mother's pots, 
 Turning the garden into powder plots ? 
 
 Or give the cook, to fright her. 
 Thy paper sausages well stuffed with nitre ? 
 Nay, wertthou never guilty, now, of dropping 
 A lighted cracker by thy sister's Dear, 
 
 So that she could not hear 70 
 
 The question he was popping ? 
 
 Go on, Madame ! Go on^be bright and busy 
 While hoax'd Astronomers look up and stare 
 From tall observatories, dumb and dizzy, 
 To see a Squib in Cassiopeia's Chair 1 
 
ODE TO MADAME HENGLER 259 
 
 A Serpent wriggling into Charles's Wain ! 
 A Roman Candle lighting the Great Bear ! 
 A Rocket tangled in Diana's train, 
 And Crackers stuck in Berenice's Hair ! 
 
 There is a King of Fife — Thou shouldst be Queen I 80 
 
 Methinks a good connexion -might come from it ; 
 Could'st thou not make him, in the garden scene, 
 Set out per Rocket and return per Comet ; 
 
 Then give him a hot treat 
 Of Pyrotechnicals to sit and sup, 
 Lord ! how the world would throng to see him eat, 
 He swallowing fire, while thou dost throw it up ! 
 
 One solitary night — true is the story. 
 
 Watching those forms that Fancy will create 
 
 Within the bright confusion of the grate, 90 
 
 I saw a dazzling countenance of glory I 
 
 Oh Dei gratias ! 
 
 That fiery facias 
 'Twas thine. Enchantress of the Surrey Grove ; 
 
 And ever since' that night, 
 
 In dark and bright. 
 Thy face is registered within my stove ! 
 
 Long may that starry brow enjoy its rays ; 
 
 May no untimely blow its doom forestall ; 
 
 But when old age prepares the friendly pall, 100 
 
 When the last spark of all thy sparks decays. 
 
 Then die lamented by good people all, 
 
 Like Goldsmith's Madam Blaize ! 
 
 THE DOUBLE KNOCK 
 
 Rat-tat it went upon the lion's chin, 
 
 ' That hat, I know it ! ' cried the joyful girl ; 
 
 ' Summer's it is, I know him by his knock. 
 
 Comers like him are welcome as the day ! 
 
 Lizzy ! go down and open the street-door. 
 
 Busy I am to any one but him. 
 
 Know him you must — he has been often here ; 
 
 Show him up stairs, and tell him I'm alone.' 
 
 Quickly the maid went tripping down the stair ; 
 
 Thickly the heart of Rose Matilda beat ; 
 
 ' Sure he has brought me tickets for the play — 
 Drury — or Covent Garden — darling man ! — 
 
26o THE DOUBLE KNOCK 
 
 Kemble will play— or Kean who makes the soul 
 Tremble ; in Richard or the frenzied Moor— 
 Farren, the stay and prop of many a farce 
 Barren beside— or Listen, Laughter's Child- 
 Kelly the natural, to witness whom 
 Jelly is nothing to the public's jam- 
 Cooper, the sensible— and Walter Knowles 
 Super, in William Tell, now rightly told. 
 Better— perchance, from Andrews, brings a box, 
 Letter of boxes for the Italian stage — 
 Brocard! Donzelli ! Taglioni ! Paul! 
 No card,— thank heaven— engages me to-night ! 
 Feathers, of course— no turban, and no toque- 
 Weather 's against it, but I'll go in curls. 
 Dearly I dote on white— my satin dress. 
 Merely one night — it won't be much the worse— 
 Cupid— the New Ballet I long to see- 
 Stupid ! why don't she go and ope the door ! ' 
 
 Glisten'd her eye as the impatient girl 
 Listen'd, low bending o'er the topmost stair, 
 Vainly, alas I she listens and she bends. 
 Plainly she hears this question and reply : 
 ' Axes your pardon. Sir, but what d'ye want ? ' 
 ' Taxes,' says he, ' and shall not call again ! ' 
 
 BAILEY BALLADS 
 
 LINES TO MARY 
 
 (AT NO. I NEWGATE, FAVOURED BY MR. WONTNER) 
 
 O Mary, I believ'd you true. 
 And I was blest in so believing ; 
 But till this hour I never knew — 
 That you were taken up for thiev- 
 ing ! 
 
 Oh ! when I snatch'd a tender kiss. 
 Or some such trifle when I courted. 
 You said, indeed, that love was bliss, 
 But never owned you were trans- 
 ported I 
 
 But then to gaze on that fair face — 
 It would have been an unfair feeling,io 
 To dream that you had pilfered lace — 
 And Flints had suffer'd from your 
 stealing I 
 
 Or when my suit I first preferr'd. 
 To bring your coldness to repentance. 
 Before I hammer'd out a word, 
 How could I dream you'd heard a sen- 
 tence ! 
 
BAILEY BALLADS 
 
 261 
 
 Or when with all the warmth of youth 
 I strove to prove my love no fiction, 
 How could I guess I urged a truth 
 On one already past conviction I 20 
 
 How could I dream that ivory part, 
 Your hand — where I have look'd and 
 
 linger'd, 
 Altho' it stole away my heart, 
 Had been held up as one light-finger'd! 
 
 In melting verse your charms I drew, 
 The charms in which my muse de- 
 lighted — 
 Alas ! the lay, I thought was new, 
 Spoke only what had been indicted I 
 
 Oh ! when that form, a lovely one. 
 Hung on the neck its arms had flown 
 to, 30 
 
 I little thought that you had run 
 A chance of hanging on your own too. 
 
 You said you pick'd me from the 
 
 world. 
 My vanity it now must shock it — 
 
 And down at once my pride is hurl'd. 
 You've pick'd me — and you've pick'd 
 a pocket ! 
 
 Oh ! when our love had got so far. 
 The banns were read by Dr. Daly, 
 Who asked if there was any bar — 
 Why did not some one shout, ' Old 
 Bailey ? ' 40 
 
 But when you rob'd your flesh and 
 
 bones 
 In that pure white that angel garb is. 
 Who could have thought you, Mary 
 
 Jones 
 Among the Joans that link with 
 
 Darbies ? 
 
 And when the parson came to say. 
 My goods were yours, if I had got any. 
 And you should honour and obey, 
 Who could have thought — ' O Bay of 
 Botany ! ' 
 
 But, oh, — the worst of all your slips 
 I did not till this day discover — 50 
 That down in Deptford's prison ships. 
 Oh, Mary ! you've a hulking lover ! 
 
 No. II 
 
 * Love with a witness I ' 
 
 He has shav'd off his whiskers and blacken'd his brows, 
 Wears a patch and a wig of false hair, — 
 But it 's him — Oh it 's him ! — we exchanged lovers' vows 
 When I lived up in Cavendish Square. 
 
 He had beautiful eyes, and his lips were the same, 
 And his voice was as soft as a flute — 
 Like a Lord or a Marquis he look'd, when he came 
 To make love in his master's best suit. 
 
 If I lived for a thousand long years from my birth, 
 I shall never forget what he told ; 
 How he lov'd me beyond the rich women of earth, 
 With their jewels and silver and gold ! 
 
 When he kiss'd me, and bade me adieu with a, sigh. 
 By the light of the sweetest of moons. 
 Oh how little I dreamt I was bidding good-bye 
 To my Missis's tea-pot and spoons ! 
 
262 
 
 BAILEY BALLADS 
 
 No. Ill 
 
 'I'd be a parody.'— Baile]/. 
 
 We met — 'twas in a mob — and I thought he had done me — 
 I felt — I could not feel — for no watch was upon me ; 
 He ran — the night was cold — and his pace was unalter'd, 
 I too longed much to pelt — but my small-boned legs falter'd. 
 I wore my bran new boots — and unrivall'd their brightness ; 
 They fit me to a hair — how I hated their tightness ! 
 1 call'd, but no one came, and my stride had a tether, 
 Oh thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather ! 
 
 And once again we met — and an old pal was near him, 
 
 He swore, a something low — but 'twas no use to fear him ; 
 
 I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only. 
 
 And stept— as he deserv'd — to cells wretched and lonely : 
 
 And there he will be tried — but I shall ne'er receive her. 
 
 The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver ; 
 
 The world may think me gay, — heart and feet ache together. 
 
 Oh thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather. 
 
 FRENCH AND ENGLISH 
 
 • Good heaven I Why even the little children in France speak French 1 ' — Addison. 
 
 Never go to France 
 
 Unless you know the lingo. 
 
 If you do, like me. 
 
 You will repent, by jingo. 
 
 Staring like a fool. 
 
 And silent as a mummy. 
 
 There I stood alone, 
 
 A nation with a dummy : 
 
 Chaises stand for chairs. 
 They christen letters Billies, 
 They call their mothers mares, 
 And all their daughters fillies ; 
 Strange it was to hear, 
 I'll tell you what 's a good 'un. 
 They call their leather queer, 
 And half their shoes are wooden. 
 
 Signs I had to make 
 For every little notion, 
 Limbs all going like 
 A telegraph in motion. 
 For wine I reel'd about, 
 To show my meaning fully, 
 And made a pair of horns. 
 To ask for ' beef and bully.' 
 
 Moo ! I cried for milk ; 
 
 I got my sweet things snugger. 
 
 When I kissed Jeanette, 
 
 'Twas understood for sugar. 
 
 If I wanted bread. 
 
 My jaws I set a-going, 
 
 And asked for new-laid eggs, 
 
 By clapping hands and crowing 
 
 30 
 
FRENCH AND ENGLISH 
 
 263 
 
 If I wish'd a ride, 
 
 I'll tell you how I got it ; 
 
 On my stick astride 
 
 I made believe to trot it ; 
 
 Then their cash was strange, 
 
 It bored me every minute, 
 
 Now here 's a hog to change. 
 
 How many sows axe in it ! 
 
 40 
 
 Never go to France, 
 
 Unless you know the lingo ; 
 
 If you do, like me. 
 
 You will repent, by jingo ; 
 
 Staring like a fool. 
 
 And silent as a mummy. 
 
 There I stood alone, 
 
 A nation with a dummy 1 
 
 OUR VILLAGE.— BY A VILLAGER 
 
 *Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the ^2\n^— Goldsmith. 
 
 Our village, that 's to say not Miss Mitford's village, but our village of Bullock 
 
 Smithy, 
 Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two elders, and a 
 
 withy ; 
 And in the middle, there 's a green of about not exceeding an acre and a half ; 
 It 's common to all, and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies, three horses, 
 
 five asses, two foals, seven pigs, and a calf ! 
 Besides a pond in the middle, as is held by a similar sort of common law 
 
 lease. 
 And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, two dead dogs, four 
 
 drown'd kittens, and twelve geese. 
 Of course the green 's cropt very close, and does famous for bowling when 
 
 the little village boys play at cricket ; 
 Only some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass, is sure to come and stand 
 
 right before the wicket. 
 There 's fifty-five private houses, let alone barns and workshops, and pigstyes, 
 
 and poultry huts, and such-like sheds ; 
 With plenty of public-houses — two Foxes, one Green Man, three Bunch of 
 
 Grapes, one Crown, and .six King's Heads. 10 
 
 The Green Man is reckon'd the best, as the only one that for love or money 
 
 can raise 
 A postilion, a blue jacket, two deplorable lame white horses, and a ramshackled 
 
 ' neat postchaise.' 
 There 's one parish church for all the people, whatsoever may be their ranks 
 
 in life or their degrees. 
 Except one very damp, small, dark, freezing-cold, little Methodist chapel of 
 
 Ease ; 
 And close by the church-yard there 's a stone-mason's yard, that when the 
 
 time is seasonable 
 Will furnish with aflBictions sore and marble urns and cherubims very low 
 
 and reasonable. 
 There 's a cage, comfortable enough ; I've been in it with old Jack Jeffrey 
 
 and Tom Pike ; 
 For the Green Man next door will send you in ale, gin, or any thing else you 
 
 hke. 
 
264 OUR VILLAGE 
 
 1 can't speak of the stocks, as nothing remains of them but the upright post; 
 
 But the pound is kept in repairs for the sake of Cob's hdrse, as is always 
 there almost. 20 
 
 There 's a smithy of course, where that queer sort of a chap in his way, Old 
 Joe Bradley, 
 
 Perpetually hammers and stammers, for he stutters and shoes horses very badly. 
 
 There 's a shop of all sorts, that sells every thing, kept by the widow of Mr. 
 Task; 
 
 But when you go there it 's ten to one she 's out of every thing you ask. 
 
 You'll know her house by the swarm of boys, like flies, about the old sugary 
 cask : 
 
 There are six empty houses, and not so well paper'd inside as out. 
 
 For bill-stickers won't beware, but sticks notices of sales and election placards 
 all about. 
 
 That 's the Doctor's with a green door, where the garden pots in the windows 
 is seen ; 
 
 A weakly monthly rose that don't blow, and a. deajl geranium, and a tea- 
 plant with five black leaves and one green. 
 
 As for hoUyoaks at the cottage doors, and honeysuckles and jasmines, you 
 may go and whistle ; 30 
 
 But the Tailor's front garden grows two cabbages, a dock, a ha'porth of penny- 
 royal, two dandelions, and a thistle. 
 
 There are three small orchards — Mr. Busby's the schoolmaster's is the chief — 
 
 With two pear-trees that, don't bear; one plum and an apple, that every 
 year is stripped by a thief. 
 
 There 's another small day-school too, kept by the respectable Mrs. Gaby. 
 
 A select establishment, for six little boys and one big, and four little girls 
 and a baby ; 
 
 There 's a rectory, with pointed gables and strange odd chimneys that never 
 smokes. 
 
 For the rector don't live on his living like other Christian sort of folks ; 
 
 There 's a barber's, once a-week well filled with rough black-bearded, shock- 
 headed churls, 
 
 And a window with two feminine men's heads, and two masculine ladies in 
 false curls ; 
 
 There 's a butcher's, and a carpenter's, and a plumber's, and a small green- 
 grocer's, and a baker, 40 
 
 But he won't bake on a Sunday, and there 's a sexton that 's a coal-merchant 
 besides, and an undertaker ; 
 
 And a toy-shop, but not a whole one, for a village can't compare with the 
 London shops ; 
 
 One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, bats. Clout's balls, and the other 
 sells malt and hops. 
 
 And Mrs. Brown, in domestic economy not to be a bit behind her betters. 
 
 Lets her house to a milUner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a cobler, lives in 
 it herself, and it 's the post-office for letters. 
 
 Now I've gone through all the village— ay, from end to end, save and except 
 one more house, 
 
 But I haven't come to that— and I hope I never shall— and that 's the Village 
 Poor House ! 
 
26s 
 
 A TRUE STORY 
 
 Whoe'er has seen upon the human face 
 The yellow jaundice and the jaundice black, 
 May form a notion of old Colonel Case 
 With nigger Pompey waiting at his back. 
 
 Case, — as the case is, many time with folks 
 
 From hot Bengal, Calcutta, or Bombay, 
 
 Had tint his tint, as Scottish tongues would say. 
 
 And show'd two cheeks as yellow as eggs' yolks. 
 
 Pompey, the chip of some old ebon block, 
 
 In hue was like his master's stiff cravat, lo 
 
 And might indeed have claimed akin to that, 
 
 Coming, as he did, of an old black stock. 
 
 Case wore the liver's livery that such 
 
 Must wear, their past excesses to denote, 
 
 Like Greenwich pensioners that take too much, 
 
 And then do penance in a yellow coat. 
 
 Pompey's, a deep and permanent jet dye, 
 
 A stain of nature's staining — one of those 
 
 We call fast colours — merely, I suppose. 
 
 Because such colours never go or fly. so 
 
 Pray mark this difference of dark and sallow, 
 Pompey's black husk, and the old Colonel's yellow. 
 
 The Colonel, once a pennyless beginner, 
 From a long Indian rubber rose a winner. 
 With plenty of pagodas in his pocket. 
 And homeward turning his Hibernian thought. 
 Deemed Wicklow was the very place that ought 
 To harbour one whose wick was in the socket. 
 
 Unhappily for Case's scheme of quiet, 
 
 Wicklow just then was in a pretty riot, 30 
 
 A fact recorded in each day's diurnals, 
 
 Things, Case was not accustomed to peruse. 
 
 Careless of news ; 
 But Pompey always read these bloody journals, 
 Full of Killmany and of Killmore work, 
 The freaks of some O'Shaunessy's shillaly, 
 Of morning frays by some O'Brien Burke, 
 Or horrid nightly outrage by some Daly ; 
 How scums deserving of the Devil's ladle. 
 
 Would fall upon the harmless scull and knock it, 40 
 
 And if he found an infant in the cradle 
 Stern Rock would hardly hesitate to rock it ; — 
 
 K3 
 
266 A TRUE STORY 
 
 In fact, he read of burner and of killer, 
 
 And Irish ravages, day after day, 
 
 Till, haunting in his dreams, he used to say. 
 
 That ' Pompey could not sleep on Pompey's Pillar.' 
 
 Judge then the horror of the nigger's face 
 
 To find — with such impressions of that dire land — 
 
 That Case, — his master, — was a packing case 
 
 For Ireland ! S" 
 
 He saw in fearful reveries arise. 
 Phantasmagorias of those dreadful men 
 Whose fame associate with Irish plots is, 
 Fitzgeralds — Tones — O'Connors — Hares-^and then 
 ; Those Emmets,' not so ' little in his eyes ' 
 
 As Doctor Watts's ! 
 He felt himself piked, roasted, — carv'd and hack'd, 
 His big black burly body seemed in fact 
 A pincushion for Terror's pins and needles, — 
 Oh, how he wish'd himself beneath the sun 60 
 
 Of Afric — or in far Barbadoes — one 
 Of Bishop Coleridge's new black beadles. 
 
 Full of this fright. 
 With broken peace and broken English choking, 
 As black as any raven and as croaking, 
 Pompey rushed in upon his master's sight, 
 Plump'd on his knees, and clasp'd his sable digits, 
 Thus stirring Curiosity's sharp fidgets — 
 ' O Massa ! — Massa ! — Colonel ! — Massa Case ! — 
 Not go to Ireland ! — Ireland dam bad place ; 70 
 
 Dem take our bloods — dem Irish — every drop — 
 Oh why for Massa go so far a distance 
 
 To have him life ? ' Here Pompey made a stop. 
 
 Putting an awful period to existence. 
 
 ' Not go to Ireland — not to Ireland, fellow, 
 
 And murder'd — why should I be murder'd. Sirrah ? ' 
 
 Cried Case, with anger's tinge upon his yellow, — 
 
 Pompey, for answer, pointing in a mirror 
 
 The Colonel's saffron, and his own japan, — 
 
 ' Well, what has that to do — quick — speak outright, boy ? ' 80 
 
 ' O Massa ' — (so the explanation ran) 
 
 ' Massa be killed — 'cause Massa Orange Man, 
 
 And Pompey killed — 'cause Pompey not a White Boy I ' 
 
26; 
 
 THE CARELESSE NURSE MAYD 
 
 I SAWE a Mayd sitte on a Bank, 
 Beguiled by Wooer fayne and fond ; 
 And whiles His flatterynge Vowes She drank, 
 Her Nurselynge slipt within a. Pond 1 
 
 All Even Tide they Talkde and Kist, 
 For She was fayre and He was Kinde ; 
 The Sunne went down before She wist 
 Another Sonne had sett behinde ! 
 
 With angrie Hands and frpwnynge Browe, 
 That deemd Her owne the Urchine's Sinne, 
 She pluckt Him out, but he was nowe 
 Past being Whipt for fallynge in. 
 
 She then beginnes to wayle the Ladde 
 With Shrikes that Echo answerde round — 
 O ! foolishe Mayd to be soe sadde 
 The Momente that her Care was drownd ! 
 
 TO FANNY 
 
 'Gay being, born to flutter/ — SaWs Glee. 
 
 Is this your faith, then, Fanny ! 
 
 What, to chat with every Dun 1 
 I'm the one, then, but of many, 
 
 Not of many, but the One I 
 
 Last night you smil'd on all. Ma'am, 
 That appear'd in scarlet dress ; 
 
 And your Regimental Ball, Ma'am, 
 Look'd a little like a Mess. 
 
 I thought that of the Sogers 
 
 (As the Scotch say) one might do, lo 
 
 And that I, slight Ensign Rogers, 
 Was the chosen man and true. 
 
 But 'Sblood ! your eye was busy 
 With that ragamuffin mob ; — 
 
 Colonel Buddell — Colonel Dizzy — 
 And Lieutenant-Colonel Cobb. 
 
 General Joblin, General Jodkin, 
 Colonels — Kelly, Felly, with 
 
 Majors — Sturgeon, Truffle, Bodkin, 
 And the Quarter-master Smith, zo 
 
 Major Powderum — MajorDowdrum — 
 Major Chowdrum — Major Bye — 
 
 Captain Tawney — Captain Fawney, 
 Captain Any-one — but I ! 
 
 Deuce take it ! when the regiment 
 You so praised, I only thought 
 
 That you lov'd it in abridgment, 
 But I now am better taught ! 
 
 I went, as loving man goes, 
 
 To admire thee in quadrilles ; 30 
 But Fan, you dance fandangoes 
 
 With just any fop that wills ! 
 
 I went with notes before us. 
 On the lay of Love to touch ; 
 
 But with all the Corps in chorus. 
 Oh ! it is indeed too much ! 
 
 You once — ere you contracted 
 For the army — seem'd my own ; 
 
 But now you laugh with all the Staff, 
 And I may sigh alone ! — 4" 
 
268 
 
 TO FANNY 
 
 I know not how it chances, 
 When my passion ever dares, 
 
 But the warmer my advances. 
 Then the cooler are your airs. 
 
 I am, I don't conceal it. 
 But I am a little hurt ; 
 
 You're a Fan, and I must feel it. 
 Fit for nothing but a Flirt I 
 
 I dreamt thy smiles of beauty 
 
 On myself alone did fall ; so 
 
 But, alas ! ' Cosi Fan Tutti ! ' 
 It is thus, Fan, thus will all ! 
 
 You have taken quite a mob in 
 Of new niilitary flames ; — 
 
 They would make a fine Round Robin 
 If I gave you all their names I 
 
 POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 * There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 
 The Muse found Scroggins stretched beneath a m%.'—Goldsmi/!i. 
 
 STANZAS 
 WRITTEN UNDER THE FEAR OF BAILIFFS 
 
 Alas ! of all the noxious things 
 That wait upon the poor, 
 
 Most cruel is that Felon-Fear 
 
 That haunts the ' Debtor's Door ! 
 
 Saint Sepulchre's begins to toll, 
 The Sheriffs seek the cell : — 
 
 So I expect their officers. 
 And tremble at the bell ! 
 
 I look for beer, and yet I quake 
 With fright at every tap ; 
 
 And dread a double-knock, for oh ! 
 I've not a single rap I 
 
 SONNET 
 WRITTEN IN A WORKHOUSE 
 
 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 I 
 
 But, hark I I hear the master on the stair — 
 
 And Thomson's Castle, that of Indolence, 
 Must be to me a castle in the air. 
 
POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 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 forthe Watch. 
 
 Oh ! hunger 's a terrible trial, 
 
 I really must have a relief, — 10 
 
 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. zo 
 
 No Peachum it is, or young Lockit, 
 That rifies 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, 30 
 
 I've been such a Brownrigg's Appren- 
 tice, 
 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 dressi'ng for dinner. 
 But I have for dinner undrest ; 
 
 Since Christmas, as I am a sinner, 
 I've eaten a suit of my best. 40 
 
Z70 
 
 POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN 
 
 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 
 
 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. 60 
 
 THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS 
 
 'The Needles have sometimes been fatal to Mariners.'— ft'c/KfV 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 lago ; jo 
 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, 20 
 
 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 I 
 
 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. 30 
 
 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 'da composite 
 Of rustic with the courtly. 
 
 He ate and quaii'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 ? ' 40 
 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 I3I0W, 
 And rocks and billows thump us, — 
 But little we supposed what he 
 Could with the needle compass I 
 
THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS 
 
 271 
 
 Soon came a storm — the sea at first 
 Seem'd lying almost fallow — 50 
 
 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. 60 
 
 Down rush'd the soup, down gush'd 
 
 the wine. 
 Each roll, its role repeating, 
 RoU'd down — the round of beef de- 
 
 clar'd 
 For parting — not for meating I 
 Off flew the fowls, and all the game 
 Was ' too far gone for eating I ' 
 Down knife and fork — down went the 
 
 pork, 
 The lamb too broke its tether ; 
 Down mustard went — each condi- 
 ment — 
 Salt — pepper — all together ! 70 
 
 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, 80 
 
 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 ! 9« 
 
 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, 100 
 
 Neptune, the God, seem'd tossing in 
 
 A raging scarlet fever ! 
 
 Sore, sore afraid, each pap.st 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 Gary ! 
 
 His ruddy cheek retain'd its streak. 
 No danger seem'd to shrink him ; 110 
 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. , 120 
 
 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 ; 130 
 When rose on high, a frightful cry — 
 ' The Devil 's in the binnacle 1 ' 
 
2/2 
 
 THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS 
 
 ' 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 ; 140 
 
 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 ! 150 
 
 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, 160 
 
 All down the side which holds the 
 
 heart, 
 That needle gave them stitches. 
 
 With deep ama?e, 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 — 170 
 
 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 Uke a pullet's gizzard ; 
 Meanwhile the captain's wandering 
 
 wit, 
 From ta,cking like an izzard. 
 Bore down in this plain course at last, 
 'It's Michael Scott — the Wizard I ' 180 
 
 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, 190 
 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 to 
 
 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 ; 
 
PAIR'D NOT MATCH'D 
 
 273 
 
 She has, in brief, 
 
 Command in Chief, 20 
 
 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 ; 30 
 
 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 pfong of it ; 
 
 For I am small, 40 
 
 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, so 
 
 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 ine, 10 
 
 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. 20 
 
 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 ; 30 
 
 But these two went away to give 
 Each other change for lead. 
 
274 
 
 THE DUEL 
 
 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. 40 
 
 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 theyfound 
 They both were shaking hands. 
 
 Said Mr. C. to Mr. B., 
 
 Here one of us may fall, 5" 
 
 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. «o 
 
 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 ; 
 
 Ahd may all other duels have 
 That upshot in the end 1 
 
 SONNET TO VAUXHALL 
 
 The English Garden.'— Masoh. 
 
 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, lo 
 
 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 I zo 
 
 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, — 30 
 Too many boys, — 
 Too many hobby-de-hoys, — 
 Too many girls, men, widows, wives, 
 
 and maids, — 
 There is adreadfulsurplustodemolish, 
 And yet some Wrongheads, 
 With thick not long heads, 
 Poor metaphysicians 1 
 Sign petitions 
 Capital punishment to abolish ; 
 And in the face of censuses such vast 
 ones 40 
 
 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 Serpen- 
 tine 
 By their design. 
 Are Saving Banks. 
 Oh ! were it given but to me to 
 weed so 
 
 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 my- 
 self,— 
 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 de- 
 stroy ; to 
 
276 
 
 ODE TO MR. MALTHUS 
 
 But for the world's, and everyone'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, — 70 
 
 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 Ijusy fool would hinder 
 His burning all the Foundling to a 
 cinder. 
 
 Or, if the Lord Mayor, on an Ipaster 
 Monday, 
 That wine and bun-day, 80 
 
 Proposed to poison all the little Blue- 
 coats, 
 Before they died by bit or sup, 
 Some meddling Marplot would blov/ 
 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, 90 
 
 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 — 99 
 
 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 chairity 
 Ga?-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 ! no 
 
 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 ab- 
 sorb us. 
 Or trouble shipping with a quaran- 
 tine 120 
 
 When if I understand the thing you 
 mean, 
 
 We ought to import the Cholera Mor- 
 bus ! 
 
277 
 
 A GOOD DIRECTION 
 
 A CERTAIN gentleman, whose yellow cheek 
 Proclaimed he had not been in living quite 
 
 An Anchorite — 
 Iijdeed, 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 tliat 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 I '—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-; lo 
 
 That Scott had been s, 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 
 
 THERE'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT 
 
 No Bandits lurk — no turban'd Turk 
 
 To Tunis bears me off — 
 
 I hear no noises in the night 
 
 Except my mother's cough, — 20 
 
 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, 30 
 
 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 ! 40 
 
 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 — 
 
 Thefe 's no Romance in that I 
 
 Love — even love — goes smoothly on 
 
 A railway sort of track — 50 
 
 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 I 
 
 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 ; 60 
 
 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, 70 
 
 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 ! 80 
 
 I sing — no matter what I sing, 
 
 Di Tanti — or Crudel, 
 
 Tom Bowling, or God save the King, 
 
 Di piacer — AU '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 ; 90 
 
 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 coflfee — just two cups. 
 
 And talks with Pa about the news. 
 
 Repeats debates, and sups, 100 
 
 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 ! 
 
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, no 
 
 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 1 
 
 ' Into our town a serjeant came. 
 With ribands all so fine 10 
 
 A-flaunting in his cap — alas ! 
 His bow enlisted mine ! 
 
 'They taught him howto 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. zo 
 
 ' O prithee tell, good sentinel. 
 
 If hereabout he Ues ? 
 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 ; 30 
 
 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. 40 
 
 ' 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 ; — 50 
 
 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. 60 
 
 ' 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 CoMslreams brought me to. 
 
 ' With kicks and cuts, and balls and 
 blows, 
 
 I throb and ache all over ; 70 
 
 I'm quite convinc'd the field of Mars 
 
 Is not a field of clover ! 
 
280 
 
 A WATERLOO BALLAD 
 
 ' 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 'Ust is nail'd 
 
 Upon the door of death. 80 
 
 ' Without a cofi&n I shall lie, 
 And sleep my sleep eternal : 
 
 Not ev'n a shell — my only chance 
 Of being made a Kernel I 
 
 • O Patty dear, our wedding bells, 
 Will never ring at Chester I 
 
 Here I must Ue in Honour's bed, 
 That isn't worth a tester I 
 
 ' Farewell, my regimental mates, 
 With whom I used to dress ! 90 
 
 My corps is changed, so I am now. 
 In quite another mess. 
 
 ' Farewell, ray 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.'— il/fflr^^a/^. 
 
 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 ! 10 
 
 And that gamekeeper too, with advice ! 
 Of my course he has been a rrice 
 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, ig 
 
 But I can't find a mark for mj' Antony I 
 
 The partridges, — where can they lie ? 
 I have promised a leash to Miss Jer- 
 vas. 
 As the least I could do ; 
 But without even two 
 To brace me, — I'm getting quite nerv- 
 ous ! 
 
 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.' 30 
 
 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, 39 
 
 I find nothing for ' setting my cap at 1' 
 
SHOOTING PAINS 
 
 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, 49 
 
 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 P.y, and I find S9 
 
 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 over- 
 loaded. 
 
 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 ! 70 
 
 Joyce may talk of his excellent caps, 
 But for nightcaps they set medesiring, 
 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 li- 
 cence.' 80 
 
 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 hi.storya 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 ? 10 
 
 While you ride — while you dance — 
 while you float — 
 Never mind your imperfect ortho- 
 graphy ;— 
 But give us as well as you can, 
 Your watery auto-biography, 
 
 Little Boy at the Nore ! 
 
282 
 
 THE BOY AT THE NORE 
 
 LITTLE BOY AT THE NORE LOQUITUR 
 
 I'm the tight little Boy at the Nora, 
 
 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 ! 20 
 
 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. 30 
 
 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 ! 40 
 
 I'm a'ter the sailor's own heart, 
 And cheers him, in deep water roll- 
 ing ; 
 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. so 
 
 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 heav- 
 ing 
 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 ! 60 
 
 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. 
 
 ' A word caught from some American Trader in passing. 
 
ODE TO ST. SWITHIN 283 
 
 The hundred clerks that live along the street, 
 Bondsmen to mercantile and city schemers, 10 
 
 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 ! 20 
 
 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 1 
 
 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, 30 
 
 And says, or seems to say, 
 ' Well, I am poor enough — but here 's a pourer I ' 
 
 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 eairth your water^soup to sup, 40 
 
 I marvel — Why such wet, mysterious weather ? 
 
 I wish you'd clear it up I 
 
 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 ? 50 
 
 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 ! 
 
384 ODE TO ST. SWITHIN 
 
 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 60 
 
 Spooning out puddles muddy, 
 Milkmaids, and other slopping benefactors ! 
 
 A Queen you are, raining in your own right. 
 Yet oh ! how little ilatter'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, 70 
 
 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 I 80 
 
 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, mostaudaciousof boys! 
 Come ! — ' Palmam qui meruit ferat ! ' 
 
 So this morn in the midst of the Psalm, 
 The Miss Sifikins'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, 10 
 
 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 dis- 
 turb, — 
 
 There ! — ' Palmam qui meruit ferat ! ' 
 
THE SCHOOLMASTER'S MOTTO 
 
 285 
 
 You said Master Twigg stole the 
 
 plumbs, 
 When the orchard he n ever was near at, 
 I'll not punish wrong fingers or 
 
 thumbs, — 19 
 
 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 Biddlc you likewise distress. 
 You are always his hair, or his ear at — 
 He's my Opt, Sir, and you are myPess: 
 There ! — ' Palmam qui meruit ferat ! ' 
 
 Then you had a pitcht fight with 
 
 young Rous, 
 An offence I am always severe at ! 30 
 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, 41 
 That in paying you'll be a whole year 
 
 at,- 
 You've but twopence a week. Sir, to 
 
 stop I 
 There ! — ' Palmam qui meruit ferat ! ' 
 
 Then at dinner you're quite cock-a- 
 hoop. 
 
 And the soup you are certain to sneer 
 at— 
 
 I havesipped 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 ? JO 
 
 Well for you that my temper 's not 
 
 warm, — 
 There ! — ' Palmam qui meruit ferat I ' 
 
 Why, you rascal ! you insolent brat ! 
 All my talking you don't shed a tearat, 
 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 ! '—Mtrculio. 
 
 '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. 
 
 Said he, ' Upon this dainty cod 
 How bravely I shall sup ' — 
 
 When, whiter than the table-cloth, 
 A GHOST came rising up ! 
 
 Ill 
 ' O, father dear, O, mother dear. 
 
 Dear Kate, and brother Jim , — 10 
 You know when some one went to 
 sea, — 
 Don't cry — but I am him ! 
 
 ' You hope some day with fond em- 
 brace 
 
 To greet your absent Jack, 
 But oh, I am come here to say 
 
 I'm never coming back ! 
 
286 
 
 THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION 
 
 ' From Alexandria we set sail, 
 With corn, and oil, and figs. 
 
 But steering " too much Sow," we 
 struck 
 Upon the Sow and Pigs ! zo 
 
 ' 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. 
 
 ' 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. 
 
 'Well, there we are till "hands aloft," 
 We have at last a call ; 30 
 
 The pug I had for brother Jim, 
 Kate's parrot, too, and all. 
 
 ' 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 ! 
 
 ' You live on land, and little think 
 
 What passes in the sea ; 
 Last Sunday week, at 2 p.m., 
 
 That Cod was picking me ! 40 
 
 ' Those oysters, too, that look so 
 plump. 
 And seeni so nicely done, 
 
 They put my corpse in many shells, 
 Instead of only one. 
 
 ' 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 ! 
 
 ' Don't eat what brutes would never 
 eat, 
 The brutes I used to pat, 50 
 
 They'll know the smell they used to 
 smell. 
 Just try the dog and cat ! ' 
 
 The Spirit fled — they wept his fate. 
 
 And cried, Alack, alack ! 
 At last up started brother Jim, 
 
 ' Let 's try if Jack was Jack !.', 
 
 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. 60 
 
 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 ! 
 
 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, lo 
 
 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, 20 
 
 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 iound him far too winning 1 
 
 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 30 
 
 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 I 
 
 Sir Stamford would have lost his Rafifles to him ! 40 
 
288 A STORM AT HASTINGS 
 
 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 50 
 
 Of the horizon — fahn'd by sultry sighs — 
 
 So black and threatening, I cannot think 
 
 Of any simile, except the skies 
 
 Miss Wiggins sometimes shades in Indian ink — 
 
 ilfisi-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, — 6a 
 
 Whereas the waves roU'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 70 
 
 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 
 
 GrowI'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, 8a 
 
 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, 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS 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, 90 
 
 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 — 100 
 
 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 no 
 
 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. 120 
 
 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 roU'd along the ground — 
 
290 A STORM AT HASTINGS 
 
 As big as bullets : — Lord ! how they did batter 
 
 Our crazy tiles : — And now the lightning flash'd 130 
 
 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 140 
 
 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 h^avy batteries at Fairlight Mill, 
 
 So that it lit the town, and grandly made 
 
 The rugged features of the Castle Hill 150 
 
 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. i6a 
 
 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 ; — 170 
 
 At every window, there were maids who stood 
 
 Lamenting o'er the glass's small remains, — 
 
A STORM AT HASTINGS 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 ; — 
 Bozw-windows and bell-glasses bore the brunt, — 
 
 No sex in glass was spared ! For those who dwell 180 
 
 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 /?oz(/V-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 190 
 
 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. zoo 
 
 No opfen 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, — 210 
 
 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 A STORM AT HASTINGS 
 
 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 — 230 
 
 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 ! — 230 
 
 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 ! 240 
 
 LINES 
 
 TO A LADY ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA 
 
 Go where the waves run rather Holboru-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 ! 
 
LINES TO A LADY ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA 293 
 
 Go where with human notes the Parrot dealeth 
 In mono-^oWy-logue with tongue as free, 
 And like a woman, all she can revealeth. 
 
 And think of me ! 20 
 
 Go to the land of mushn 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 I 
 
 Go where a. cook must always be a currier. 
 
 And parch the pepper'd palate like a pea, 33 
 
 Go where the fierce nlusquito 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 ! 40 
 
 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, 10 
 
 But while thou fillest this industrious part 
 
 Of washer, wearer, mangier, 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.' 10 
 
 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 nog- 
 gins, 
 The rocks re-echo Sally Hoggins 1 
 
 When I am walking in the grove, 
 I think of Peggy as I rove. «o 
 
 I'd carve her name on every tree, 
 But I don't know my A, B, C. 
 
 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 toge- 
 ther, 29 
 Like sheep that follow the bellwether. 
 
 Sally is tall and not too straight, — 
 Those very poplar shapes I hate ; 
 But something twisted like an S, — 
 A crook becomes a shepherdess. 
 
HOGGINS AND DUGGINS 
 
 29S 
 
 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. 
 
 I tell Sail's lambs how blest they be, 
 To stand about and stare at she ; 40 
 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. 50 
 
 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 ; 60 
 Talking of having health and more 
 
 pence, 
 I'd drink her health if I had fourpence. 
 
 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- 
 
 Wh AT '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, lo 
 
 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 
 
 DOMESTIC DIDACTICS 
 
 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 I 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 I for thee I have avoided 
 marriage — 
 Hush I there 's a carriage. 
 Oh Peace ! thou art the best of earthly 
 goods — 
 The five Miss Woods. 10 
 
 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 com- 
 fort plann'd — 
 That 's Weippert'S band. 
 Oh Peace ! how glad I welcome thy 
 approaches — 
 I hear the sound of coaches. 20 
 Oh Peace ! oh Peace ! — another car- 
 riage stops — 
 It's early for the Blenkin- 
 sops. 
 
 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 s^air, 
 
 Oh Peace ! — but here comes Captain 
 Hare. 
 
 Oh Peace ! thou art the slumber of 
 the mind, 
 
 Untroubled, calm and quiet, and un- 
 broken, — 
 
 If that is Alderman Guzzle from Port- 
 soken, 29 
 
 Alderman Gobble won't be far behind. 
 
 Oh Peace ! serene in worldly shy- 
 ness, — 
 , Make way there for his Serene High- 
 ness ! 
 
 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 ? 38 
 
 Oh Peace ! but there is Major Monk, 
 At variance with his wife — Oh Peace ! 
 And that great German, Vander Trunk, 
 And that grestt talker. Miss Apreece ; 
 Oh Peace ! so dear to poet's quills — 
 They're just beginning their quad- 
 rilles — 44 
 Oh Peace ! our greatest renovator ; — 
 I wonder where I put my waiter — 
 OhPeace !— but here my Ode I'Ucease; 
 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. 
 
DOMESTIC DIDACTICS 
 
 297 
 
 All human days have settled terms, 
 Our fates we cannot force ; 10 
 
 This flesh of mine will feedtheworms — 
 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 nolove-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, 10 
 
 And wisely you let others pinch 
 Great waists and feet to make them 
 smaller. 
 
 You never try to spare your hands 
 Fromgetting red byhouseholdduty. 
 
 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. 20 
 
 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 I 
 
 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 I 
 
 L 3 
 
298 PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 Great bags of stones ! they're pretty things to help a boat to swim 1 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 The wind is fresh — if she don't scud, it 's not the breeze's fault ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 Wind fresh, indeed ! 1 never felt the air so full of salt I 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 That Schooner, Bill, harn't left the roads, with oranges arid nuts I 
 
 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 1 that lubber cannot steer ! 
 
 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 ! ___ 
 
 130ATMAN. 
 
 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 I 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 Why, Bill, it lulls ! ease ofi a bit — it 's coming off the town f 
 Steady your helm ! we'll clear the Pint I lay right for yonder pink ! 
 
 MRS. F. 
 
 Be steady — well, I hope they can ! but they've got a pint of drink ! so 
 
 BOATMAN. 
 
 Bill, give that sheet another haul— she'll fetch it up this reach. 
 
 I'm getting rather pale, I know, and they see it by that speech I 
 I wonder what it is, now, but 1 never felt so queer I 
 
PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT 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 ! o§ with her head ! stand by ! 29 
 
 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 1 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 ! 
 
30O LITERARY AND LITERAL 
 
 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 ! Planche ! Poole I Peake ! 
 
 Pocock ! Reynolds ! Morton ! 20 
 
 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 Athenaeum 
 
 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, 30 
 
 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 l.alla-Rookh, he always was for shooting 'em I 40 
 
 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 I 
 
 To balance this, our Farmer's only daughter 
 
 Had a great taste for the Castalian water — ■ 50 
 
 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. 
 
LITERARY AND LITERAL 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 — 60 
 
 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, 70 
 
 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 ! 80 
 
 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, — 9" 
 
 Walked in the H. N. B. and double S.'s 
 All in appropriate and swinish dresses, 
 For lo 1 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 LITERARY AND LITERAL 
 
 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 I 
 
 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 Baaley ? ' 
 
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 — lo 
 
 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 desidera- 
 tum,— fluent and flowing*at need, for eloquent rapidity — slow and retentive in cases of deliberation 
 — never spluttering or by amplification going wide of tne mark — never splitting, if it can be helped, 
 with any one, but ready to wear itself out ratner 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 durabilityi general ability, and 
 universal utility, it woiud be hard to find a parallel to the great Penn,' 
 
 Pen-y's CAaraderisUcs of a Seltkr. 
 
 To Penrith, Penrhyn, even to Pen- 
 zance. 
 Nay, penetrates, perchance, 
 To Pennsylvania, or, without rash 
 vaunts. 
 To where the Penguin haunts ! 
 
 O ! Patent, Pen-inventing Perrian 
 Perry ! 
 Friend of the Goose and Gander, 
 That now unplucked of their quill- 
 feathers wander, 
 Cackling,and gabbling, dabbling, mak- 
 ing merry. 
 About the happy Fein, 
 Untroubled for one penny-worth of 
 
 pen, 
 For, which they chant thy praise all 
 Britain through. 
 From Goose-Green unto Gander- 
 Cleugh ! — 
 
 Friend to all Author-kind — 
 Whether of Poet or of Proser, — lo 
 Thou art compo,ser unto the composer 
 Of pens, — yea patent vehicles for Mind 
 To carry it on jaunts, or more exten- 
 sive 
 Pey^-ygrinations through the realms 
 of Thought ; 
 Each plying from the Comic to the 
 Pensive, 
 An Omnibus of intellectual sort ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 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, 20 
 
 In times bygone, when each man cut 
 
 his qiiill. 
 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, 30 
 
 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 re- 
 ceipt ; 
 Others in florid caligraphic plans. 
 Equal to Ships, and wiggy Heads, and 
 
 Swans ! 
 
 To try in any common inkstands, 
 
 then, 3^ 
 
 With all their miscellaneous stocks. 
 
 To find a decent pen. 
 Was like a dip into a lucky box : 
 
ODE TO PERRY 
 
 30s 
 
 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 re- 
 lief, 
 A stump that Master Richard, James, 
 or John, 50 
 
 Had tried his candle-cookery upon. 
 Making ' roast-beef 1 ' 
 
 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 fuUstop blots, 
 Where even semicolons were unfit. 
 They will not frizzle up, or, broom- 
 like, drudge 60 
 In sable sludge — 
 Nay, bought at proper ' Patent Per- 
 ryan ' 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 com - 
 pile 
 The grown-up Annual, or the Ju- 
 venile, 
 Vaunteth his articles, not women's, 
 
 men's, 
 But lays ' by the most celebrated 
 
 Pens,' 
 What means he but thy Patent 
 Pens, my Perry ? 
 
 Pleasant they are to feel ! 70 
 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 with- 
 out 'em) — 
 And, just conceive the bliss, — 
 There is so little of the goose about 
 'em. So 
 
 ' One 's safe from any hiss ! 
 
 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, fit- 
 ful, flat,— 
 
 Add famish'd, fuddled, and fatigued, 
 to that ; 
 
 Funeral, fate-foreboding — sits in 
 doubt. 
 
 Or rather doubt with hope, a wretched 
 marriage, 90 
 
 To see his Play upon the stage come 
 out ; 
 
 No stage to him ! it is Thalia's car- 
 riage. 
 
 And he is sitting on the spikes behind 
 
 it, 
 Striving to look as if he didn't mind 
 it! 
 
3o6 
 
 ODE TO PERRY 
 
 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, "0 
 
 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, no 
 
 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 hig own red-hot 
 gullet. 120 
 
 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 mea- 
 
 cock ? 
 And does not Planche, tremulous and 
 
 blank. 
 Meanwhile his personages tread the 
 
 boards. 
 Seem goaded by sharp swords. 
 And call'd upon himself to ' walk the 
 
 plank ' ? 130 
 
 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 ? 
 
 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 Kil- 
 kenny ? — 
 Haynes Bayly feel Old ditto, with the 
 
 note 139 
 
 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 hie own Nervous 
 
 Man ? 
 
ODE TO PERRY 
 
 307 
 
 Lastly, don't Farley, a bewildered elf, 
 Quake at the Pantomime he loves to 
 
 cater. 
 
 And ere its changes ring, transform 
 
 himself ? — 149 
 
 A frightful mug of human delf ? 
 
 A spirit-bottle — empty of 'the cratur' ? 
 
 A leaden-platter ready for the 
 
 shelf ? 
 A thunderstruck dumb-waiter ? 
 
 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, 160 
 
 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 ! 
 
 Thrice welcome, then, for this peculiar 
 use 170 
 
 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 1 180 
 
 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, perri- 
 
 wig'd Perry, 
 Perch'd on the proudest peak of Pen- 
 man Mawr ! 
 
 THE UNDYING ONE 
 
 'H« shall not die:'— Uncle Toby. 
 
 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.' 
 
 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. 
 
30.8 
 
 THE UNDYING ONE 
 
 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 ! 
 
 They say our climate's damp and cold, 
 And lungs are tender things ; 20 
 
 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. 
 
 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 1 30 
 
 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. 
 
 In water once too long he dived, 
 And all supposed him beat. 
 
 He seem'd so cold— but he revived 
 To have another heat, 40 
 
 Justwhen we thought hisrace was run, 
 
 And came in fresh — th' Undying One ! 
 
 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 ! 
 
 He 's been from strangulation black. 
 From bile, of yellow hue, 50 
 
 Scarlet from fever's hot attack. 
 From cholera morbus blue ; 
 
 Yet with these dyes — to use a pun — 
 
 He still is the Undying One. 
 
 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. 6a 
 
 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 ! 
 
 Next Friday week, his birth-day boast, 
 His ninetieth year he spends, 
 
 And I shall have his health to toast 
 Amongst expectant friends, 70 
 
 And wish — it really sounds like fun — 
 
 Long life to the Undying One ! 
 
309 
 
 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 — lo 
 
 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 Pat^ P^rigord ; 
 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 ! 20 
 
 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-foetida, 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, 30 
 
 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, 40 
 
 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 COCKLE V. CACKLE 
 
 '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 So 
 
 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 60 
 
 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 70 
 
 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 b^ore the night — ah ! woe betide 
 The Pills each suicidal Bantam died 
 Unfatted ! 
 
 Think of poor Burrell's shock, So 
 
 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 stifi 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, 90 
 
 Burst out with natural emphasis enough. 
 
 And voice that grief make tremble, 
 Into that very speech of sad Macduff — 
 
COCKLE V. CACKLE 311 
 
 ' What 1 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, 100 
 
 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 I 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, no 
 
 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, 120 
 
 The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking ; 
 In short, he made her pay him altogether, 
 In hard cash, very hard,ftyr 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, 131: 
 
 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 — i4< 
 
 ' Well, never I see chicken like them chicken I 
 
312 
 
 COCKLE V. CACKLE 
 
 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, of a young s^novi.'— Essays oj Eli*. 
 * A voice cried Sweep no more, ! 
 Macbeth hath murdered sweep.'—SAaisfieare. 
 
 One morning ere my usual time 
 1 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 ruh to seed. 
 
 In height above five feet. 
 A mongrel tint he seem'd to take. 
 Poetic simile to make, lo 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 20 
 
 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 ; 30 
 Thought I, the cause he will betraj' — 
 
 And thus at last he did. 
 
 He walk'd upon the fret : 
 
 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, 40 
 
 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. 
 
THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT 313 
 
 For instance, the general postmen, that at six o'clock go about ringing, 50 
 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 ? 60 
 Why, because Parliament members eat muffins, but they never eat no sut. 
 Nextyearthere 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 havfen't a rag of clothes to mend, if their mothers had thread and 
 
 needles, 7" 
 
 But crawl naked about the cellars, poor things, like a swarm of common 
 
 black beadles. 
 If thi^y'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 ? 79 
 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 
 
 THE SWEEP'S COMPLAINT 
 
 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, 90 
 
 For when we were drest in our sky-blue and silver, and large frills, all clean 
 
 and neat, and white silk stpckings, 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 ; 10 
 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 ; zo 
 
 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 1 30 
 
 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 ; 40 
 
 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 ruflled 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, 50 
 
 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 ! 60 
 
THE SUB-MARINE 
 
 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 : 70 
 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 I 
 
 DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND 
 
 *Hark t hark t 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 tofear him — 
 
 I might have got pence 
 
 Without his defence, 9 
 
 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. 20 
 
 A Turnspit once did me good turns 
 At going, and crossing, and stop- 
 ping ; 
 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 plea- 
 sant ; 
 Each hour I'd a stop 
 At a Poulterer's shop 
 To point at a very high pheasant. 30 
 
 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. 40 
 
 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 di- 
 vorces ; 
 He treated my strip 
 Of cord like a slip, 
 Apd left me to go my own courses. 50 
 
 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. 60 
 
3i6 
 
 DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND 
 
 I orice 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 69 
 
 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 bro- 
 ther, 
 And lost every tooth 
 In learning this truth — 
 One blind cannot well lead another. 80 
 
 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. 90 
 
 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. loo 
 
 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. no 
 
 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 9 
 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 : 
 
THE KANGAROOS 
 
 317 
 
 And yet they had no squeamish 
 carings 
 For trades unfit or fit for gentry, 
 Such notion never had an entry, 19 
 
 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 keptthe old pair watchful nightly. 
 Debating for young hopeful's good. 
 That he might earn his livelihood, 30 
 
 And go through life (like them) up- 
 rightly. 
 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 : 4' 
 
 And plainly from the bar debarr'd 
 
 him : 
 A doctor — who would ever fee him ? 
 In music he could scarce engage. 
 And as for going on the stage. 
 In tragic socks I think I see him ! 
 
 Hewould not make a rigging-mounter; 
 A haberdasher had some merit. 
 
 But there the counter still ran counter. 
 For just suppose 50 
 
 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 ; 60 
 
 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-hani 
 
 writer I ' 70 
 
 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 ? 10 
 
3i8 
 
 ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER 
 
 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, 20 
 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 with- 
 in ; — 
 Spoiling the bran-new beavers 
 Of Wax-chandlers and Weavers, 
 Plastering the Plasterers and 
 spotting Mercers, 
 Hearty November-cursers — 30 
 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 I,ud I 
 
 ' This is a sorry sight,' 40 
 
 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 catch- 
 ing 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 50 
 
 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 , 60 
 
 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 Car- 
 ter ! 
 
 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 ! 70 
 
 Have it when there 's a sun to 
 
 gild the coach, 
 And sparkle in tiara — bracelet — 
 brooch — 
 
ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER 
 
 319 
 
 Diamond — or paste — of sister, mother, 
 
 daughter ; 
 When grandeur really may be 
 
 grand — 
 But if thy pageant 's thus ob- 
 scured 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 ; 80 
 
 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, 
 OLud! 
 
 Now Sister Anne, I call to thee, 
 I^ook out and see : 
 Of course about the bridge you view 
 them rally 
 And sally, 
 With many a wherry, sculler, punt, 
 and cutter ; 90 
 
 The Fishmongers' grand boat, but not 
 for butter. 
 The Goldsmith's glorious 
 ■galley; 
 Of course you see the Lord Mayor's 
 coach aquatic. 
 With silkeil 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 ; i" 
 
 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, 1 10 
 
 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 
 inB; 
 Or Huntsman's chorus from the Frey- 
 
 schutz frightful. 
 Or Handel's Water Music in A flat. 120 
 Oh music from the water comes de- 
 lightful ! 
 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'h 
 three sharps 130 
 
 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 
 
 ODE FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER 
 
 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 ; 140 
 
 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 I 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 Phoenix, 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 10 
 
 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. 20 
 
 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 indifierence to tears, and blood, and human sufferine, that could only belon? to a Bonet- 
 f arte. —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 t 
 
 O'er Goethe how I used to weep, 9 
 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 1 
 
 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 ; 20 
 
 At Belvidcra now I smile, 
 And laugh while Mrs, Haller's crying; 
 'Tis odd, so great a change of style — 
 I fear my heart is ossifying I 
 
 That heart was such — some years ago. 
 To see a beggar quite woulq shock it, 
 And in his hat I used to throw 
 The quarter's savings of my pocket : 
 I never wish — as I did then I — 
 The means from my own purse supply- 
 ing, 30 
 To turn them all to gentlemen — 
 I fear my heart is ossifying I 
 
 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 sor- 
 row ; 
 Miss Zouch's case, our eyes to melt, 
 And sundry actors sad good-bve-ing. 
 But Lord !— so little have I felt, 
 I'm sure my heart is ossifying ! 40 
 
 THE POACHER 
 
 A SERIOUS BALLAD 
 
 'But a bold pheasantry, their country's pride, 
 
 When once destroyed can never be supplied.*— ff^A/jmiM. 
 
 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. 
 
 The'y 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 10 
 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 
 
 THE POACHER 
 
 At partridges he was not nice ; 
 
 And many, large and small, 
 Without Hall's powder, \vithO!it lead^ 
 
 Were sent to Leaden-Hall. ' ao 
 
 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 ; 30 
 
 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. 40 
 
 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 cntrapp'd by legal Berks, 
 And lost his life in Notts^ 
 
 so 
 
 I CANNOT BEAR A GUN 
 
 ^ 'Timidity is generallyreckonedanessentialattributeof thefairser, and this absurd notion giv^ 
 rise to more fabe starts, than a race for the Leger. Hence screams at mice, fits at spiders, faces at 
 tdads, jumps at lizards, flights from daddy longlegs, panics at wasps, sauve qui ptut at si?ht 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 oy a Corporal. 
 
 It can't be minced, I'm quite con- 
 vinced 
 
 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 ! . 10 
 
 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, 
 know 
 I cannot bear a gun ! ' 
 
 you 
 
 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 ; 20 
 
 And if I just allude to dust, 
 
 Or ^eak of number one, 
 •I beg you'll not — don't talk of 
 shot, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun ! ' 
 
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, 30 
 
 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 I ' 40 
 
 Ev'n little James she snubs, and 
 blames 
 
 His Lilliputian train. 
 Two inches each frommouthtobreech. 
 
 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, 50 
 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, 60 
 
 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 : 70 
 
 ' What have I got, it 's full of shot 1 
 I cannot bear a gun ! ' 
 
 At pigeon-pie she is not shy. 
 
 Her taste it never shocks. 
 Though they should befromBattersea, 
 
 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 ! ' 80 
 
 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 Freyschutz, oh, seven shots ! 
 you know, 
 
 I cannot bear a gun I ' 
 
 Yet at a hint from Major Flint, 
 
 Her very hands she rubs, 90 
 
 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, 100 
 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, no 
 
 My carbine's gleam provokes a scream, 
 
 ' I cannot bear a gun ! ' 
 
324 
 
 I CANNOT BEAR A GUN 
 
 It can't be minced, I'm quite con- 
 vinced, 
 
 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 ! ' 120 
 
 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, 
 Sobackward 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 skim- 
 mer ; 10 
 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 111 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, ?o 
 
 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, 30 
 
 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, 40 
 
325 
 
 THE FOX AND THE HEN 
 
 A FABLE 
 'Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer SouthcoU to Norlheote.'—Pigrogromilus. 
 
 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. lo 
 
 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 prowl- 
 ing 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 neighbour- 
 ing broom ; so 
 But quite unconscious of a Poacher's 
 snare, 
 And caught in copper noose, 
 And looking like a goose, 
 Found that his iate 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 con- 
 stable, 30 
 Instead of killing Reynard in a fury. 
 Seized him for legal trial by a Jury ; 
 But Juries — ^sopwas 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. 40 
 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, 50 
 
 A friendly Camel got into the box. 
 When 'gainst his life the Jury was 
 
 iinpanel'd. 
 
 Now, in the Silly Isles s^ch 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 
 
 THE FOX AND THE HEN 
 
 Thus Reynard's Jurors, who could not 
 
 agree, 
 Were lock'd up strictly, without bit or 
 
 raummock, 
 Till every Beast that only had one 
 
 stomach. 
 Bent to the Camel, who was blest with 
 
 three. 60 
 
 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 Mas- 
 ter Fox 
 
 Was freed to murder other hens and 
 cocks. 
 
 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 ? 70 
 
 THE COMET 
 
 AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE 
 
 ' I cannot Gil up a blank better than with a short history of this selfsame Siarlmg.'—S/triie'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 be- 
 
 knighted. 
 
 In his observatory thus coquetting 
 With Venus — or with Juno gone 
 astray, 10 
 
 All sublunary matters quite forget- 
 ting 
 In his flirtations with the winking 
 
 stars. 
 Acting the spy— it might be upon 
 Mars — 
 A new Andre ; 
 Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peep- 
 ing, 
 At Dian sleeping ; 
 Or ogling through his glass 
 Some heavenly lass 
 Tripping with pails along the Milkv 
 Way; 
 
 Or looking at that Wain of Charles the 
 Martyr's : — 20 
 
 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. 29 
 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, 
 
THE COMET 
 
 3z; 
 
 No more than Berenice's Hair ! 40 
 Thus musing, Heaven's Grand In- 
 quisitor 
 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 siarva,- 
 tion. 
 Or ev'n to batten 49 
 
 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 par- 
 lour, John, 
 
 And say I'm supping with the hea- 
 venly 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, fio 
 
 ' 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 i§ not quite the thing 
 you think, 
 
 He wants no meat or drink. 
 
 And one may doubt quite reasonably 
 whether 
 He has a mouth, 70 
 
 Seeing his head and tail are join'd to- 
 gether. 
 
 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 80 
 That in all ages' 
 Have puzzled sages 
 And frighten'd kings ; 
 With fear of change that flaming me- 
 teor, John, 
 Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its 
 range '^ 
 ' Do he ? ' cried John, 
 ' Well, let him flare on, 
 / 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 fuU-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, lo 
 
 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 20 
 
 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 ; 30 
 
 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, 40 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY 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 ; 50 
 
 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 1 
 
 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 ! 60 
 
 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, 70 
 
 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, 80 
 
 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, 
 M 3 
 
330 
 
 LOVE AND LUNACY 
 
 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. 90 
 
 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,' — 100 
 
 ' Indeed 1 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 I 
 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 — no 
 
 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 iso 
 
 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 ; 130 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY 531 
 
 So stormy waves are into breakers roU'd, 
 Work'd up at last to mere chaotic wrotli-^ 
 
 This — that — heads — tails — thoughts jumbled uncontroU'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 ? 149 
 
 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 .pla,in — too bad; — 150 
 
 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 buttQus from his vest, 
 And groped with hand impetuous at hi.s breast, 
 
 As if some flea from Juno's fleecy curls 
 
 Had skipp'd to batten on a human chest,, - 160 
 
 But no — the hand comes forth, and down it hurls , 
 
 A lady's miniature beset with pearls. ,1 
 
 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 a^rdent drouth. 
 
 He only saw in that fair face, so bland. 
 Look how he would at it, east, west, north, south, 170 
 
 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 stan^ishj 
 
332 LOVE AND LUNACY 
 
 A sable flood, like Niger the outlandish, 
 Came rushing forth — Oh Antics and Buffoons ! 
 
 Ye never dance"d 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 ! iSa 
 
 But soon ashamed, or weary, of such dancing. 
 
 Without a CoUinet'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, 190 
 
 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, 200 
 
 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, 210 
 
 £«7-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 humra'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 ; 220 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY 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 1 
 
 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, 230 
 
 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 — 240 
 
 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, 250 
 
 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, Firench, 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, 260 
 
 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 LOVE AND LUNACY 
 
 Hard dumplings, and rice-milk, she did not smatter, 
 But heartily, as Jenkins says, ' demolUdge ; ' 
 
 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. 270 
 
 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 EngUsh 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 ; 280 
 
 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 biit 290 
 
 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, 300 
 
 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, hke a hound 
 At picking out a fault — words speaking daggers. 310 
 
LOVE AMU LUNACY 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 I 
 
 As when Apollo, in old allegory, 
 
 Down-stooping Uke a falcon, made his quarry 32* 
 
 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, 330 
 
 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, 340 
 
 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, 350 
 
 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 LOVE AND LUNACY 
 
 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 ! 360 
 
 ' 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 370 
 
 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, 380 
 
 I shall be sailing, haply, for Swan River, 
 
 Jamaica, or the Indian land of rice, 
 
 Or Boothia Felix — happy' clime' of ice 1 
 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 meridikn spot from which I dated 
 Degrees of distance, hemispheres, and zones, ■ 390 
 
 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 1 
 
 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, 400 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY 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, 41a 
 
 Or stifien'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, 420 
 
 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 tete. 
 
 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, 430 
 
 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 — 440 
 
 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 LOVE AND LUNACY 
 
 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. 450 
 
 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 I 
 For mothers always think young men are pearls 
 Who come and throw themselves before their girls. 
 
 And now, at warning signal from her finger, 46a 
 
 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,) 47a 
 
 ' 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 I ' 
 
 ' The spoons ! ' cried Ellen, almost with a scream, 
 
 ' Oh cruel — false as cruel — and unjust ! 
 He that once stood so high in your esteem ! ' 48a 
 
 ' 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 49a 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY 339 
 
 To make yourself particular, and tie 
 A tail on— a prodigious tail 1— 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 500 
 
 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, 510 
 
 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 Hahnemann 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 — 520 
 
 ' My girl down areas — of a night ! 'Ods nails ! 
 I'll stick the scoundrel on his area-rails ! 
 
 ' I will ! — is 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'4, 530 
 
 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 LOVE AND LUNACY 
 
 ' I'll teach him to write ponds and tails to us 1 ' 
 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. S40 
 
 So saying, with rough nudges, willy-nilly. 
 
 She hustled iiim 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 woulS present in such a case. 
 For slamming the street door right in your face. 
 
 And now, the secrets of the sex thus kept, Slo 
 
 What passed in that important tete-a-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, 560 
 
 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 570 
 
 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 sSo 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY 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 1 ' 
 
 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, S9o 
 
 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, 600 
 
 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, 610 
 
 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, 620 
 
 ' 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 LOVE AND LUNACY 
 
 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. fiso 
 
 Nay, when the coachman spoke about the Xeger, 
 
 Of Popsy, Mopsy, Bergamotte, and Givet, 
 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 seera'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 640 
 
 Belonging to the sphere of Bland and Crocky, 
 
 It was to wish the team all thoroughTbred, 
 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, 650 
 
 , Without a case for surgeon or attorney. 
 
 Just as St. James's, xang 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' appearance 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, 660 
 
 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 670 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY 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 
 I wonder Ellen was content with one 1 
 
 ' Five moons — all full ! — and all at once in heav'n I 
 
 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, 680 
 
 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 fiU'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, 6go 
 
 As though 't would 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, 700 
 
 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, 710 
 
 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 LOVE AND LUNACY 
 
 And then with no more manners than a bear, 
 His hat upon his head, no matter how. 
 
 No modest tap his presence to declai"*, 
 He bolted in a room, without a bow, 
 And there sat Ellen, with a marble brow 1 jzo 
 
 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, 730 
 
 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, 740 
 
 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 trfemor 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 — ' 750 
 ' 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 — 760 
 
LOVE AND LUNACY 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 — 1 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 770 
 
 A Juliet's faith, that time could only harden ! 
 
 Fool that I was, in my mistaken zeal 1 
 I should have led you, — by your leave and pardon — 
 To Hartley'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 780 
 
 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, 790 
 
 Except the south the weathercock expresses. 
 Nay, Hartley'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 I ' she sobbed, ' your cruel course I see, 
 
 These faded charms no longer can attract ; 
 Your fancy palls, and you would wander free, 800 
 
 And lay your own apostacy on me ! 
 
 ' /, false ! — unjust Lorenzo ! — and to you 1 
 
 Oh, all ye holy gospels that incline 
 The soul to truth, bear witness I am true 1 
 
 By all that lives, of earthly or divine — 
 
346 LOVE AND LUNACY 
 
 So long as this poor throbbing heart is mine — 
 / 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 " I ' 
 
 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 sufiused 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 ! ' 
 
 820 
 
 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, 10 
 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 1 
 
 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, — lo 
 
 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 ! 20 
 
 THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE 
 
 I 
 
 SONNET 
 BY R. M. 
 
 How sweet thus clad, in Autumn's mellow Tone, 
 With serious Eye, the russet Scene to view ! 
 No Verdure decks the Forest, save alone 
 The sad green Holly, and the olive Yew. 
 The Skies, no longer of a garish Blue, 
 Subdued to Dove-like Tints, and soft as Wool, 
 Reflected show their slaty Shades anew 
 In the drab Waters of the clayey Pool. 
 Meanwhile yon Cottage Maiden wends to School, 
 In Garb of Chocolate so neatly drest, 
 And Bonnet puce, fit object for the Tool, 
 And chasten'd Pigments, of our Brother West ; 
 Yea, all is silent, sober, calm, and cool. 
 Save gaudy Robin with his crimson Breast. 
 
348 
 
 THE QUAKERS' CONVERSAZIONE 
 
 II 
 
 LINES ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE 
 
 BY DORCAS DOVE 
 
 And is it thus ye welcome Peace ! 
 From Mouths of forty-pounding 
 Bores ? 
 Oh cease, exploding Cannons, cease ! 
 Lest Peace, affrighted, shun our 
 shores 1 
 
 Not so the quiet Queen should come ; 
 
 But like a Nurse to still our Fears, 
 With Shoes of List, demurely dumb, 
 
 And Wool or Cotton in her Ears ! 
 
 She asks for no triumphal Arch ; 9 
 
 No steeples for their ropy Tongues ; 
 
 Down, Drumsticks, down, She needs 
 
 no March, 
 
 Or blasted Trumps from brazen 
 
 Lungs. 
 
 She wan ts no Noise of Mobbing Throats 
 To tell that She is drawing nigh : 
 
 Why this Parade of scarlet Coats, 
 When War has closed his bloodshot 
 Eye ? 
 
 Returning to Domestic Loves, 
 
 When war has ceased with all its Ills, 
 
 Captains should come like sucking 
 
 Doves, 19 
 
 With Olive Branches in their Bills. 
 
 No need there is of vulgar Shout, 
 Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife, and 
 Drum, 
 
 And Soldiers marching all about, 
 To let Us know that Peace is come. 
 
 Oh mild should be the Signs and meek, 
 Sweet Peace's Advent to proclaim ! 
 
 Silence her noiseless Foot should speak. 
 And Echo should repeat the same. 
 
 Lo ! where the Soldier walks, alas ! 
 With Scars received on foreign 
 Grounds ; 30 
 
 Shall we consume in coloured Glass 
 The Oil that should be pour'd in 
 Wounds ? 
 
 The bleeding Gaps of War to close. 
 Will whizzing Rocket-Flight avail ? 
 
 Will Squibs enliven Orphans' Woes ? 
 Or Crackers cheer the Widow's Tale ? 
 
 THE LAMENT OF TOBY, THE LEARNED PIG 
 
 'A little learning is a dangerous thing.'— fbpt. 
 
 O HEAVY day I oh day of woe 1 
 
 To misery a poster. 
 Why was I ever farrow'd — why 
 
 Not spitted for a roaster ? 
 
 In this world, pigs, as well as men, 
 Must dance to fortune's fiddlings. 
 
 But must I give the classics up. 
 For barley-meal and middlings ? 
 
 Of what avail that I could spell 
 And read, just like my betters, 10 
 
 If I must come to this at last, 
 To litters, not to letters ? 
 
 O, why are pigs made scholars of ? 
 
 It baffles my discerning. 
 What griskins, fry, and chitterlings 
 
 Can have to do with learning. 
 
THE LAMENT OF TOBY, THE LEARNED PIG 349 
 
 Alas 1 my learning once drew cash, 
 But public fame 's unstable, 
 
 So I must turn a pig again, 
 And fatten for the table. 20 
 
 To leave my literary line 
 My eyes get red and leaky ; 
 
 Bat Giblett doesn't want me blue, 
 But red and white, and streaky. 
 
 Old MuUins used to cultivate 
 My learning like a gard'ner ; 
 
 But Giblett only thinks of lard, 
 And not of Doctor Lardner. 
 
 He does not care about my brain 
 The value of two Coppers, 30 
 
 All that he thinks about my head 
 Is, how I'm off for choppers. 
 
 Of all; my literary kin 
 
 A farewell must be taken. 
 
 Goodbye to the poetic Hogg ! 
 The philosophic Bacon ! 
 
 Day after day my lessons fade, 
 My intellect gets. muddy ; 
 
 A trough I have, and not a desk, 
 A sty — and not a study ! 40 
 
 Another little month, and then 
 My progress ends, like Bunyan's ; 
 
 The seven sages that I loved 
 
 Will be chopp'd up with onions ! 
 
 Then over head and ears in brine 
 They'll souse me, like a salmon. 
 
 My mathematics turn'd to brawn. 
 My logic into gammon. 
 
 My Hebrew will all retrograde, 
 Now I'm put up to fatten, 50 
 
 My Greek, it will all go to grease ; 
 The Dogs will have my Latin I 
 
 Farewell to Oxford ! — and to Bliss ! 
 
 To Milman, Crowe, and Glossop, — 
 I now must be content with chats. 
 
 Instead of learned gossip ! 
 
 Farewell to ' Town ! ' farewell to 
 ' Gown ! ' 
 
 I've quite outgrown the latter, — 
 Instead of Trencher-cap my head 
 
 Will soon be in a platter 1 60 
 
 O why did I at Brazen-Nose ,1 
 Rout up the roots of knowledge ? 
 
 A butcher that can't read will kill 
 A pig that 's been to college ! 
 
 For sorrow I could stick myself. 
 But conscience is a dasher ; 
 
 A thing that would be rash in man 
 In me would be a rasher ! 
 
 One thing I ask — when I am dead. 
 And past the Stygian ditches — 70 
 
 And that is, let my schoolmaster 
 Have one of my two flitches : 
 
 'Twas he who taught my letters so 
 I ne'er mistook or miss'd 'em. 
 
 Simply by ringing at the nose, 
 According to Bell's system. 
 
 TO A BAD RIDER 
 
 Why, Mr. Rider, why 
 
 Your nag so ill indorse, man ? 
 To make observers cry. 
 
 You're mounted, but no horseman ? 
 
 With elbows out so far. 
 This thought you c^n't debar ine- 
 
 Though no Dragoon — Hussar- 
 You're surely of the army ! 
 
 I hope to turn M.P. 
 
 You have not any notion, 
 So awkward you would be 
 
 At ' seconding a motion ! ' 
 
350 
 
 MY SON AND HEIR 
 
 My mother bids me bind my heir, 
 But not the trade where I should bind; 
 To place a boy — the how and where — 
 It is the plague of parent-kind ! 
 
 She does not hint the slightest plan, 
 Nor what indentures to indorse ; 
 Whether to bind him to a man, — 
 Or, like Mazeppa, to a horse. 
 
 What line to choose of likely rise, 9 
 To something in the Stocks at last, — 
 ' Fast bind, fast find,' the proverb 
 
 cries, 
 I find I cannot bind so fast ! 
 
 A Statesman James can never be ; 
 A Tailor ? — there I only learn 
 His chief concern is cloth, and he 
 Is always cutting his concern. 
 
 A Seedsman ? — I'd not have him so ; 
 A Grocer's plum might disappoint ; 
 A Butcher ? — no, not that — although 
 I hear 'the times are out of joint ! ' 20 
 
 Too many of all trades there be. 
 Like Pedlars, each has such a pack ; 
 A merchant selling coals ? — we see 
 The buyer send to cellar back. 
 
 A Hardware dealer ? — that might 
 
 please. 
 But if his trade's foundation leans 
 On spikes and nails, he won't have ease 
 When he retires upon his means. 
 
 viii 
 A Soldier ? — there he has not nerves, 
 A Sailor seldom lays up pelf : 30 
 
 A Baker ? — no, a baker serves. 
 His customer before himself. 
 
 Dresser of hair ? — that 's not the sort ; 
 A Joiner jars with his desire — 
 A Churchman ? — James is very short. 
 And cannot to a church aspire. 
 
 A Lawyer ? — that 's a hardish term ! 
 A Publisher might give him ease. 
 If he could into Longman's firm, 39 
 Just plunge at once ' in medias Rees.' 
 
 A shop for pot, and pan, and cup. 
 Such brittle Stock I can't advise ; 
 A Builder running houses up. 
 Their gains are stories — may be lies ! 
 
 A Coppersmith I can't endure — 
 Nor petty Usher A, B, C-ing ; 
 A Publican, no father sure 
 Would be the author of his being ! 
 
 A Paper-maker ? — come he must 
 To rags before he sells a sheet — 
 A Miller ? — all his toil is just 
 To make a meal — he does not eat. 
 
 so 
 
 A Currier ? — that by favour goes — 
 A Chandler gives me great misgiving — 
 An Undertaker ? — one of those 
 That do not hope to get their living 1 
 
 XV 
 
 Three Golden Balls ?— I like them not; 
 An Auctioneer I never did — 
 The victim of a slavish lot. 
 Obliged to do as he is bid 1 60 
 
MY SON AND HEIR 
 
 351 
 
 A Broker watching fall and rise 
 Of Stock ? — I'd rather deal in stone, — 
 A Printer ? — there his toils comprise 
 Another's work beside his own. 
 
 A Cooper ? — neither I nor Jim 
 Have any taste or turn for that — 
 A Fish retailer ? — but with him. 
 One part of trade is always flat. 
 
 A Painter ? — ^long he would not live, — 
 An Artist 's a precarious craft — 70 
 In trade Apotheqaries give, 
 But very seldom take, a draught. 
 
 XIX 
 
 A Glazier ? — what if he should smash I 
 A Crispin he shall not be made — 
 A Grazier may be losing cash, 
 Although he drives ' a roaring trade.' 
 
 Well, something must be done! to look 
 On aU' my little works around-^ 
 James is too big a boy, like book 
 To leave upon the shelf unbound. 80 
 
 But what to do ? — my temples ache 
 From evening's dew till morning's 
 
 pearl. 
 What course to take my boy to make — 
 O could I make my boy — a girl I 
 
POEMS FROM 'UP THE RHINE' 
 
 (1840) 
 
 TO 
 
 I GAZE upon a city, 
 A city new and strange ; 
 Down many a wat'ry vista 
 My fancy takes a range ; 
 From side to side I saunter, 
 And wonder where I am ; — 
 And can you be in England, 
 And I at Rotterdam ! 
 
 Before me lie dark waters, 
 In broad canals and deep, 10 
 
 Whereon the silver moonbeams 
 Sleep, restless in their sleep : 
 A sort of vulgar Venice 
 Reminds me where I am, — 
 Yes, yes, you are in England, 
 And I'm at Rotterdam. 
 
 Tall houses with quaint gables. 
 Where frequent windows shine. 
 And quays that lead to bridges, 
 And trees in formal line, 2 
 
 And masts of spicy vessels. 
 From distant Surinam, 
 All tell me you're in England, 
 And I'm in Rotterdam. 
 
 Those sailors, — how outlandish 
 The face and garb of each ! 
 They deal in foreign gestures, 
 And use a foreign speech ; 
 
 A tongue not learned near Isis, 
 Or studied by the, Cam,. 30 
 
 Declares that you're in England, 
 But I'm at Rotterdam. 
 
 And now across a market 
 
 My doubtful way I trace. 
 
 Where stands a solemn statue, 
 
 The Genius of the place ; 
 
 And to the great Erasmus 
 
 I offer my salaam, — 
 
 Who tells me you're in England, 
 
 And I'm at Rotterdam. 40 
 
 The coffee-room is open, 
 I mingle in its crowd ; 
 The dominoes are rattling, 
 The hookahs raise a cloud ; 
 A flavour, none of Fearon's, 
 That mingles with my dram. 
 Reminds me you're in England, 
 But I'm in Rotterdam. 
 
 Then here it goes, a bumper, — 
 The toast it shall be mine. 
 In Schiedam, or in Sherry, 
 Tokay, or Hock of Rhine, — 
 It well deserves the! brightest 
 Where sunbeam ever swain, — 
 ' The girl I love in England,' 
 I drink at Rotterdam ! 
 
 50 
 
353 
 
 [YE TOURISTS AND TRAVELLERS] 
 
 Ye Tourists and Travellers, bound to the Rhiiie, 
 
 Provided with passport, that requisite docket. 
 
 First listen to one little whisper of mine — 
 
 Take care of your pocket Intake care of your pocket J 
 
 Don't wash or be shaved — go like hairy wild men, 
 Play dominoes, smoke, wear a cap and smock-frock it. 
 But if you speak English, or look it, why then 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket I 
 
 You'll sleep at great inns, in the smallest of- beds. 
 
 Find charges as apt to mount up as a rocket, lo 
 
 With thirty per cent, as a tax on your heads. 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 You'll see old Cologne, — not the sweetest of towns, — 
 Wherever you follow your nose you will shock it ; 
 And you'll pay your three dollars to look at three crowns, 
 Take care of your pocket [-—take care of your pocket I 
 
 You'll count Seven Mountains, and see Roland's Eck, 
 
 Hear legends veracious as any by Crockett ; 
 
 But oh ! to the tone of romance what a check. 
 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket ! 20 
 
 Old Castles you'll see on the vine-covered hill, — 
 
 Fine ruins to rivet the eye in its' socket — 
 
 Once haunts of Baronial Banditti, and still 
 
 Take care of your pbcket ! — take care of your pocket ! 
 
 You'll stop at Coblenz, with its beautiful views, 
 But make no long stay with your money to stock it. 
 Where Jews are all Germans, and Germans all Jews, 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pbcket ! — 
 
 A Fortress you'll see, which, as people report, 
 
 Can never be captured, save famine should block it — 30 
 
 Ascend Ehrenbreitstein — but that 's not their forte., 
 
 Take care of your pocket !— take care of your pocket ! 
 
 Vou'U see an old man who'll let off an old gun, 
 And Lurley, with her hurly-burly, will mock it ; 
 But think that the words of the echo thus run — 
 Take care of your pocket !— take care of your pocket 1 
 
 You'll gaze on the Rheingau, the soil of the Vine ! 
 
 Of course you will freely Moselle it and Hock it — 
 
 P'raps purchase some pieces of Humbugheim wine-7-r. ■,. 
 
 Take care of your pocket I — take care of your pocket ! 40 
 
354 [YE TOURISTS AND TRAVELLERS] 
 
 Perchance you will take a frisk off to the Baths — 
 Where some to their heads hold a pistol and cock it ; 
 But still mind the warning, wherever your paths, 
 Take care of your pocket 1 — take care of your pocket I 
 
 And Friendships you'll swear, most eternal of pacts. 
 Change rings, and give hair to be put in a locket ; 
 But still, in the most sentimental of acts. 
 Take care of your pocket ! — take care of your pocket 1 
 
 In short, if you visit that stream or its shore, 
 Still keep at your elbow one caution to knock it. 
 And where Schinderhannes was Robber of yore, — 
 Take care of your pocket I — take care of your pocket I 
 
 TO 
 
 WITH A FLASK OF RHINE WATER 
 
 The old Catholic City was still. 
 In the Minster the vespers were sung, 
 And, re-echoed in cadences shrill, 
 The last call of the trumpet had 
 
 rung : 
 While, across the broad stream of the 
 
 Rhine, 
 The full Moon cast a silvery zone ; 
 And, methought, as I gazed on its 
 
 shine, 
 ' Surely that is the Eau de Cologne.' 
 
 I inquired not the place of its source, 
 If it ran to the east or the west ; lo 
 But my heart took a note of its course 
 That itfiow'd towards Her I love best — 
 That it flowed towards Her I love best, 
 Like those wandering thoughts of my 
 
 own. 
 And the fancy such sweetness pos- 
 
 sess'd. 
 That the Rhine seemed all Eau de 
 
 Cologne ! 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF COLOGNE 
 
 'Tis even — on the pleasant banks of Rhine 
 The thrush is singing, and the dove is cooing, — 
 A Youth and Maiden on the turf recline 
 Alone — And he is wooing. 
 
 Yet wooes in vain, for to the voice of love 
 No kindly sympathy the Maid discovers, 
 Though round them both, and in the air above, 
 The tender Spirit hovers ! 
 
 Untouch'd by lovely Nature and her laws. 
 The more he pleads, more coyly she represses ; — 
 Her lips denies, and now her hand withdraws. 
 Rejecting his caresses. 
 
THE ROMANCE OF COLOGNE 355 
 
 Fair is she as the dreams young Poets weave, 
 Bright eyes, and dainty lips, and tresses curly ; 
 In outward loveliness a Child of Eve, 
 But cold as Nymph of Lurley ! 
 
 The more Love tries her pity to engross, 
 
 The more she chills him with a strange behaviour ; 
 
 Now tells her beads, now gazes on the Cross 
 
 And Image of the Saviour. 20 
 
 Forth goes the Lover with a farewell moan, 
 As from the presence of a thing inhuipan ; — 
 Oh I what unholy spell hath turn'd to stone 
 The young warm heart of Woman ! 
 
 * * 1)C * )|« 
 
 'Tis midnight — and the moonbeam, cold and wan. 
 On bower and river quietly is sleeping, 
 And o'er the corse of a self-murder'd man 
 The Maiden fair is weeping. 
 
 In vain she looks into his glassy eyes. 
 
 No pressure answers to her hand so pressing ; 30 
 
 In her fond arms impassively he lies. 
 
 Clay-cold to her caressing. 
 
 Despairing, stunn'd, by her eternal loss, 
 She flies to succour that may best beseem her ; 
 But, lo ! a frowning Figure veils the Cross, 
 And hides the blest Redeemer ! 
 
 With stern right hand it stretches forth a scroll. 
 
 Wherein she reads in melancholy letters. 
 
 The cruel fatal pact that placed her soul 
 
 And her young heart in fetters, 40 
 
 ' Wretch ! Sinner ! Renegade ! to truth and God, 
 Thy holy faith for human love to barter ! ' 
 No more she hears, but on the bloody sod 
 Sinks, Bigotry's last Martyr ! 
 
 And side by side the hapless Lovers lie : 
 Tell rae, harsh Priest ! by yonder tragic token. 
 What part hath God in such a Bond, whereby 
 Or hearts or vows are broken ? 
 
 [EPIGRAM] 
 
 I LIKE your German singers well, 
 But hate them too, and for this reason, 
 Although they always sing in time. 
 They often sing quite out of season. 
 
356 
 
 THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON 
 
 In the famous old times, 
 
 (Famed for chivalrous crimes) 
 
 As the legends of Rhineland. deliver, 
 
 Once there flourish'd a Knight, 
 
 Who Sir Otto was hight. 
 
 On the banks of the rapid green river ! 
 
 On the Drachenfels' crest 
 He had built a stone ^lest. 
 From which he pounced down like 
 
 a vulture. 
 And with talons of steel, lo 
 
 Out of every man's meal 
 Took a very extortionate multure. 
 
 Yet he lived in good fame 
 With a nobleman's name. 
 As ' Your High-and- Weil-Born ' ad- 
 
 dress'd daily — 
 Tho' Judge Park in his wig. 
 Would have deem'd him a prig, 
 Or a cracksman, if tried at th' Old 
 
 Bailey. 
 
 It is strange — very strange ! 
 How opinions will change ! — 20 
 
 How Antiquity blazons and hallows 
 Both the man and the crime, 
 That a less lapse of time 
 Would commend to the hulks or the 
 gallows ! 
 
 Thus enthrall'd by Romance, 
 
 In a, mystified trance. 
 
 E'en a young mild, and merciful 
 
 Woman 
 Will recall with delight 
 The wild Keep, and its Knight, 
 Who was quite aS much Tiger as 
 
 Human ! 30 
 
 Now it chanced on a day, 
 
 In the sweet month of May, 
 
 From his casement Sir Otto was 
 
 gazing. 
 With his sword in the sheath, 
 At that prospect beneath, 
 Which our Tourists declare so amaz- 
 ing I 
 
 Yes — he gazed on the Rhine, 
 And its banks, so divine ; 
 Yet with no admiration or wonder, 
 But -the gout of a thief. 
 As a more modern Chief 40 
 
 Look'd.on London, and cried ' What 
 a plunder ! ' 
 
 From that river so fast. 
 From that champaign so vast. 
 He collected rare tribute and presents ; 
 Water-rates from ships' loads. 
 Highway-rates on the roads. 
 And hard Poor-rates from all the poor 
 Peasants ! 
 
 When behold ! round the base 
 Of his strong dwelling-place, 50 
 
 Only gain'd ty most toilsome pro- 
 gression. 
 He perceived a full score 
 Of the rustics, or more. 
 Winding up in a sort of procession ! 
 
 ' Keep them out ! ' the Knight cried. 
 
 To the Warders outside — 
 
 But the Hound at his feet gave a 
 
 grumble ; 
 And in scrambled the knaves. 
 Like Feudality's slaves, 
 With all forms that are servile and 
 
 humble. 60 
 
 ' Now for boorish complaints ! 
 Grant me patience, ye Saints ! ' 
 Cried the Knight, turning red as a 
 
 mullet ; 
 When the baldest old man 
 Thus his story began. 
 With a guttural croak in his gullet I 
 
 ' Lord Supreme of our lives. 
 Of our daughters, our wives. 
 Our she-cousins, our sons, and their 
 
 spouses, 
 Of our sisters and aunts, 70 
 
 Of the babies God grants. 
 Of the handmaids that dwell in our 
 
 houses ! 
 
THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON 
 
 357 
 
 ' Mighty master of all 
 
 We possess, great or small, 
 
 Of our cattle, our sows, and their 
 
 farrows ; 
 Of our mares and their colts. 
 Of our crofts, and our holts, 
 Of our ploughs, of our wains, and our 
 
 harrows 1 
 
 ' Noble Lord of the soil. 
 Of its corn and its oil, 80 
 
 Of its wine, only fit for such gentles ! 
 Of our cream and sour-kraut, 
 Of our carp and our trout. 
 Our black bread, and black puddings, 
 and lentils ! 
 
 ' Sovran Lord of our cheese, 
 
 And whatever you please — 
 
 Of our bacon, our eggs, and our butter, 
 
 Of our backs and our polls. 
 
 Of our bodies and souls — 89 
 
 O give ear to the woes that we utter ! 
 
 ' We are truly perplex'd. 
 
 We are frighted and vex'd. 
 
 Till the strings of our hearts are all 
 
 twisted ; 
 We are ruin'd and curst 
 By the fiercest and worst 
 Of all Robbers that ever existed ! ' 
 
 ' Now by Heav'n and this light ! ' 
 
 In a rage cried the Knight, 
 
 ' For this speech all your bodies shall 
 
 stiffen ! 
 What ! by Peasants miscall'd I ' 100 
 Quoth the man that was bald, 
 ' Not your Honour we mean, but a 
 
 Griffin. 
 
 ' For our herds and our flocks 
 
 He lays wait in the rocks, 
 
 And jumps forth without giving us 
 warning ; 
 
 Two poor wethers, right fat. 
 
 And four lambs after that, 
 
 Did he swallow this very May morn- 
 ing 1 ' 
 
 Then the High-and-Well-Born 
 Gave a laugh as in scorn, no 
 
 ' Is the Griffin indeed such a glutton ? 
 Let him eat up the rams, 
 And the lambs, and their dams — ■ 
 If I hate any meat, it is mutton ! ' 
 
 ' Nay, your Worship,' said then 
 
 The most bald of old men, 
 
 ' For a sheep we would hardly thus 
 
 cavil, 
 If the merciless Beast 
 Did not oftentimes feast 
 On the Pilgrims, and people that 
 
 travel.' 120 
 
 ' Feast on what ? ' cried the Knightj 
 Whilst his eye glisteh'd bright 
 With the most diabolical ilashes^- 
 ' Does the Beast dare to prey , 
 
 On the road and high-way ? 
 With our proper diversion that 
 clashes ! ' 
 
 ' Yea, 'tis so, and far worse,' 
 Said the Clown, ' to our curse ; 
 For by way of a snack or a tiffin, 
 Every week in the year 130 
 
 Sure as Sundays appear, 
 A young Virgin is thrown to the 
 '■ Griffin 1 ' 
 
 ' Ha ! Saint Peter ! Saint Mark ! ' 
 Roar'd the Knight, frowning dark, 
 With an oath that was awful and 
 
 bitter — 
 ' A young Maid to his dish ! 
 Why, what more could he wish. 
 If the Beast were High-Born, and 
 
 a Ritter ! 
 
 ' Now by this our good brand, 
 
 And by this our right hand, 140 
 
 By the badge that is borne on our 
 
 banners. 
 If we can but once meet 
 With the Monster's retreat. 
 We will teach him to poach on our 
 
 Manors I ' 
 
358 
 
 THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON 
 
 Quite content with this vow, 
 
 With a scrape and a bow, 
 
 The glad Peasants -went home to their 
 
 flagons, 
 Where they tippled so deep, 
 That each clown in his sleep 149 
 
 Dreamt of killing a legion of Dragons! 
 
 Thus engaged, the bold Knight 
 
 Soon prepared for the fight 
 
 With the wily and scaly marauder ; 
 
 But ere battle began, 
 
 Like a good Christian man, 
 
 First he put all his household in order. 
 
 ' Double bolted and barr'd 
 Let each gate have a guard ' — 
 (Thus his rugged Lieutenant was 
 
 bidden) 
 ' And be sure, without fault, 160 
 
 No one enters the vault 
 Where the Church's gold vessels are 
 
 hidden. 
 
 ' In the dark Oubliette, 
 
 Let yon Merchant forget 
 
 That he e'er had a bark richly laden — 
 
 And that desperate youth. 
 
 Our own rival forsooth ! 
 
 Just indulge with a Kiss of the Maiden! 
 
 ' Crush the thumbs of the Jew 
 With the vice and the screw, 170 
 
 Till he tells where he buried his 
 
 treasure ; 
 And deliver our word 
 To yon sullen caged Bird, 
 That to-night she must sing for our 
 
 pleasure ! ' 
 
 Thereupon, cap-a-pee. 
 
 As a Champion should be, 
 
 With the bald-headed Peasant to 
 
 guide him, 
 On his War-horse he bounds. 
 And then, whistling his hounds. 
 Prances ofi to what fate may betide 
 
 him J 18a 
 
 Nor too long do they seek. 
 
 Ere a horrible reek, 
 
 Ijke the fumes from some villanous 
 
 tavern. 
 Sets the dogs on the snuiif, 
 For they scent well enough 
 The foul Monster coil'd up in his 
 
 cavern ! 
 
 Then alighting with speed 
 From his terrified steed. 
 Which he ties to a tree for the present. 
 With his sword ready drawn, 190 
 
 Strides the Ritter High-born, 
 And along with him drags the scared 
 Peasant ! 
 
 ' O Sir Knight, good Sir Knight ! 
 
 I am near enough quite — 
 
 I have shown you the Beast and his 
 
 grotto : ' — • 
 But before he can reach 
 Any farther in speech. 
 He is stricken stone-dead by Sir Otto ! 
 
 Who withdrawing himself 
 To a high rocky shelf, 200 
 
 Sees the Monster his tail disentangle 
 From each tortuous coil. 
 With a sudden turmoil. 
 And rush forth the dead Peasant to 
 mangle. ■ 
 
 With his terrible claws. 
 
 And his horrible jaws, 
 
 He soon moulds the warm corse to 
 
 a jelly ; 
 Which he quickly sucks in 
 To his own wicked skin. 
 And then sinks at full stretch on his 
 
 belly. zio 
 
 Then the Knight softly goes. 
 On the tips of his toes. 
 To the greedy and slumbering Savage, 
 And with one hearty stroke 
 Of his sword, and a poke. 
 Kills the Beast that had made such 
 a ravage. 
 
THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON 
 
 359 
 
 So, extended at length, 
 
 Without motion or strength. 
 
 That gorg'd Serpent they call the 
 
 Constrictor, 
 After dinner, while deep 220 
 
 In lethargical sleep, 
 Falls a prey to his Hottentot victor. 
 
 ' 'Twas too easy by half ! ' 
 
 Said the Knight with a laugh ; 
 
 ' But as nobody witness'd the 
 
 slaughter, 
 I will swear, knock and knock, 
 By Saint Winifred's clock, 
 We were at it three hours and a 
 
 quarter I ' 
 
 Then he chopped off the head 
 Of the Monster, so dread, 230 
 
 Which he tied to his horse as a trophy ; 
 And, with Hounds, by the same 
 Ragged path that he came, 
 Home he jogg'd proud as Sultan or 
 Sophy ! 
 
 Blessed Saints ! what a rout 
 
 When the news flew about. 
 
 And the carcase was fetch'd in ,a 
 
 waggon ; 
 What an outcry rose wild 
 From man, woman, and child — 
 ' Live Sir Otto, who vanquish'd the 
 
 Dragon 1 ' 240 
 
 All that night the thick walls 
 
 Of the Knight's feudal halls 
 
 Rang with shouts for the wine-cup 
 
 and flagon ; 
 Whilst the 'Vassals stood by. 
 And repeated the cry — 
 ' Live Sir Otto, who vanquish'd the 
 
 Dragon ! ' 
 
 The next night, and the next, 
 Still the fight was the text, 
 'Twas a theme for the Minstrels to 
 brag on ! 
 
 And the Vassals' hoarse throats 250 
 Still re-echoed the notes— 
 ' Live Sir Otto, who vanquish'd the 
 Dragon I ' 
 
 There was never such work 
 Since the days of King Stork, 
 When he lived with the Frogs at free 
 
 quarters 1 
 Not to name the invites 
 That were sent down of-nights. 
 To the villagers' wives and their 
 
 daughters I 
 
 It was feast upon feast. 
 For good cheers never ceased, 260 
 And a foray replenished the flagon ; 
 And the Vassals stood by, 
 But more weak was the cry — 
 ' Live Sir Otto, who vanquish'd the 
 Dragon ! ' 
 
 Down again sank the sun. 
 Nor were revels yet done — 
 But as ev'ry mouth had a gag on. 
 Though the Vassals stood round, 
 Deuce a word or a sound 
 Of ' Sir Otto, who vanquish'd the 
 Dragon ! ' 270 
 
 There was feasting aloft, 
 But, thro' pillage so oft, 
 Down below there was waihng and 
 
 hunger ; 
 And affection ran cold ; 
 And the food of the old. 
 It was wolfishly snatch 'd by the 
 
 younger ! 
 
 Mad with troubles so vast. 
 
 Where 's the wonder at last 
 
 If the Peasants quite alter'd their 
 
 motto ! 
 And with one loud accord 280 
 
 Cried out ' Would to the Lord, 
 That the Dragon had vanquish'd Sir 
 
 Otto 1 ' 
 
,360 
 OUR LADY'S CHAPEL 
 
 A LEGEND OF COBLENZ 
 
 Whoe'er has crossed the Mosel Bridge, 
 
 And mounted by the fort of Kaiser Franz, 
 Has seen, perchance, 
 Just on the summit of St. Peter's ridge, 
 A little open Chapel to the right. 
 Wherein the tapers aye are burning bright : 
 So popular, indeed, this holy shrine. 
 At least among the female population. 
 By night, or at high noon, you see it shine, 
 A very Missal for illumination I 10 
 
 Yet, when you please, at morn or eve, go by 
 All other Chapels, standing in the fields. 
 Whose mouldy, wifeless, husbandry but yields 
 Beans, peas, potatoes, mangel-wurzel, rye, 
 And, lo ! the Virgin, lonely, dark, and hush, 
 Without the glimmer of a farthing rush ! 
 
 But on Saint Peter's Hill 
 The lights are burning, burning, burning still. 
 In fact, it is a pretty retail trade 
 
 To furnish forth the candles ready made ; 20 
 
 And close beside the Chapel and the way, 
 A chandler, at her stall, sits day by day. 
 And sells, both long and short, the waxen tapers 
 Smarten 'd with tinsel-foil and tinted papers. 
 
 To give of the mysterious truth an inkling, 
 
 Those who in this bright Chapel breathe a prayer 
 
 To ' Unser Frow,' and burn a taper there. 
 
 Are said to get a husband in a twinkling : 
 
 Just as she-glowworms, if it be not scandal. 
 
 Catch partners with their matrimonial candle. 30 
 
 How kind of blessed Saints in heav'n — 
 Where none in marriage, we are told, are giv'n — 
 To interfere below in making matches. 
 And help old maidens to connubial catches I 
 The truth is, that instead of looking smugly 
 
 (At least, so whisper wags satirical) 
 The votaries are all so old and ugly. 
 
 No man could fall in love but by a miracle ! 
 
 ■ However, that such waxen gifts and vows 
 Are sometimes for the purpose efficacious, 40 
 
 In helping to a spouse. 
 Is vouch'd for by a story most veracious. 
 
OUR LADYS CHAPEL 361 
 
 A certain Woman, tho' in name a wife, 
 
 Yet doom'd to lonely life, 
 Her truant husband having been away 
 Nine years, two months, a week, and half a day,— 
 Without remembrances by words or deeds, — 
 Began to think she had sufficient handle 
 To talk of widowhood and burn her weeds, 
 
 Of course with a wax-candle. 59 
 
 Sick, single-handed with the. world to grapple,. 
 Weary of solitude, aiid spleen, and vapours, 
 Away she hurried to Our Lady's Chapel, 
 
 Full-handed with two tapers — 
 And pray'd as she had never pray'd before, 
 To be a bona fide wife once more. — 
 ' Oh holy Virgin ! listen to my prayer I 
 And for sweet mercy, and thy sex's sake, 
 Accept the vows and offerings I make — 
 ■ Others set up one light, but here 's a pair I ' 60 
 
 Her pray'r, it seem'd, was heard ; 
 For in three little weeks, exactly reckon 'd, 
 
 As blithe as an j^ bird. 
 She stood before the Priest with Hans the Second ; — 
 A fact that made her gratitude so hearty, 
 To ' Unser Frow/ and her propitious shrine, 
 She sent two waxen candles superfine, 
 Long enough for a Lapland evening party ! 
 
 Rich was the Wedding Feast and rare — 
 
 What sausages were there ! T> 
 
 Of sweets and sours there was a perfect glut : 
 With plenteous liquors to wash down good cheer ; 
 Brantwein, and Rhum, Kirsch-wasser, and Krug Bier, 
 And wine so sharp that ev'ry one was cut. 
 Rare was the feast — but rarer was the quality 
 Of mirth, of smoky-joke, and song, and toast, — 
 When just in all the middle of their jollity — 
 With bumpers fiU'd to Hostess and to Host, 
 And all the unborn branches of their house, 
 Unwelcome and unask'd, like Banquo's Ghost, 80 
 
 In walk'd the long-lost Spouse I 
 
 What pen could ever paint 
 The hubbub when the Hubs were thus confronted 1 
 The bridesmaids fitfully began to faint ; 
 The bridesmen stared — some whistled and some grunted : 
 Fierce Hans the First look'd like a boar that 's hunted ; 
 Poor Hans the Second like a suckling calf : 
 Meanwhile, confounded by the double miracle, 
 The two-fold Bride sobb'd out, with tears hysterical, 
 ' Oh Holy Virgin, you're too good — by half ! ' 9" 
 
 N 3 
 
3fc OUR LADY'S CHAPEL 
 
 Moral. 
 
 Ye Coblenz maids, take warning by the rhyme, 
 And as our Christian laws forbid polygamy 
 
 For fear of bigamy, 
 Only light up one taper at a time. 
 
 LOVE LANGUAGE OF A MERRY YOUNG SOLDIER 
 
 'Ach Gretchen, mein Taubchen.' 
 
 O Gretel, my Dove, my heart's Trumpet, 
 
 My Cannon, my" Big Drum, arid also my Musket, , . 
 
 O hear me,, my mild little Dove, 
 
 In your stiir little room. 
 
 Your portrait, my Gretel, is always on. guard. 
 
 Is always attentive to Love's parole aiid watchword ; 
 
 Your picture is always going the rounds", 
 
 My Gretel, I call at- every hour ! 
 
 My heart's Knapsack is always full of you ; 
 My looks they are quartered with you ; 
 And when I bite Off the top end of a cartridge 
 Then I think that I give you a kiss. 
 
 You alone are my Word of Command and orders, 
 
 Yea my Right-face, Left l^'ace. Brown Tommy, and wine, 
 
 And at the word ' Shouldet Arms ! ' 
 
 Then I think you say ' Take me in your arms.' 
 
 Your eyes' sparkle like a Battery, 
 Yea they, wound like Bombs and Grenades ; 
 As black as Gunpowder is your hair, 
 Your hand as white as Parading breeches ! 
 
 Yes, you are the Match and I am the Cannon ; 
 Have pity, my love, and give quarter. 
 And give the word of command ' Wheel round 
 Into my heart's Barrs^ck Yard,' 
 
WHIMSICALITIES: A PERIODICAL 
 GATHERING 
 
 (1844) 
 
 ANACREONTIC 
 
 FOR THE NEW YEAR 
 
 Come, fill up the Bowl, for if ever the glass 
 
 Found a proper excuse or fit season, 
 For toasts to be honour'd, or pledges to pass, 
 
 Sure, this hour brings an exquisite reason : 
 For hark ! the last chime of the dial has; ceased, 
 
 And Old Time, who his leisure to cozen. 
 Had finish'd the Months, like the flasks at a feast, 
 
 Is preparing to tap a fresh dozen ! 
 
 Hip ! Hip ! and Hurrah ! 
 
 Then fill, all ye Happy and Free, unto whom 
 
 The past year has been pleasant and sunny ; 
 Its months each as sweet as if made of the bloom 
 
 Of the thyme whence the bee gathers honey — 
 Days ushered by dew-drops, instead of the tears, 
 
 Mayb?, wrung from some wretcheder cousin — 
 Then fill, and with gratitude join in the cheers 
 
 That triumphantly hail a fresh dozen ! ' 
 
 Hip ! Hip ! and Hurrah ! 
 
 And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast. 
 
 And iDeen bow'd to the earth by its fury ; 
 To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd. 
 
 Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury, — 
 Still,' fill to the Future ! and join in our chime, 
 
 The regrets of remembrance to cozen. 
 And having obtained a New Trial of Time, 
 
 Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen ! 
 
 Hip I Hip I and Hurrah ! 
 
364 
 
 A MORNING THOUGHT 
 
 No more, no more will I resign 
 My couch so warm and soft, 
 
 To trouble trout with hook and line, 
 That -will not spring aloft. 
 
 With larks appointments one may fix 
 To greet the dawning skies, 
 
 But hang the getting up at six, 
 For fish that will not rise ! 
 
 NO! 
 
 No sun — no moon ! 
 
 No morn — no noon — 
 No dawn — no dusk — no proper time 
 of day — 
 
 No sky — no earthly view — 
 
 No distance looking blue — 
 No road — no street — no ' t'other side 
 the way ' — 
 
 No end to any Row — 
 
 No indications where the Cres- 
 cents go — 
 
 No top to any steeple — 
 No recognitions of familiar people — 10 
 
 No courtesies for showing 'em — 
 
 No knowing 'em ! — 
 No travelling at all — no locomotion, 
 
 No inkling of the way — no notion — 
 ' No go ' — by land or ocean — 
 No mail — no post — 
 No news from any foreign coast — 
 No Park — no Ring — no afternoon 
 gentility — 
 No company — no nobility — 
 No warmth, no cheerfulness, nohealth- 
 ful ease, 20 
 
 No comfortable feel in any mem- 
 ber — 
 No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no 
 bees. 
 No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no 
 
 birds, 
 
 November ! 
 
 TO MY DAUGHTER 
 
 ON HER BIRTHDAY 
 
 Dear Fanny ! nine long years ago, 
 While yet the morning sun was low. 
 And rosy with the Eastern glow 
 
 The landscape smil'd — 
 Whilst low'd the newly-waken'd 
 
 herds — 
 Sweet as the early song of birds, 
 I heard those first, delightful words, 
 
 ' Thou hast a Child ! ' 
 
 Along with that uprising dew 9 
 
 Tears glisten 'd in my eyes, though few. 
 To hail a dawning quite as new 
 To me, as Time : 
 
 It was not sorrow — not annoy — 
 But like a happy maid, though coy. 
 With grief-like welcome even Joy 
 Forestalls its prime. 
 
 So mayst thou live, dear 1 many 
 
 years. 
 In all the bliss that life endears. 
 Not without smiles, nor yet from tears 
 
 Too strictly kept : ao 
 
 When first thy infant littleness 
 I folded in my fond caress, 
 The greatest proof of happiness 
 
 Was this — I wept. 
 
3^5 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 ON MRS. PARKES'S PAMPHLET 
 
 Such strictures as these 
 
 Could a learned Chinese 
 Only read on some fine afternoon, 
 
 He would cry with pale lips, 
 
 ' We shall have an Eclipse 
 For a Dragon has seized on the Moon 
 
 THE FORGE 
 
 A ROMANCE OF THE IRON AGE 
 
 ' Who 's here, beside foul weather 'i'—K/n£r Lear, 
 ' Mine enemy^s dog:, though he had bit me, 
 Should have stood that night against my fae'—Cordelia. 
 
 Part I 
 
 Like a dead man gone to his shroud. 
 The sun has sunk in a coppery cloud. 
 And the wind is rising squally and loud 
 
 With many a stormy token, — 
 Playing a wild funereal air, 
 Through the branches bleak, bereaved 
 
 and bare. 
 To the dead leaves dancing here and 
 there — 
 
 In short, if the truth were spoken. 
 It 's an ugly night for anywhere, 9 
 
 But an awful one for the Brocken ! 
 
 For oh ! to stop 
 On that mountain top, 
 After the dews of evening drop. 
 
 Is always a dreary frolic — 
 Then what must it be when nature 
 
 groans. 
 
 And the very mountain murmurs and 
 
 moans 
 
 As if it writhed with the cholic — 
 
 Withother strange supernatural tones. 
 
 From wood, and water, and echoing 
 
 stones, 
 Not to forget unb'uried bones — 20 
 In a region so diabolic ! 
 
 A place where he whom we call old 
 Scratch, 
 
 By help of his Witches — a precious 
 batch — 
 Gives midnight concerts and ser- 
 mons, 
 
 In a Pulpit and Orchestra built to 
 match, 
 
 A plot right worthy of him to hatch. 
 
 And well adapted, he knows, to catch 
 The musical, mystical Germans 1 
 
 However it's quite 
 As wild a night 30 
 
 As ever was known on that sinister 
 height 
 Since the Demon-Dance was mor- 
 riced — 
 The earth is dark, and the sky is 
 
 scowling. 
 And the blast through the pines is 
 
 howling and growling. 
 As if a thousand wolves were prowling 
 About in the old Black Forest 1 
 
 Madly, sadly, the Tempest raves 
 Through the narrow gullies and hollow 
 caves. 
 
366 
 
 THE FORGE 
 
 And bursts on the rocks in windy 
 waves, 
 
 Like the billows that roar 40 
 
 On a gusty shore 
 Mourning over the mariners' graves — 
 Nay, more like a frantic lamentation 
 
 From a howling set 
 
 Of demons met 
 To wake a dead relation. 
 
 Badly, madly, the vapours fly 
 Over the dark distracted sky, 
 
 At a pace that no pen can paint ! 
 Black and vague like the shadows of 
 dreams, 50 
 
 Scudding over the moon that seems. 
 Shorn of half her usual beams, " 
 
 As pale as if she would faint ! 
 
 The lightning flashes, 
 The thunder crashes. 
 The trees encounter with horrible 
 
 clasTies, 
 While rolling up from raarish and bog, 
 Rank and rich. 
 As from Stygian ditch. 
 Rises a foul sulphureous fog, 60 
 
 Hinting that Satan himself is agog, — 
 But leaving at once this heroical 
 
 pitch. 
 The night is a very bad night in 
 which 
 You wouldn't turn out a dog. 
 
 Yet ONE there is abroad in the storm. 
 And whenever by chance 
 The moon gets a glance. 
 She spies the Traveller's lonely form, 
 Walking, leaping, striding along, 69 
 As none cando butthesuper-strong; 
 And flapping his arms to keep him 
 warm. 
 For the breeze from the North is 
 a regular starver, 
 And to tell the truth, 
 More keen, in sooth. 
 And cutting than any German carver! 
 
 However, no time it is to lag, 
 
 And on he scrambles from crag to crag, 
 
 Like one determined never to flag — 
 Now weathers a block 
 Of jutting rock, 80 
 
 With hardly room for a toe to wag ; 
 But holding on by a timber snag, 
 That looks like the arm of a friendly 
 
 hag; 
 Then stooping under a drooping 
 
 bough. 
 Or leaping over some horrid chasm. 
 Enough to give any heart a spasm ! 
 And sinking down a precipice now, 
 Keeping his feet the deuce knows 
 
 how, 
 In spots whence all creatures would 
 
 keep aloof, 89 
 
 Except the Goat, with his cloven hoof. 
 Who clings to the shallowest ledge as if 
 He grew like the weed on the face of 
 
 the dig ! 
 
 So down, still down, the Traveller goes. 
 Safe as the Chamois amid his snows, 
 Though fiercer than ever the hurricane 
 blows, 
 And round him eddy, with whirl and 
 whizz, 
 Tornadoes of hail, and sleet, and rain, 
 Enough to bewilder a weaker brain, 
 
 Or blanch any other visage than his. 
 Which spite of lightning, thunder, and 
 hail, 100 
 
 The blinding sleet and the freezing 
 gale. 
 And the horrid abyss, 
 If his foot should miss. 
 Instead of tending at all to pale. 
 Like cheeks that feel the chill of 
 
 affright — 
 Remains — the very reverse of white ! 
 
 His heart is granite — his iron nerve 
 
 Feels no convulsive twitches ; 
 And as to his fool, it does not swerve, 
 Tho' the Screech-Ovi'ls are flitting 
 about him that serve 110 
 For parrots to Brocken Witches ! 
 
 Nay, full in his very path he spies 
 The gleam of the Wehr Wolf's horrid 
 eyes ; 
 
THE FORGE 
 
 i^T 
 
 But if his members quiver^ 
 rt is not for l,hat—no, it is not for 
 that— 
 Nor rat, 
 Nor cat, 
 
 As black as your hat, 
 Nor the snake that hiss'd, nor the 
 
 toad that spat. 
 Nor glimmering candles of dead men's 
 fat, 120 
 
 Nor even the flap of the Vampire 
 
 Bat, 
 No anserine skin would rise thereat, 
 It's the cold that makes. Him 
 shiver 1 
 
 So down, still down, through gully 
 
 and glen, 
 Never trodden by foot of men. 
 Past the Eagle's nest, and the She- 
 Wolf's den, 
 Never caring a jot hiow steep 
 Or how narrow the track he has to 
 keep. 
 Or how wide and deep 
 An abyss to leap, 130 
 
 Or what may fly, or walk, or creep, 
 Down he hurries through darkness and 
 
 storm,' 
 Flapping his arms tokeephim warm^— 
 Till threading many a pass abhorrent, 
 At last he reaches the mountain 
 gorge, 
 And .takes a path along by a torrent — 
 The very identical path, by St. 
 George ! 
 Down which young Fridolin went to 
 
 the Forge, 
 With a message meant for his own 
 death-warrant! 139 
 
 Young Fridolin ! young Fridolin ! 
 So free from sauce, and sloth, and 
 sin. 
 The best of pages 
 Whatever their ages. 
 Since first that singular fashion came 
 
 in — 
 Not he like those modern and idle 
 ■ young gluttons 
 
 With little jackets, so smart and 
 spruce. 
 
 Of Lincoln green, sky-blue, or 
 puce — 
 
 And a Uttle gold lace you may in- 
 troduce — 
 
 Very showy, but as for use. 
 Not worth so many buttons I 150 
 
 Young Fridolin I young Fridolin ! 
 
 Of his duty so true a fulfiUer — 
 But here we need no farther go 
 For whoever desires the Tale to 
 know, 
 
 May read it all in Schiller. 
 
 Faster now the Traveller speeds, 
 Whither his guiding beacon leads. 
 For by yonder glare 
 In the murky, air. 
 He knows that the Eisen Hutte i9 
 there ! 160 
 
 With its sooty Cyclops, savage and 
 grim. 
 Hosts, a guest had better forbear. 
 Whose thoughts are set upon dainty 
 fare^ — 
 But stiff with cold in every limb, 
 The Furnace Fire is thebaitforKzj*/ 
 
 Faster and faster still he goes. 
 
 Whilst redder and redder the welkin 
 glows. 
 
 And the lowest clouds that scud in 
 the sky 
 
 Get crimson fringiesin flitting by. 
 
 Till lo ! amid the lurid light, 170 
 
 The darkest object intensely dark. 
 
 Just where the bright is intensely 
 bright. 
 
 The Forge, the Foi'ge itself is in sight, 
 Like the pitch-black hull of a burn- 
 ing bark, 
 -With volleying smoke, and many 
 a spark. 
 
 Vomiting fire, red, yellow, and white ! 
 
 Restless, quivering tongues of flame ! 
 Heavenward striving still to go. 
 While others, reversed in the stream 
 below; ■■ 
 
368 
 
 THE FORGE 
 
 Seem seeking a place we will not 
 name, iSo 
 
 But well that Traveller knows the 
 same, 
 Who stops and stands. 
 So rubbing his hands. 
 And snufiBng the rare 
 Perfumes in the air, 
 For- old familiar odours are there, 
 And then direct by the shortest cut. 
 Like Alpine Marmot, whom neither 
 
 rut, 
 Rivers, rocks, nor thickets rebut, 
 Makeshisway to the blazing Hut I 190 
 
 Part II 
 
 Idly watching the Furnace-flames, 
 The men of the stithy 
 Are in th§ir smithy, 
 Brutal monsters, with bulky frames. 
 Beings Humanity scarcely claims. 
 But hybrids rather of demon race, 
 Unbless'd by the holy rite of grace, 
 Who never had gone by Christian 
 
 names, 
 Mark, or Matthew, Peter, or James — 
 Naked, foul, unshorn, unkempt, 200 
 From touch of natural shame exempt. 
 Things of which Deliriumhas dreamt — • 
 But wherefore dwell on these verbal 
 sketches. 
 When traced with frightful truth 
 
 and vigour. 
 Costume, attitude, face, and figure, 
 Retsch has drawn the very wretches ! 
 
 However, there they lounge 
 t about. 
 The grim, gigantic fellows. 
 
 Hardly hearing the storm with- 
 out. 
 That makes so very dreadful a 
 rout, 210 
 
 For the constant roar 
 From the furnace door. 
 And the blast of the monstrous bel- 
 lows. 
 
 Oh, what a scene 
 That Forge had been 
 
 For Salvator Rosa's study ! 
 With wall, and beam, and post, and 
 
 pin. 
 And those ruffianly creatures, like 
 
 Shapes of Sin, 
 Hair, and eyes, and rusty skin. 
 
 Illumed by a light so ruddy 220 
 The Hut, and whatever thereis therein, 
 Looks either red-hot or bloody ! 
 
 And, oh ! to hear the frequent burst 
 Of strange, extravagant laughter. 
 Harsh and hoarse. 
 And resounding perforce 
 From echoing roof and rafter ! 
 Though curses, the worst 
 That ever were curst. 
 And threats that Cain invented the 
 first, 230 
 
 Come growling the instant after ! 
 
 But again the livelier peal is rung, - 
 
 For the Smith-hight Salamander,- 
 In the jargon of some Titanic tongue. 
 Elsewhere never said or sung. 
 With the voice of a Stentor in joke has 
 flung 
 Some cumbrous sort 
 Of sledge-hammer retort 
 At Red Beard, the crew's com- 
 mander. 
 
 Some frightful jest — who knows how 
 wild, 240 
 
 Or obscene, from a monster so defiled, 
 And a horrible mouth, of such extent. 
 From flapping ear to ear it went. 
 And show'd such tusks whenever it 
 
 smiled — 
 The very mouth to devour a child ! 
 
 But fair or foul the jest gives birth 
 To another bellow of demon mirth, 
 
 That far outroars the weather, 
 As if all the Hyaenas that prowl the 
 earth 249 
 
 Had clubb'd their laughs together ! 
 
 And lo ! in the middle of all the din. 
 Not seeming to care a single pin, 
 
 For a prospect so volcanic, 
 A Stranger steps abruptly in, 
 
 Of an aspect rather Satanic ; 
 
THE FORGE 
 
 369 
 
 An,d he looks with a grin, at those 
 
 Cyclops grim, 
 Who stare and grin again at him 
 With wondrous little panic. 
 
 Then up to the Furnace the Stranger 
 
 goes, 
 Eager to thaw his ears and nose, 260 
 And warm his frozen fingers and toes — 
 
 While each succeeding minute, 
 
 Hotter and hotter the Smithy grows, 
 
 And seems to declare, 
 
 By a fiercer glare. 
 
 On wall, roof, floor, and everywhere, 
 
 It knows the Devil is in it I 
 
 Still not a word 
 Is utter'd or heard. 
 But the beetle-brow'd Foreman nods 
 and winks, 270 
 
 Much as a shaggy old Lion blinks, 
 And makes a shift 
 To impart his drift 
 To a smoky brother, who, joining the 
 
 links. 
 Hints to a third the thing he thinks ; 
 And whatever it be. 
 They all agree 
 In smiling with faces full of glee, 
 As if about to enjoy High Jinks. 279 
 
 What sort of tricks they mean to play 
 By way of diversion, who can say, 
 Of such ferocious and barbarous folk. 
 Who chuckled, indeed, and never 
 
 spoke 
 Of burning Robert the Jager to coke. 
 Except as a capital practical joke I 
 Who never thought of Mercy, or 
 
 heard her. 
 Or any gentle emotion felt ; 
 But hard as the iron they had to melt, 
 Sported with Danger and romp'd 
 
 with Murder ! 
 
 Meanwhile the Stranger — 290 
 The Brocken Ranger, 
 Besides another and hotter post. 
 That renders him not averse to a 
 
 roast, — 
 Creeping into the Furnace almost. 
 Has made himself as warm as a toast — 
 
 When, unsuspicious of any danger. 
 And least of all of any such maggot 
 As treating his body like a faggot. 
 All at once he is seized and shoven 
 
 In pastime cruel, 300 
 
 Like so much fuel. 
 Headlong into the blazing oven ! 
 
 In he goes ! with a frightful shout 
 Mock'd by the rugged ruffianly band. 
 As round the Furnace mouth they 
 
 stand. 
 Bar, and shovel, and ladle in hand. 
 To hinder their Butt from crawling 
 
 out. 
 Who making one fierce attempt, 
 but vain, 
 Receives such a blow 
 From Red-Beard's crow 310 
 As crashes the skull and gashes the 
 
 brain. 
 And blind, and dizzy, and stunn'd 
 with pain. 
 With merely an inter jectional ' oh ! ' 
 Back he rolls in the flames again. 
 
 ' Ha ! Ha ! Ho ! Ho ! ' That second 
 
 fall 
 Seems the very best joke of all. 
 To judge by the roar. 
 Twice as loud as before. 
 That fills the Hut, from the roof to the 
 
 floor. 
 And flies a league or two out of the 
 door, 320 
 
 Up the mountain and over the moor — 
 But scarcely the jolly echoes they 
 wake. 
 Have well begun 
 To take up the fun. 
 Ere the shaggy Felons have cause to 
 quake. 
 And begin to feel that the deed 
 
 they have done. 
 Instead of being a pleasant one. 
 Was a very great error — and no mis- 
 take. 
 
 For why ? — in lieu 
 Of its former hue, 330 
 
 So natural, warm, and florid. 
 
370 
 
 THE FORGE 
 
 The Furnace burns of a brimstone blue, 
 And instead of the couleur de rose it 
 
 threw, 
 With a cooler reflection, — justly due — 
 Exhibits each of the Pagan crew. 
 
 Livid, ghastly, and horrid ! 
 But vainly they close their guilty eyes 
 
 Against prophetic fears ; 
 Or with hard and horny palins devise 
 To dam their enormous ears — 340 
 There are sounds in the air. 
 Not here or there, 
 Irresistible voices everywhere. 
 No bulwarks can ever rebut. 
 And to match the screams, 
 Tremendous gleams. 
 Of Horrors that like the Phantoms 
 of dreams 
 They see with their eyelids shut ! 
 For awful coveys of terrible things, 
 With forked tongues and venomous 
 stings, 350 
 
 On hagweed, broomsticks, and leath- 
 ern wings. 
 Are hovering round the Hut ! 
 
 Shapes, that within the focus bright 
 Of the Forge, are like shadows and 
 blots ; 
 But farther off, in the shades of night. 
 Clothed with their own phosphoric 
 light. 
 Are seen in the darkest spots. 
 
 Sounds ! that fill the air with noises. 
 Strange and indescribable voices, 339 
 From Hags, in a diabolical clatter — 
 Cats that spit curses, and apes that 
 
 chatter 
 Scraps of cabalistical matter — 
 Owls that screech, and dogs that 
 yell- 
 Skeleton hounds that will never be 
 fatter — 
 All the domestic tribes of Hell, 
 Shrieking for flesh to tear and tatter; 
 Bones to shatter. 
 And limbs to scatter. 
 And who it is that must furnish the 
 latter 369 
 
 Those blue-looking Men know well I 
 
 Those blue-looking men that huddle 
 
 together. 
 
 For all their sturdy limbs and thews, 
 
 Their unshorn locks, like Nazarene 
 
 Jews, 
 
 And buffalo beards, and hides of 
 
 leather, 
 Huddled all in a heap together, 
 Like timid lamb, and ewe, and wether. 
 And as females say, 
 In a similar way. 
 Fit for knocking down with a feather ! 
 
 In and out, in and out, 380 
 
 The gathering Goblins hover about, 
 Ev'ry minute augmenting the rout ; 
 For like a spell 
 - The unearthly smell 
 That fumes from the Furnace, chim- 
 ney and mouth. 
 Draws them in — an infernal Le- 
 gion— 
 From East, and West, and North, and 
 South, 
 Like carrion birds from ev'ry region, 
 Till not a yard square 
 Of the sickening air 390 
 
 But has a Demon or two for its share. 
 Breathing fury, woe, and despair. 
 Never, never was such a sight ! 
 It beats the very Walpurgis Night, 
 Display'd in the story of Doctor 
 Faustus, 
 For the scene to describe 
 Of the awful tribe. 
 If we were two Gothe's, would quite 
 exhaust us ! 
 
 Suffice it, amid that dreary swarm. 
 There musters each foul repulsive 
 form 400 
 
 That ever a fancy overwarm 
 
 Begot in its worst delirium ; 
 Besides some others of monstrous size, 
 Never before revealed to eyes. 
 
 Of the genus Megatherium ! 
 
 Meanwhilethe demons, filthy and foul, 
 
 Gorgon, Chimera, Harpy, and Ghoul, 
 
 Are not contented to jibber and howl 
 
 As adirge for their late commander; 
 
THE FORGE 
 
 371 
 
 But one of the bevy — witch or wizard, 
 Disguised as a monstrous flying lizard, 
 Springs on the grisly Salamander, 
 Who stoutly fights, and struggles, and 
 kicks, 41 3 
 
 And tries the best of his wrestling 
 tricks. 
 No paltry strife, 
 But for life, dear life. 
 But the ruthless talons refuse to unfix, 
 Till far beyond a surgical case, 
 With starting eyes, and black in the 
 f acej 41 9 
 
 Down he tumbles as dead as bricks ! 
 
 A pretty sight for his mates to view ! 
 
 Those shaggy murderers looking so 
 
 blue. 
 
 And for him above all, 
 
 Red-bearded and tall. 
 
 With whom, at that very particular 
 
 nick. 
 There is such an unlucky crow to pick. 
 As the one of iron that did the trick 
 
 In a recent bloody affair — 
 No wonder feeling a, little sick. 
 With pulses beating uncommonly 
 quick, 430 
 
 And breath he never found so thick. 
 He longs for the open air ! 
 
 Three paces, or four. 
 And he gains the door ; 
 But ere he accomplishes one. 
 The sound of a blow comes, heavy and 
 
 dull, 
 And clasping his fingers round his 
 skull. 
 However the deed was done. 
 That gave him that florid 
 Red gash on the forehead — 440 
 With a roll of the eyeballs perfectly 
 horrid, 
 There 's a tremulous quiver. 
 The last death-shiver. 
 And Red-Beard's course is run ! 
 
 Halloo! Halloo! 
 They have done for two ! 
 But a heavyish job remains to do ! 
 
 For yonder, sledge and shovel in 
 hand. 
 Like elder Sons of Giant Despair, 449 
 
 A couple of Cyclops make a stand. 
 And fiercely hammering here and 
 
 there. 
 Keep at bay the Powers of Air — 
 But desperation is all in vain I — 
 They faint — they choke, 
 For the sulphurous smoke 
 Is poisoning heart, and lung, and 
 
 brain. 
 They reel, they sink, they gasp, they 
 
 smother. 
 One for a moment survives his bro- 
 ther. 
 Then rolls a corpse across the other ! 
 
 Halloo! Halloo!-- 460 
 
 And Hullabaloo ! 
 There is only one more thing to do — 
 And seized by beak, and talon, and 
 
 claw, 
 Boriy liand, and hairy paw. 
 Yea, crooked horn, and tusky jaw. 
 The four huge Bodies are haul'd and 
 
 shoven 
 Each after each in the roaring oven ! 
 * , * * * * * 
 
 # 4; « 4i Hi * 
 
 That Eisen Hutte is standing still. 
 Go to the Hartz whenever you will. 
 And there it is beside a hill, 470 
 
 And a rapid stream that turns many 
 
 a mill ; 
 The self-same Forge, — you'll know it 
 
 at sight — 
 Casting upward, day and night. 
 Flames of red, and yellow, and white ! 
 
 Ay, half a mile from the mountain 
 
 There it is, the famous Forge, 
 With its Furnace, — the same that 
 
 blazed of yore, — 
 Hugely fed with fuel and ore ; 
 But ever.since that tremendous Revel, 
 Whatever Iron is melted therein, — 
 As Travellers know who have been 
 to Berlin — 481 
 
 Is all as black as the Devil ! 
 
372 
 
 SONNET 
 
 The world is with me, and its many cares, 
 
 Its woes — its wants — the anxious hopes and fears 
 
 That wait on all terrestrial affairs — 
 
 The shades of former and of future years — 
 
 Foreboding fancies, and prophetic tears, 
 
 Quelling a spirit that was once elate — 
 
 Heavens ! what a wilderness the earth appears, 
 
 Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of date I 
 
 But no — a laugh of innocence and joy 
 
 Resounds, like music of the fairy race, 
 
 And gladly turning from the world's annoy 
 
 I gaze upon a little radiant face. 
 
 And bless, internally, the merry boy 
 
 Who ' makes a son-shine in a shady-place.' 
 
 THE FLOWER 
 
 Alone, across a foreign plain. 
 The Exile slowly wanders, 
 
 And on his Isle beyond the main 
 With sadden'd spirit ponders. 
 
 This lovely Isle beyond the sea, 
 With all its household treasures ; 
 
 Its cottage homes, its merry birds. 
 And all its rural pleasures : 
 
 Its leafy woods, its shady vales, 
 Its moors, and purple heather ; 
 
 Its verdant fields bedeck'd with stars 
 His childhood loves to gather : 
 
 When lo ! he starts, with glad sur- 
 prise. 
 
 Home-joys come rushing o'er him. 
 For 'modest, wee, andcrimson-tipp'd,' 
 
 He spies the flower before him I 
 
 With eager haste he stoops him down. 
 His eyes with moisture hazy, 
 
 And as he plucks the simple bloom. 
 He murmurs, ' Lawk-a-daisy t ' so 
 
 EPIGRAM : ON THE ART UNIONS 
 
 That Picture-Raffles will conduce to nourish 
 Design, or cause good Colouring to flourish. 
 Admits of logic-chopping and wise sawing, 
 But surely Lotteries encourage Drawing I 
 
373 
 
 A BLACK JOB 
 
 'No doubt the pleasure is as great, 
 
 Of being cheated as to cheat? — Hudibras. 
 
 The history of human-kind to trace, 
 Since Eve — the first of dupes — our 
 doom unriddled, 
 A certain portion of the human race 
 Has certainly a taste for being did- 
 dled. 
 
 Witness the famous Mississippi 
 dreams ! 
 A rage that time seems only to re- 
 double — 
 The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the 
 flimsy schemes, 
 For rolling in Factolian streams, 
 That cost our modern rogues so little 
 
 trouble. 
 No matter what, — to pasture cows on 
 stubble, 10 
 
 To twist sea-sand into a solid rope, 
 To make French bricks and fancy 
 bread of rubble, 
 Or light with gas the whole celestial 
 cope — . 
 Only propose to blow a bubble, 
 And Lord 1 what hundreds will sub- 
 scribe for soap ! 
 
 Soap ! — it reminds me of a little tale, 
 Tho' not a pig's, the hawbuck's 
 glory. 
 When rustic games and merriment 
 prevail — 
 But here 's my story : 
 Once on a time — no matter when — so 
 A knot of very charitable men 
 Set up a Philanthropical Society, 
 Professing on a certain plan. 
 To benefit the race of man, 
 And in particular that dark variety, 
 Which some suppose inferior — as in 
 vermin 
 The sable is to ermine, 
 
 As smut to flour, as coal to ala- 
 baster, 
 As crows to swans, as soot to driven 
 
 snow. 
 As blacking, or as ink to ' milk be- 
 low,' 30 
 Or yet a better simile to show, 
 As ragman's dolls to images in 
 plaster ! 
 
 However, as is usual in our city. 
 They had a sort of managing Commit- 
 tee, 
 A board of grave responsible Direc- 
 tors — 
 A Secretary, good at pen and ink — 
 A Treasurer, of course, to keep the 
 chink. 
 And quite an army of Collectors ! 
 Not merely male, but female duns, 
 Young, old, and middle-aged — of all 
 degrees — 40 
 
 With many of those persevering ones, 
 Who mite by mite would beg a 
 cheese I 
 And what might be their aim ? 
 To rescue Afric's sable sons from 
 fetters — 
 To save their bodies from the burning 
 shame 
 Of branding with hot letters — ■ 
 Their shoulders from the cowhide's 
 bloody strokes, 
 Their necks from iron yokes ? 
 To end or mitigate the ills of slavery. 
 The Planter's avarice, the Driver's 
 knavery ? 50 
 
 To school the heathen Negroes and 
 enlighten 'em, 
 To polish up and brighten 
 'era, 
 
374 
 
 A BLACK JOB 
 
 And make them worthy of eternal 
 
 bliss ? 
 Why, no — the simple end and aim was 
 
 this— 
 Reading a well-known proverb much 
 
 amiss— 
 To wash and whiten 'em I 
 
 They look'd so ugly in their sable 
 hides : . . 
 
 So dark, so dingy, like a grubby lot 
 Of sooty sweeps, or colliers, and be- 
 sides. 
 However the poor elves 60 
 Might wash themselves 
 Nobody knew if they were clean 
 
 or not^ — , 
 
 On Nature's fairness they were quite 
 a blot ! 
 Not to forget more serious complaints 
 That even while they join'd in pious 
 hymn, 
 So black they were and grim, 
 In face and limb, 
 They look'd like Devils, tho' they sang 
 like Saints ! - 
 The thing was undeniable ! 
 They wanted washing ! not that slight 
 ablution 70 
 
 To which the skin of theWhite Man 
 is liable. 
 Merely removing transient pollution — 
 But good, hard, honest, energetic 
 rubbing 
 And scrubbing, 
 Sousing each sooty frame from heels 
 to head 
 With stiff, strong, saponaceous la- 
 ther, 
 And pails of wa,ter — hottish rather. 
 But not so boiling as to turn 'em red ! 
 
 So spoke the philanthropic man 
 Who laid, and hatch'd, and nursed the 
 plan — 80 
 
 And oh ! to view its glorious con- 
 summation ! 
 The brooms and mops, 
 The tubs and slops. 
 The baths and brushes in full opera- 
 tion ! 
 
 To see each Crow, or Jim, or John, 
 Go in a raven and come out a swan . 
 While fair as Cavendishes, Vanes, 
 and Russells, 
 Black 'Venus rises from the soapy 
 
 surge. 
 And all the little Niggerlings emerge 
 As lily-white as mussels. 90 
 
 Sweet was the vision — but alas ! 
 However in prospectus bright and 
 sunny, 
 To bring such visionary scenes to pass 
 One thing was requisite, and that 
 was — money ! 
 Money, that pays the laundress and 
 
 her bills. 
 For socks and collars, shirts and frills. 
 Cravats and kerchiefs — money, with- 
 out which 
 The negroes must remain as dark as 
 • pitch ; 
 A thing to make all Christians sad 
 and shivery, 99 
 
 To think of millions of immortal souls 
 Dwelling in bodies black as coals. 
 And living — so to speak — in Satan's 
 livery ! 
 
 Money — the root of evil, — dross, and 
 stuff !^ 
 But oh I how happy ought the rich 
 to feel. 
 Whose means enable them to give 
 enough 
 To blanch an African from head to 
 heel ! 
 How blessed — yea thrice blessed — to 
 subscribe 
 Enough to scour a tribe"! 
 While he whose fortune was at best 
 a brittle one. 
 Although he gave but pence, how 
 sweet to know no 
 
 He helped to bleach a Hottentot's 
 great toe. 
 Or little one 1 
 
 Moved by this logic, or appall'd. 
 To persons of a certain turn so 
 proper, 
 
A BLACK JOB 
 
 ni 
 
 The money came -when call'd, 1 
 
 In silver, gold, and copper, 
 Presents from ' Friends to blacks,' or 
 
 foes to whites, 
 ' Trifles,' and 'offerings,' and 'widows' 
 
 mites,' 
 Plump legacies, and yearly benefac- 
 tions. 
 With other gifts 120 
 
 And charitable lifts, 
 Printed in lists and quairterly transac- 
 tions. 
 . As thus — Elisha Brettel, 
 An iron kettle. 
 The Dowager Lady Scannel," 
 . A piece of flannel. 
 Rebecca Pope, 
 A bar of soap. 
 The Misses Howels, 
 Half-a-dozen tOwels. 130 
 
 • ■ TheMaster Rush's 
 Two scrubbing brushes. 
 Mr. T, Groom, 
 A stable broom, , 
 And Mrs. Grubb, 
 A tub. 
 
 Great werethe sums collected ! 
 And great results, in consequence ex- 
 pected. 
 But somehow, in the teeth of all 
 endeavour. 
 According to reports 140 
 
 .At yearly courts. 
 The Blacks, confound them ! were 
 as black as ever ! 
 
 Yes! spite of all the water sous'd aloft. 
 Soap, plain and mottled, hard and soft. 
 Soda and pearlash, huckaback and 
 
 sand. 
 Brooms, brushes, palm of hand, . 
 And scourers in the office strong and 
 
 clever. 
 In spite of all the tubbing, rubbing, 
 
 scrubbing. 
 The routing and the grubbing. 
 The Blacks, confound them ! were as 
 
 black as ever ! 150 
 
 In fact in his perennial speech, 
 The Chairman own'd' the niggers did 
 - - not bleach. 
 As he had hoped, 
 From being washed and soaped, 
 A circumstance he named with grief 
 and pity ; 
 But still he had the happiness to say, 
 . For self and the Committee,' 
 By persevering in the present way 
 And scrubbing at the Blacks froni day 
 to day. 
 Although he.coujd not promise per- 
 fect white, 160 
 From certain symptoms that had 
 come to light. 
 He hoped in time to get them gray ! 
 
 LuU'd.by this vague assurance. 
 The friends and patrons of the sable 
 tribe 
 . Continued-to Subscribe, 
 
 And waited, waited on with much 
 endurance — 
 
 Many a frugal sister, thrifty daugh- 
 ter- 
 Many a stinted widow, pinching mo- 
 ther— 
 
 With income by the tax made some- 
 what shorter. 
 
 Still paid implicitly her crown per 
 . . quarter, 170 
 
 Only to hear as ev'ry year came 
 round, 
 
 That Mr. Treasurer had spent her 
 pound ; 
 
 And as she loved her sable brother. 
 
 That Mr. Treasurer must have an- 
 other ! 
 
 But, spite of pounds or guineas, 
 . Instead of giving any hint 
 Of turning to a neutral tint. 
 The plaguy Negroes and their piCcani- 
 
 nies 
 Were still the colour of the bird that 
 
 caws — 
 Only some very aged souls 1 80 
 
 Showing a little gray upon their polls, 
 Like daws ! 
 
3;6 
 
 A BLACK JOB 
 
 However, nothing dashed 
 By such repeated failures, or abash'd. 
 The Court still met ; — the Chairman 
 and Directors, 
 The Secretary, good at pen and ink, 
 The worthy Treasurer, who kept 
 the chink, 
 And all the cash Collectors ; 
 With hundreds of that class, so kindly 
 credulous. 
 Without whose help, no charlatan 
 alive, 1 90 
 
 Or Bubble Company could hope to 
 thrive. 
 Or busy Chevalier, however sedu- 
 lous — 
 Those good and easy innocents in 
 fact, 
 Who willingly receiving chaff for 
 corn, 
 As pointed out by Butler's tact, 
 Still find a secret pleasure in the act 
 Of being pluck 'd and shorn 1 
 
 However, in long hundreds there they 
 ■were. 
 Thronging the hot, and close, and 
 dusty court, 
 To hear once more addresses from- the 
 Chair, 200 
 
 And regular Report. 
 Alas ! concluding in the usual strain. 
 That what with everlasting wear 
 
 and tear, 
 The scrubbing-brushes hadn't got 
 a hair — 
 The brooms — mere stumps — would 
 
 never serve again — 
 The soap was gone, the flannels all in 
 shreds. 
 The towels worn to threads, 
 The tubs and pails too shatter'd to be 
 mended — 
 And what was added with a deal of 
 pain, 
 
 But as accounts correctly would 
 explain, 210 
 
 Tho' thirty thousand pounds had been 
 expended — 
 
 The Blackamoors had still been 
 wash'd in vain ! 
 
 ' In fact, the Negroes were as black as 
 
 ink, 
 Yet, still as the Committee dared to 
 
 think. 
 And hoped the proposition was not 
 
 rash, 
 A rather free expenditure of cash — ' 
 But ere the prospect could be made 
 
 more sunny — 
 Up jump'd a little, lemon-coloured 
 
 man. 
 And with an eager stammer, thus 
 
 began, 
 In angry earnest, though it sounded 
 
 funny : . 220 
 
 ' What ! More subscriptions ! No — 
 
 no — no, — not I ! 
 You have had time — time — time 
 
 enough to try ! 
 They won't come white ! then why — 
 
 why — why — why — why, 
 More money ? ' 
 
 ' Why ! ' said the Chairman, with an 
 
 accent bland. 
 And gentle waving of his dexter hand, 
 ' Why must we have more dross, and 
 dirt, and dust. 
 More filthy lucre, in a word, more 
 
 gold— 
 
 The why, sir, very easily is told, 
 
 Because Humanity declares we must ! 
 
 We've scrubb'd the Negroes till we've 
 
 nearly killed 'em, 231 
 
 And finding that we cannot wash 
 
 them white. 
 But still their nigritude offends the 
 sight, 
 We mean to gild 'em I ' 
 
377 
 
 ON LIEUTENANT EYRE'S NARRATIVE OF THE 
 DISASTERS AT CABUL 
 
 A SORRY tale of sorry plans, 
 Which this conclusion grants, 
 That Afghan clans had all the Khans 
 And we had all the can'ts. 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 ON A LATE CATTLE-SHOW IN SMITHFIELD 
 
 Old Farmer Bull is taken sick, 
 Yet not with any sudden trick 
 
 Of fever, or his old dyspepsy ; 
 But having seen the foreign stock. 
 It gave his system such a shock 
 
 He 's had a fit of Cattle-epsy I 
 
 MORE HULLAH-BALOO * 
 
 'Loud as from numbers without number.' — Milion, 
 
 'You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.^ ^Qui'nce. 
 
 Amongst the great inventions of this 
 age. 
 Which ev'ry other century surpasses, 
 Is one, — ^just now the rage, — 
 
 Call'd ' Singing for all Classes ' — 
 That is, for all the British millions, 
 And billions. 
 And quadrillions. 
 Not to name Quintilians, 
 That now, alas ! have no more ear 
 than asses. 
 To learn to warble like the birds in 
 June, 10 
 
 In time and tune. 
 Correct as clocks, and musical as 
 glasses ! 
 
 In fact, a sort of plan. 
 Including gentleman as well as yokel. 
 
 Public or private man. 
 To call out a militia, — only Vocal 
 Instead of Local, 
 
 And not designed for military follies. 
 But keeping still within the civil 
 border, 19 
 
 To form with mouths in open order. 
 And sing in volleys. 
 Whether this grand harmonic scheme 
 Will ever get beyond a dream. 
 And tend to British happiness and 
 glory. 
 Maybe no, and maybe yes. 
 Is more than I pretend to 
 guess — 
 However, here 's my story. 
 
 In one of those small quiet streets. 
 
 Where business retreats, 29 
 
 To shun the daily bustle and the noise 
 The shoppy Strand enjoys, 
 
 But Law, Joint-Companies, and Life 
 Assurance 
 Find past endurance — 
 
378 
 
 MORE HULLAH-BALOO 
 
 In one of those back streets, to Peace 
 so dear, 
 The other day a ragged wight 
 Began to sing with all his might, 
 ' I have a silent sorrow here I ' 
 
 The place was lonely ; not a creature 
 
 stirr'd 
 Except some little dingy bird ; 
 Or vagrant cur that snifi'd along, 40 
 Indifferent to the Son of Song ; 
 No truant errand-boy, or Doctor's lad, 
 No idle filch or lounging cad. 
 
 No Pots encumber'd with diurnal 
 beer. 
 No printer's devil with an author's 
 
 proof, 
 Or housemaid on an errand far aloof, 
 Linger'd the tatter'd melodist to 
 hear — 
 Who yet, confound him ! bawl'd as 
 
 loud 
 As if he had to charm a London crowd. 
 Singing beside the'public way, so 
 Accompanied — instead of violin. 
 Flute, or piano, chiming in — 
 
 By rumbling cab, and omnibus, and 
 dray, 
 A van with iron bars to play staccato, 
 
 Or engine obligate — 
 In short, without one instrument ve- 
 hicular 
 (Not ev'n a truck, to be particular), 
 There stood the rogue and roar'd. 
 Unasked and unencored. 
 Enough to split the organs call'd auri- 
 cular ! 6a 
 
 Heard in that quiet place. 
 Devoted to a still and studious race, 
 
 The noise was quite appalling ! 
 To seek a fitting simile and spin it. 
 
 Appropriate to his calling, 
 His voice had all Lablache's body 
 
 in it; 
 But oh ! the scientific tone it lack'd, 
 
 And was in fact, 
 Only a forty -boatswain -power of 
 bawling ! — 
 
 'Twas said, indeed, for want of vocal 
 nous, 7» 
 
 The stage had banish'd him when 
 he attempted it, — 
 For tho' his voice completely fiU'd the 
 house, 
 It also emptied it. 
 However, there he stood 
 Vociferous — a ragged don ! 
 And with his iron pipes laid on, 
 A row to all the neighbourhood. 
 
 In vain were sashes closed 
 And doors, against the persevering 
 
 Stentor, 
 Though brick, and glass, and solid oak 
 
 opposed, 80 
 
 Th' intruding voice would enter. 
 Heedless of ceremonial or decorum. 
 Den, office, parlour, study, and sanc- 
 torum ; 
 Where clients and attorneys, rogues, 
 
 and fools, 
 Ladies, and masters who • attended 
 
 schools. 
 Clerks, agents, all provided with their 
 
 tools. 
 Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and 
 
 stools. 
 With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, 
 
 before 'em — 
 How it did bore 'em ! 
 
 Louder and louder still, 90 
 The fellow sang with horrible good- 
 
 wUl, 
 Curses both loud and deep his sole 
 
 gratuities. 
 From scribes bewilder'd making many 
 a flaw 
 In deeds of law 
 They had to draw ; 
 With dreadful incongruities 
 In posting ledgers, making up accounts 
 To large amounts, 
 Or casting up annuities — 
 Stunn'd by that voice, so loud and 
 hoarse, 100 
 
 Against whose overwhelming force 
 No in-voice stood a chance, of course ! 
 
MORE HULLAH-BALOO 
 
 379 
 
 The Actuary pshaw'd and ' pish'd,' 
 And knit his calculating brows, and 
 
 wish'd 
 The singer ' a bad life ' — a mental 
 
 murther ! 
 The Clerk, resentful of a blot and blun- 
 der, 
 Wish'd the musician further, 
 Poles distant — and no wonder ! 
 For Law and Harmony tend far asun- 
 der — 
 The lady could not keep her temper 
 calm, no 
 
 Because the sinner did not sing a 
 
 psalm — 
 The Fiddler, in the very same position 
 As Hogarth's chafed musician 
 (Such prints require but cursory re- 
 minders) 
 Came and made faces at the wretch 
 
 beneath. 
 And wishing for liis foe between his 
 teeth, 
 (Like all impatient elves 
 That spite themselves) 
 Ground his own grinders. 
 
 But still with unrelenting note, uo 
 Though not a copper came of it, in 
 verity. 
 The horrid fellow with the ragged coat 
 
 And iron throat. 
 Heedless of present honour and pros- 
 perity, 
 Sang like a Poet singing for posterity, 
 
 In penniless reliance — 
 And, sure, the most immortal Man of 
 Rhyme 
 Never set Time 
 More thoroughly at defiance ! 
 
 From room to room, from floor to 
 floor, »3o 
 
 From number One to Twenty-four 
 The Nuisance bellow'd, till all patience 
 lost, 
 Down came Miss Frost, 
 Expostulating at her open door — 
 ' Peace, monster, peace ! 
 Where is the New Police ! 
 
 I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray. 
 Don't stand there bawling, fellow, 
 don't ! 
 You really send my serious thoughts 
 
 astray, 
 Do — there 's a dear good man — do go 
 away.' 140 
 
 Says he, ' I won't ! ' 
 
 The spinster pull'd her door to with a 
 slam. 
 
 That sounded Uke a wooden d n. 
 
 For so some moral people, strictly loth 
 To swear in words, however up, 
 Will crash a curse in setting down a 
 cup. 
 Or through a door post vent a banging 
 
 oath — 
 In fact, this sort of physical transgres- 
 sion 
 Is really no more difficult to trace 
 Than in a given face 150 
 
 A very bad expression. 
 
 However, in she went. 
 
 Leaving the subject of her discontent 
 
 To Mr. Jones's clerk at Number Ten ; 
 
 Who, throwing up the sash, 
 
 With accents rash. 
 
 Thus hail'd the most vociferous of 
 
 men : 
 ' Come, come, I say, old feller, stop 
 
 your chant ! 
 I cannot write a sentence — no one 
 can't ! 
 So just pack up your trumps, 160 
 And stir your stumps — ' 
 Says he, ' I shan't ! ' 
 
 Down went the sash 
 As if devoted to ' eternal smash ' 
 (Another illustration 
 Of acted imprecation), 
 While close at hand, uncomfortably 
 near, 
 The independent voice, so loud and 
 strong. 
 And clanging like a gong, 
 Roar'd out again the everlasting 
 song, «7o 
 
 ' I have a silent sorrow here ! ' 
 
.38o 
 
 MORE HULLAH-BALOO 
 
 The thing was hard to stand ! 
 The Music-master, could not stand 
 it— 
 But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in 
 hand, 
 As savage as a bandit, 
 Made up directly to the tatter'd man, 
 And thus in broken sentences began — 
 But playing first a prelude of grimace. 
 Twisting his features tothestrangest 
 shapes, 
 So that to guess his subject from his 
 face, I 8a 
 
 He meant to give a lecture upon 
 apes — 
 
 ' Com-7-com — I say ! 
 
 You go away ! 
 Into two parts my head you split — 
 My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit, 
 
 When I do play — 
 You have nobis'ness in a place so still ! 
 
 Can you not come another 
 day ? ' 
 
 Says he — ' I will.' 
 
 ' No — no — you scream and bawl ! 1 90 
 
 You must not come at all ! 
 
 You have no rights, by rights, to beg — 
 
 You have not one off-leg — 
 
 You ought to work — you have not 
 
 some complaint — 
 You are not crippled in your back or 
 
 bones — 
 Your voice is strong enough to break 
 
 some stones ' — 
 Says he — ' It ain't ! ' 
 
 ' I say you ought to labour ! 
 You are in a young case. 
 You have not sixty years upon your 
 face, 200 
 
 To come and beg your neighbour, 
 And discompose his music with a noise 
 More worse than twenty boys — 
 Look what a street it is for quiet ! 
 No cart to make a riot, 
 
 No coach, no horses, no postilion. 
 If you will sing, I say, it is not just. 
 To sing so loud.' — Says he, ' I Must ! 
 
 I'm singing for the Million ! ' 
 
 ON A CERTAIN LOCALITY 
 
 Of public changes, good or ill, 
 
 I seldom lead the mooters. 
 But really Constitution Hill 
 
 Should change its name with Shooter's ! 
 
 LAYING DOWN THE LAW 
 
 (on the celebrated PICTURE SO CALLED) 
 
 — — ' I am Sir Oracle, 
 And when 1 ope my lips let no dogf bark.^ 
 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 ' If thou wert bom a Dog, remain so j but if thou wert born a Man, resume thy former shape.'— 
 Arabian Nights. ^ 
 
 A Poodle, Judge-like, with emphatic 
 
 paw. 
 Dogmatically laying down the law, — 
 A batch of canine Counsel round the 
 
 table, 
 Keen-eyed, and sharp of nose, and 
 
 long of jaw. 
 
 At sight, at scent, at giving tongue, 
 right able : — 
 O Edwin Landseer, Esquire, 
 
 and R.A., 
 Thou great Pictorial Esop, say. 
 What is the moral of this painted 
 fable ? 
 
LAYING DOWN THE LAW 
 
 381 
 
 O say, accomplished Artist I 
 Was it thy purpose, by a scene so 
 quizzical,. lo 
 
 To read a wholesome lesson to the 
 Chartist," 
 So over-partial to the means called 
 Physical, 
 Sticks, staves, and swords, and guns, 
 ■ - the tools of treason ? 
 To show, illustrating the better 
 
 course. 
 The very Brutes abandoning Brute 
 Force, 
 The worry and the fight, 
 The bark and bite. 
 In which, Says Dr. Watts, the dogs 
 delight, 
 • And lending shaggy ears to 
 
 Law and Reason, 
 As utter'd in that Court of high 
 antiquity 20 
 
 Where sits the Chancellor, supreme 
 
 as Pope, 
 But works — so let us hope — 
 In equity, not iniquity ? 
 
 Or was it but a speculation 
 On transmigration. 
 How certain of our most distinguish'd 
 Daniels, 
 Interpreters of Law's bewildering 
 book. 
 Would look 
 Transform'd to mastiffs, setters, 
 hounds, and spaniels, 
 (As Bramins in their Hindoo code 
 advance) 30 
 
 With that great lawyer of the Upper 
 
 House 
 Who rules all suits by equitable nous, 
 Become— like vile Armina's spouse— 
 
 A Dog, called Chance ? * 
 Methinks, indeed, I recognise 
 In those deep-set and meditative eyes 
 Engaged in mental puzzle. 
 And that portentous muzzle, 
 A celebrated Judge, too prone to 
 tarry, 39 
 
 To hesitate on devious ins and outs. 
 
 And on preceding doubts to build 
 redoubts 
 That regiments . could not 
 carry — 
 Prolonging even Law's delays, and 
 
 still 
 Putting a skid upon the wheel up- 
 hill,- : ' 
 Meanwhile the weary arid desponding 
 client 
 Seem'd — in the agonies of indeci- 
 sion — 
 In Doubting Castle, with that dread- 
 ful Giant 
 Described in Bunyan's Vision ! 
 
 So slow, indeedjWas justice in its ways. 
 Beset by more than customary 
 clogs, so 
 
 Going to law in those expensive days 
 Was much the same as going to the 
 Dogs ! 
 But, possibly, I err. 
 And that sagacious and judicial Crea- 
 ture, 
 So Chancellor-like in feature, 
 With ears so wig-like, and a cap of fur. 
 Looking as grave, responsible and sage. 
 As if he had the guardianship in fact. 
 Of all poor dogs, or crackt. 
 And puppies under age — 60 
 It may be that the Creature was not 
 meant 
 Any especial Lord to represent, 
 Eldon, or Erskine, Cottenham or 
 
 Thurlow, 
 Or Brougham (more like him whose 
 
 potent jaw 
 Is holding forth the letter of the law). 
 Or Lyndhurst, after the vacation's 
 furlough, 
 Presently sitting in theHouse of Peers, 
 On wool he sometimes wishes in his ears. 
 When touching Corn Laws, Taxes, or 
 Tithe-piggery, 
 He hears a fierce attack, 70 
 And, sitting on his sack, 
 Listens in his great wig to greater 
 Whiggery ! 
 
 I See the story of Sidi Nonman, in the ' Arabian Nights.' 
 
382 
 
 LAYING DOWN THE LAW 
 
 So, possibly, those others, 
 In coats so various, or sleek or 
 rough, 
 Aim not at any of the legal 
 brothers 
 Who wear the silken robe or gown of 
 stuff. 
 Yet who that ever heard or saw 
 The Counsel sitting in that solemn 
 
 Court, 
 Who, having passed the Bar, are safe 
 in port. 
 Or those great Sergeants, learned in 
 the Law, — 8a 
 
 Who but must trace a feature now 
 and then 
 Of those forensic men, 
 As good at finding heirs as any 
 harriers, 
 Renown'd like greyhounds for long 
 
 tales — indeed. 
 The Common Chancery reports to 
 read 
 At worrying the ear as apt as ter- 
 riers, — 
 Good at conveyance as the hairy car- 
 riers 
 That bear our gloves, umbrellas, hats, 
 and sticks. 
 Books, baskets, bones, or bricks. 
 In Deeds of Trust as sure as Tray the 
 trusty, — 90 
 
 Acute at sniffing flaws on legal 
 grounds. 
 
 And lastly — well the catalogue it 
 
 closes ! — 
 Still following their predecessors' 
 
 noses. 
 Through ways however dull or 
 
 dusty,. 
 As fond of hunting precedents, as 
 
 hounds 
 Of running after foxes more than 
 
 musty. 
 
 However slow or fast, 
 Full of urbanity, or supercilious. 
 In temper wild, serene, or atra- 
 bilious. 
 Fluent of tongue, or prone to legal 
 saw, too 
 
 The Dogs have got a Chancellor at last. 
 For Laying down the Law ! 
 And never may the canine race 
 regret it. 
 With whinings and repinings loud or 
 
 deep,-^— 
 Ragged in coat, and shorten'd in their 
 
 keep, 
 Worried by day, and troubled in their 
 sleep, 
 With cares that prey upon the heart 
 and fret it — 
 As human suitors have had cause to 
 weep — 
 For what is Law, unless poor Dogs 
 can get it 
 Dog-cheap ? no 
 
 EPIGRAM: THE SUPERIORITY OF MACHINERY 
 
 A Mechanic his labour will often discax-d 
 
 If the rate of his pay he dislikes ; 
 But a clock — and its case is uncommonly hard 
 
 Will continue to work though it strikes. 
 
383 
 
 A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE 
 
 One day — no matter for the month or year, 
 
 A Calais packet, just come over, 
 And safely moor'd within the pier. 
 
 Began to land her passengers at Dover ; 
 All glad to end a voyage long and rough, 
 And during which. 
 Through roll and pitch, 
 The Ocean-ICing had sickopha.nts enough ! 
 
 Away as fast as they could walk or run. 
 
 Eager for steady rooms and quiet meals, jo 
 
 With bundles, bags, and boxes at their heels. 
 Away the passengers all went, but one, 
 
 A female, who from some mysterious check, 
 
 Still linger'd on the steamer's deck, 
 As if she did not care for land a tittle, 
 For horizontal rooms, and cleanly victual — 
 Or nervously afraid to put 
 Her foot 
 Into an Isle described as ' tight and little.' 
 
 In vain commissioner and touter, 20 
 
 Porter and waiter throng'd about her ; 
 Boring, as such officials only bore — 
 
 In spite of rope and barrow, knot and truck, 
 
 Of plank and ladder, there she stuck, 
 She couldn't, no, she wouldn't go on shore. 
 
 ' But ma'am,' the steward interfered, 
 ' The wessel must be cleared. 
 You mustn't stay aboard, ma'ara, no one don't I 
 It 's quite agin the orders so to do — 
 
 And all the passengers is gone but you.' 3a 
 
 Says she, ' I cannot go ashore and won't ! ' 
 ' You ought to ! ' 
 ' But I can't ! ' 
 ' You must ! ' 
 ' I shan't ! ' 
 
 At last, attracted by the racket, 
 'Twixt gown and jacket, 
 
 The captain came himself, and cap in hand, 
 
 Begg'd very civilly to understand 
 Wherefore the lady could not leave the packet. 40 
 
 ' Why then,' the lady whispered with a shiver, 
 That made the accents quiver, 
 
 ' I've got some foreign silks about me pinn'd, 
 In short so many things, all contraband, 
 To tell the truth I am afraid to land. 
 
 In such a searching wind ! ' 
 
384 
 
 PARTY SPIRIT 
 
 •Why did you not dine,' said a Lord to a Wit, 
 ' With the Whigs, you political sinner ? ' 
 
 ' Why really I meant, but had doubts how the Pit 
 Of my stomach would bear g. Fox Dinner.' 
 
 ■ ETCHING MORALISED 
 
 TO A NOBLE LADY 
 • To point a taorai.''— Johnson. 
 
 Fairest Lady and Noble, for once on a time. 
 Condescend to accept, in the humblest of rhyme, 
 
 And a style more of Gay than of Milton, 
 A few opportune verses design'd to impart 
 Some didactical hints in a Needlework Art, 
 
 Not described by the Countess of Wilton. 
 
 An Art not unknown to the delicate hand 
 Of the fairest and first in this insular land. 
 
 But in Patronage Royal delighting ; 
 And which now your own feminine fantasy wins, lo 
 
 Tho' it scarce seems a lady-like work that begins 
 
 In a scratching and ends in a biting I 
 
 Yet oh ! that the dames of the Scandalous School 
 Would but use the same acid, and sharp-pointed tool, 
 
 That are plied in the said operations — ■ 
 Oh ! would that our Candours on copper would sketch ! 
 For the first of all things iit beginning to etch 
 
 Are — good grounds for our representations. 
 
 Those protective and delicate coatings of wax. 
 
 Which are meant to resist the corrosive attacks 20 
 
 That would ruin the copper completely ; 
 Thin cerements which whoso remembers the Bee 
 So applauded by Watts, the divine LL.D., 
 
 Will be careful to spread very neatly. 
 
 For why ? like some intricate! deed of the law, 
 Should the ground in the process be left with a flaw. 
 
 Aquafortis is far from a joker ; 
 And attacking the part that no coating protects, 
 Will turn out as distressing to all your effects 
 
 As a landlord who puts in a broker. 30 
 
ETCHING MORALISED 385 
 
 Then carefully spread the conservative stuff, 
 Until all the bright metal is cover'd enough, 
 
 To repel a destructive so active ; 
 For in Etching, as well as in Morals, pray note 
 That a little raw spot, or a hole in a coat. 
 
 Your ascetics find vastly attractive. 
 
 Thus the ground being laid, very even and flat. 
 And then smoked with a taper, till black as a hat. 
 
 Still from future disasters to screen it, 
 Just allow me, by way of precaution, to state, 40 
 
 You must hinder the footman from chapging your opiate, 
 
 Nor yet suffer the butler to clean it. 
 
 Nay, the Housemaid, perchance, in her passion to scrub, 
 May suppose the dull metal in want of a rub. 
 
 Like the Shield which Swift's readers remember — 
 Not to mention the chance of some other mishaps, 
 Such as having your copper made up into caps 
 
 To be worn on the First of September. 
 
 But aloof from all damage by Betty or John, 
 
 You secure the veil'd surface, and trace thereupon 50 
 
 The design you conceive the most proper : 
 Yet gently, and not with a needle too keen. 
 Lest it pierce to the wax through the paper between. 
 
 And of course play Old Scratch with the copper. 
 
 So in worldly affairs, the sharp-practising man 
 Is not always the one who succeeds in his plan, 
 
 Witness Shylock's judicial exposure ; 
 Who, as keen as his knife, yet with agony found. 
 That while urging his point he was losing his ground, 
 
 And incurring a fatal disclosure. 6a 
 
 But, perhaps, without tracing at all, you may choose 
 To indulge in some little extempore views. 
 
 Like the older artistical people ; 
 For example, a Corydon playing his pipe, 
 In a Low Country marsh, with a Cow after Cuyp, 
 
 And a Goat skipping over a steeple. 
 
 A wild Deer at 'a rivulet taking a sup. 
 With a couple of Pillars put in to fill up. 
 
 Like the columns of certain diurnals ; 
 Or a very brisk sea, in a very stiff gale, 70 
 
 And a very Dutch boat, with a very big sail — 
 
 Or a bevy of Retzsch's Internals. 
 
 Architectural study — or rich Arabesque — 
 Allegorical dream — or a view picturesque, 
 
 O 
 
386 ETCHING MORALISED 
 
 Near to Naples, or Venice, or Florence ; 
 Or 'as harmless as lambs and as gentle as doves,' 
 A sweet family cluster o£ plump little Loves, 
 
 Like the Children by Reynolds or Lawrence. 
 
 But whatever the subject, your exquisite taste 
 
 Will ensure a design very charming and chaste. So 
 
 Like yourself, full of nature and beauty — 
 Yet besides the gpod points you already reveal, 
 You will need a few others — of well-temper'd steel, 
 
 And especially form'd for the duty. 
 
 For suppose that- the tool be imperfectly set, 
 Over many weak lengths in your line you will fret, 
 
 Like a pupil of Walton and Cotton, 
 Who remains by the brink of the water, agape. 
 While the jack, trout, or barbel, effects its escape 
 
 Thro' the gut or silk line being rotten. 90 
 
 Therefore, let the steel point be set truly and round. 
 That the finest of strokes may be even and sound, 
 
 Flowing glibly where fancy would lead 'em. 
 But alas ! for the needle that fetters the hand. 
 And forbids even sketches of Liberty's land 
 
 To be drawn with the requisite freedom ! 
 
 Oh ! the botches I've seen by a tool of the sort, 
 Rather hitching than etching, and making, in short, 
 
 Such stiff, crabbed, and angular scratches. 
 That the figures seem'd statues or mummies from tombs, 100 
 
 While the trees were as rigid as bundles of brooms. 
 
 And the herbage like bunches of matches ! 
 
 The stiff clouds as if carefully iron'd and starch'd. 
 While a cast-iron bridge, meant for wooden, o'er-arch'd 
 
 Something more like a road than a river. 
 Prythee, who in such characteristics could see 
 Any trace of the beautiful land of the free — 
 
 The Free-Mason — Free-Trader — Free-Liver ! 
 
 But prepared by a hand that is skilful and nice. 
 
 The fine point glides along like a skate on the ice, no 
 
 At the will of the Gentle Designer, 
 Who impelling the needle just presses so_much, 
 That each line of her labour the copper may touch, 
 
 As if done by a penny-a-liner. 
 
 And behold ! how the fast-growing images gleam ! 
 Like the sparkles of gold in a sunshiny stream, 
 
 Till perplex'd by the glittering issue. 
 You repine for a light of a tenderer kind — 
 And in choosing a substance for making a blind, 
 
 Do not sneeze at the paper call'd tissue. uo 
 
ETCHING MORALISED 387 
 
 For, subdued by the sheet so transparent and white, 
 Your design will appear in a soberer light, 
 
 And reveal its defects on inspection. 
 Just as Glory achieved, or political scheme, 
 And some- more of our dazzling performances seem. 
 
 Not so bright on a cooler reflection. 
 
 So the juvenile Poet with ecstasy views 
 
 His first verses, and dreams that the songs of his Muse 
 
 Are as brilliant as Moore's and as tender — 
 Till some critical sheet scans the faulty design, 130 
 
 And alas ! takes the shine out of every line 
 
 That had form'd such a vision of splendour. 
 
 Certain objects, however, may come in your sketch. 
 Which, design'd by a hand unaccustom'd to etch. 
 
 With a luckless result may be branded ; 
 Wherefore add this particular rule to your code, 
 Let all vehicles take the wrong side of the road. 
 
 And man, woman, and child, be left-handed. 
 
 Yet regard not the awkward appearance with doubt, 
 
 But remember how often mere blessings fall out, 140 
 
 That at first seem'd no better than curses ; 
 So, till things take a turn, live in hope, and depend 
 That whatever is wrong will come right in the end, 
 
 And console you for all your reverses. 
 
 But of errors why speak, when for beauty and truth 
 Your free, spirited Etching is worthy, in sooth. 
 
 Of that Club (may all honour betide it !) 
 Which, tho' dealing in copper, by genius and taste. 
 Has accomplish'd a service of plate not disgraced 
 
 By the work of a Goldsmith beside it ! ' 150 
 
 So your sketch superficially dravra on the plate, 
 It becomes you to fix in a permanent state. 
 
 Which involves a precise operation. 
 With a keen biting fluid, which eating its way — 
 As in other professions is common they say — 
 
 Has attain'd an artistical station. 
 
 And it 's, oh ! that some splenetic folks I could name 
 If they must deal in acids would use but the same. 
 
 In such innocent graphical labours ! 
 In the place of the virulent spirit wherewith— 160 
 
 Like the polecat, the weasel, and things of that kith — 
 
 They keep biting the backs of their neighbours ! 
 
 But beforehand, with wax or the shoemaker's pitch, 
 You must build a neat dyke round the margin, in which. 
 
 ' ' The Deserted Village.' Illustrated by the Etching Club. 
 
ETCHING MORALISED 
 
 You may pour the dilute aquafortis. 
 For if raw, like a dram, it will shock you to trace 
 Your design with a horrible froth on its face, 
 
 Like a wretch in articulo mortis. 
 Like a wretch in the pangs that too many endure 
 From the use of strong waters, without any pure, 170 
 
 A vile practice, most sad and improper ! 
 For, from painful examples, this warning is found, 
 That the raw burning spirit will take up the ground. 
 
 In the churchyard, as well as on copper ! 
 But the Acid has duly been lower'd, and bites 
 Only just where the visible metal invites, 
 
 Like a nature inclined to meet troubles ; 
 And behold ! as each slender and glittering line 
 Effervesces, you trace the completed design 
 
 In an elegant bead-work of bubbles ! 180 
 
 And yet constantly secretly eating its way, 
 
 The shrewd acid is making the substance its prey. 
 
 Like some sorrow beyond inquisition. 
 Which is gnawing the heart and the brain all the while 
 That the face is illumed by its cheerfuUest smile. 
 
 And the wit is in bright ebullition. 
 
 But still stealthily feeding, the treacherous stuff 
 Has corroded and deepened some portions enough — 
 
 The pure sky, and the water so placid — 
 And these tenderer tints to defend from attack, 190 
 
 With some turpentine varnish and sooty lamp-black 
 
 You must stop out the ferreting acid. 
 
 But before with the varnishing brush you proceed, 
 Let the plate with cold water be thoroughly freed 
 
 From the other less innocent liquor — 
 After which, on whatever you want to protect, 
 Put a coat that will act to that very effect, 
 
 Like the black one which hangs on the Vicar. 
 
 Then the varnish well dried — urge the biting again, 
 
 But how long at its meal the eau forte may remain, aoo 
 
 Time and practice alone can determine : 
 But of course not so long that the Mountain, and Mill, 
 The rude Bridge, and the Figures, whatever you will, 
 
 Are as black as the spots on your ermine. 
 
 It is true, none the less, that a dark-looking scrap. 
 With a sort of Blackheath, and Black Fgrest, mayhap, 
 
 Is consider'd as rather Rembrandty ; 
 And that very black cattle and very black sheep, 
 A black dog, and a shepherd as black as a sweep. 
 
 Are the pets of some great Dilettante. 210 
 
ETCHING MORALISED 389 
 
 So with certain designers, one needs not to name, 
 All this life is a dark scene of sorrow and shame, 
 
 From our birth to our final adjourning — 
 Yea, this excellent earth and its glories, alack ! 
 What with ravens, palls, cottons, and devils, as black 
 
 As a Warehouse for Family Mourning ! 
 
 But before your own picture arrives at that pitch. 
 
 While the lights are still Ught, and the shadows, though rich. 
 
 More transparent than ebony shutters. 
 Never minding what Black-Arted critics may say, 220 
 
 Stop the biting, and pour the green fluid away, 
 
 As you please, into bottles or gutters. 
 
 Then removing the ground and the wax at a heat. 
 Cleanse the surface with oil, spermaceti or sweet. 
 
 For your hand a performance scarce proper — 
 So some careful professional person secure — 
 For the Laundress will not be a safe amateur — 
 
 To assist you in cleaning the copper. 
 
 And, in truth, 'tis a rather unpleasantish job. 
 
 To be done on a hot German stove, or a hob — 230 
 
 Though as sure of an instant forgetting , 
 
 When — as after the dark clearing-off of a storm — 
 The fair Landscape shines out in a lustre as warm 
 
 As the glow of the sun in its setting ! 
 
 Thus your Etching complete, it remains but to hint, 
 That with certain assistance from paper and print, 
 
 Which the proper Mechanic will settle. 
 You may charm all your Friends — without any sad tale 
 Of such perils and ills as beset Lady Sale — 
 
 With a fine India Proof of your Metal. 240 
 
 A REFLECTION 
 
 ON NEW year's eve 
 
 ' Those Evening Bells — those Evening Bells ! 
 
 How sweet they used to be, and dear ! 
 When full of all that Hope foretells, 
 
 Their voice proclaim 'd the new-born Year ! 
 
 But ah ! much sadder now I feel, 
 To hear that old melodious chime. 
 
 Recalling only how a Peel 
 
 Has tax'd the comings-in of Time I 
 
390 
 SPRING 
 
 A NEW VERSION 
 
 'Ham. The airbitesshrewdly— it is verycold. 
 Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.' — Hamlet. 
 
 ' Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal mildness come ! ' 
 Oh ! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, 
 
 How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum ? 
 There 's no such season. 
 
 The Spring ! I shrink and shudder at her name ! 
 
 For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter ! 
 And suflEer from her blows as if they came 
 
 From Spring the Fighter. 
 
 Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, 
 
 And be her tuneful laureates and upholders. 
 
 Who do not feel as if they had a. Spring 
 Pour'd down their shoulders ! 
 
 Let others eulogise her floral shows, 
 
 From me they cannot win a single stanza, 
 
 I know her blooms are in full blow — ^and so 's 
 The Influenza. 
 
 Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale. 
 
 Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at. 
 
 Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale, 
 Are things I sneeze at ! 
 
 Fair is the vernal , quarter of the year ! 
 
 And fair its early buddings and its blowings — 
 But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear 
 
 With other sowings ! 
 
 For me, I find, when eastern winds are high; 
 
 A frigid, not a genial inspiration ; 
 Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy 
 
 An inflammation. 
 
 Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, 
 To me all vernal luxuries are fables, 
 
 Oh ! where 's the Spring in a rheumatic leg. 
 Stiff as a table's ? 
 
 I limp in agony, — I wheeze and cough ; 
 
 And quake with Ague, that great Agitator ; 
 Nor dream, before July, of leaving off 
 
 My Respirator. 
 
SPRING 
 
 What wonder if in May itself I lack 
 
 A peg for laudatory verse to hang on ? — 
 
 Spring mild and gentle !— yes, as Spring-heeled Jack 
 To those he sprang on. 
 
 In short, whatever panegyrics lie 
 
 In fulsome odes too many to be cited, 
 
 The tenderness of Spring is all my eye. 
 And that is blighted ! 
 
 391 
 
 40 
 
 A FIRST ATTEMPT IN RHYME 
 
 If I were used to writing verse, 
 And had a muse not so perverse, 
 But prompt at Fancy's call to spring 
 And carol like a bird in Spring ; 
 Or like a Bee, in summer time. 
 That hums about a bed of thyme. 
 And gathers honey and delights 
 From ev'ry blossom where it 'lights ; 
 If I, alas !: had such a muse, 
 To touch the Reader or amuse, lo- 
 
 And breathe the true poetic vein, 
 This page should not be fill'd in vain ! 
 But ah ! the pow'r was never mine 
 To dig for gems in Fancy's mine : 
 Or wander over land and main 
 To seek the Fairies' old domain — 
 To watch Apollo while he climbs 
 His throne in oriental climes ; 
 Or mark the ' gradual dusky veil ' 
 Drawn over Tempe's tuneful vale, ao 
 
 In classic lays remember'd long — 
 Such flights to bolder wings belong ; 
 To Bards who on that glorious height, 
 Of sun and song, Parnassus hight. 
 Partake the fire divine that burns, \ 
 In Milton, Pope, and Scottish Burns, | 
 Who sang his native braes and [ 
 burns. j 
 
 For jne a novice strange and new. 
 Who ne'er such inspiration knew. 
 But weave a verse with travail sore, 30 
 Ordain'd to creep and not to soar, 
 A few poor lines alone I write. 
 Fulfilling thus a friendly rite. 
 Not meant to meet the Critic's eye, 
 For oh ! to hope from such as I, 
 For anything that 's fit to read. 
 Were trusting to a broken reed I 
 I St of April, 1840. E. M. G. 
 
 EPIGRAM ON THE CHINESE TREATY 
 
 Our wars are ended — foreign battles cease, — 
 Great Britain owns an universal peace ; 
 And Queen Victoria triumphs over all, 
 Still ' Mistress of herself ' though China fall I 
 
392 
 
 THE SEASON 
 
 Summer 's gone and over ! 
 
 Fogs are falling down ; 
 And with russet tinges 
 
 Autumn 's doing brown. 
 
 Boughs are daily rifled 
 By the gusty thieves, 
 
 And the Book of Nature 
 Getteth short of leaves. 
 
 Round the tops of houses, 
 Swallows, as they flit, 
 
 Give, like yearly tenants. 
 Notices to quit. 
 
 Skies, of fickle temper, 
 
 Weep by turns, and laugh — 
 
 Night and Day together 
 Taking half-and-half. 
 
 So September endeth — 
 Cold, and most perverse — 
 
 But the month that follows 
 Sure will pinch us worse ! 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD 
 
 A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS 
 'Glorious Apollo from on high beheld us.' — Old Song. 
 
 Neighbours — and of Christian creed — 
 
 Met in hate to fight and bleed, 
 
 Upsetting Social Order. 
 
 Surpris'd I turn'd me to the crowd, 
 
 Attracted by that tumult loud. 
 
 And ask'd a gazer, beetle brow'd. 
 
 The cause of such disquiet. 
 
 When lo ! the solemn-looking man, xa 
 
 First shook his head on Burleigh's 
 
 plan, 
 And then, with fluent tongue, began 
 His version of the riot : 
 
 As latterly I chanced to pass 
 A Public House, from which, alas ! 
 The Arms of Oxford dangle ! 
 My ear was startled by a din, 
 That made me tremble in my skin, 
 A dreadful hubbub from within, 
 Of voices in a wrangle — 
 Voices loud, and voices high. 
 With now and then a party-cry, 
 Such as used in times gone by «o 
 
 To scare the British border ; 
 When foes from North and South of 
 
 Tweed — 
 
 A row ! why yes, a pretty row, you might hear from this to Garmany, 
 And what is worse, it 's all got up among the Sons of Harmony, 
 The more 's the shame for them as used to be in time and tune, 
 And all unite in chorus like the singing-birds in June ! 
 Ah ! many a pleasant chant I've heard in passing here along. 
 When Swiveller was President a-knocking down a song ; 
 But Dick 's resign'd the post, you see, and all them shouts and hollers 30 
 Is 'cause two other candidates, some sort of larned scholars. 
 Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious ApoUers ! 
 
 Lord knows their names, I'm sure I don't, no more than any yokel, 
 But I never heard of either as connected with the vocal ; 
 Nay, some do say, although of course the public rumour varies. 
 They've no more warble in 'em than a pair of hen canaries ; 
 Though that might pass if they were dabs at t'other sort of thing, 
 For a man may make a song, you know, although he cannot sing ; 
 
THE UNIVERSITY FEUD 393 
 
 But lork ! it 's many folk's belief they're only good at prosing, 
 
 For Catnach swears he never saw a verse of their composing ; 40 
 
 And when a piece of poetry has stood its public trials, 
 
 If pop'lar, it gets printed off at once in Seven Dials, 
 
 And then about all sorts of streets, by every little monkey, 
 
 It 's chanted like the ' Dog's Meat Man,' or ' If! had a Donkey.' 
 
 Whereas, as Mr. Catnach says, and not a bad judge neither, , 
 
 No ballad worth a ha'penny has ever come from either. 
 
 And him as writ ' Jim Crow,' he says, and got such lots of dollars, 
 
 Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious ApoUers. 
 
 Howsomever that 's the meaning of the squabble that arouses 
 
 This neighbourhood, and quite disturbs all decent Heads of Houses, 50 
 
 Who want to have their dinners and their parties, as is reason, 
 
 In Christian peace and charity according to the season. 
 
 But from Number Thirty-Nine — since this electioneering job, 
 
 Ay, as far as Number Ninety, there 's an everlasting mob ; 
 
 Till the thing is quite a nuisance, for no creature passes by. 
 
 But he gets a card, a pamphlet, or a summut in his eye ; 
 
 And a pretty noise there is ! — what with canvassers and spouters. 
 
 For in course each side is furnish'd with its backers and its touters ; 
 
 And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried. 
 
 You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married ; 60 
 
 Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms. 
 
 If you're dying for a surgeon, you must fetch him from the ' Arms ' : 
 
 While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their scholars. 
 
 To write about a Chairman for the Glorious ApoUers. 
 
 Well, that, sir, is the racket ; and the more the sin and shame 
 Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the same ; 
 Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup, — 
 But they'll be the House's ruin, or the shutting of it up. 
 With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears. 
 While they've damaged many articles and broken lots of squares, 70 
 
 And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and smother, 
 By throwing Morning Heralds, Times, and Standards at each other ; 
 Not to name the ugly language Gemmen oughtn't to repeat. 
 And the names they call each other — for I've heard 'em in the street — 
 Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judases, and Vipers, and what not. 
 For Pasley and h s divers ain't so blowing-up a lot. 
 And then such awful swearing ! — for there 's one of them that cusses 
 Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition 'busses ; 
 For he cusses every member that 's agin him at the poll, 
 As I wouldn't cuss a donkey, tho' it hasn't got a soul ; 80 
 
 And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry, Bob or Jim, 
 To the babby in the cradle, if they don't agree with him. 
 Whereby, altho' as yet they have not took to use their fives. 
 Or, according as the fashion is, to sticking with their knives, 
 I'm bound there'll be some milling yet, and shakings by the collars, 
 Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious ApoUers 1 
 
 03 
 
394 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD 
 
 To be sure it is a pity to be blowing such a squall, 
 
 Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call — 
 
 And as if there wasn't Whigs enough and Tories to fall out, 
 
 Besides politics in plenty for our splits to be about, — 
 
 Why, a cornfield is sufficient, sir, as anybody knows. 
 
 For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking crows — 
 
 Not to name the Maynooth Catholics, and other Irish stews, 
 
 To agitate society and loosen all its screws ; 
 
 And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres, — 
 
 But it 's not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears. 
 
 And as to College larning, my opinion for to broach, 
 
 And I've had it from my cousin, and he driv a college coach, 
 
 And so knows the University, and all as there belongs. 
 
 And he says that Oxford 's famouser for sausages than songs. 
 
 And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant. 
 
 As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want, 
 
 Or other Tavern Melodists I can't just call to miiid — 
 
 But it 's not the classic system for to propagate the kind. 
 
 Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars 
 
 May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious ApoUers ! 
 
 For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice. 
 
 It 's the best among the vocalists I'd honour with the choice ; 
 
 Or a poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch ; 
 
 Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch ; 
 
 'Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful frolics — 
 
 And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and CoUec's. 
 
 But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loud. 
 
 And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd. 
 
 Have brought their jangling voices, and as far as they can compass. 
 
 Have turn'd a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus. 
 
 And him as knows most hymns^ — altho' I can't see how it foUers — 
 
 They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious ApoUers ! 
 
 Well, that 's the row — and who can guess the upshot after all ? 
 Whether Harmony will ever make the ' Arms ' her House of call. 
 Or whether this here mobbing — as some longish heads foretell it. 
 Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it. 
 Howsomever, for the present, there 's no sign of any peace, 
 For the hubbub keeps a-growing, and defies the New Police ; — 
 But if I was in the Vestry, and a leading sort of Man, 
 Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan, 
 Why, I'd settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle, 
 For I'd have another candidate^ — and that 's the Parish Beadle, 
 Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy. 
 And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy ; 
 Whereby — if folks was wise — instead of either of them Scholars, 
 And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers. 
 They'll lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as foUers, 
 Namely — Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious ApoUers ! 
 
395 
 
 ON THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY 
 
 TAKEN BY THE DAGUERREOTYPE 
 
 Yes, there are her features ! her brow, and her hah'. 
 
 And her eyes, with a look so seraphic, 
 Her nose, and her mouth, with the smile that is there. 
 
 Truly caught by the Art Photographic ! 
 
 Yet why should she borrow such aid of the skies. 
 
 When by many a bosom's confession, 
 Her own lovely face, and the light of her eyes, 
 
 Are sufiScient to make an impression ? 
 
 THE LEE SHORE 
 
 Sleet ! and hail ! and thunder ! 
 
 And ye Winds that rave, 
 Till the sands thereunder 
 
 Tinge the sullen wave, — 
 
 Winds that, Uke a Demon, 
 
 Howl with horrid note 
 Round the toiling Seaman 
 
 In his tossing boat — 
 
 From his humble dwelling. 
 
 On the shingly shore. 
 Where the billows swelling 
 
 Keep such hollow roar — 
 
 From that weeping Woman, 
 Seeking with her cries. 
 
 Succour superhuman 
 
 From the frowning skies — 
 
 From the Urchin pining 
 For his Father's knee, 
 
 From the lattice shining 
 Drive him out to sea ! 
 
 Let broad leagues dissever 
 Him from yonder foam — ■ 
 
 O God ! to think Man ever 
 Comes too near his Home. 
 
 EPIGRAM: ON THE DEPRECIATED MONEY 
 
 They may talk of the plugging and sweating 
 
 Of our coinage that 's minted of gold. 
 But to me it produces no fretting 
 
 Of its shortness of weight to be told : 
 All the sov'reigns I'm able to levy 
 
 As to lightness can never be wrong, 
 But must surely be some of the heavy, 
 
 For I never can carry them long. 
 
396 
 
 THE TURTLES 
 
 A FABLE 
 ' The rage of the vulture, the love of the tmtle.'—Bynti. 
 
 One day, it was before a civic dinner. 
 Two London Aldermen, no matter 
 which, 
 Cordwainer, Girdler, Patten-maker, 
 Skinner — 
 But both were florid, corpulent, and 
 rich. 
 And both right fond of festive demoli- 
 tion. 
 Set forth upon a secret expedition. 
 Yet not, as might be fancied from the 
 token, 
 To Pudding Lane, Pie Corner, or 
 
 the Street 
 OfBread,orGrub,oranythingtoeat, 
 Or Drink, as Milk, or Vintry, or Port- 
 soken, lo 
 
 But eastward to that more aquatic 
 quarter. 
 Where folks take water, 
 Or bound on voyages, secure a berth 
 For Antwerp or Ostend, Dundee or 
 
 Perth, 
 Calais, Boulogne, or any Port on earth! 
 
 Jostled and jostling, through the mud, 
 
 Peculiar to the Town of Lud, 
 
 Down narrow streets and crooked 
 
 lanes they dived. 
 
 Past many a gusty avenue, through 
 
 which 19 
 
 Came yellow fog, and smell of pitch, 
 
 From barge, and boat, and dusky 
 
 wharf derived ; 
 With darker fumes, brought eddying 
 by the draught. 
 From loco-smoko-motive craft ; 
 Mingling with scents of butter, cheese, 
 
 and gammons. 
 Tea, coSee, sugar, pickles, rosin, wax. 
 Hides, tallow, Russia-matting, hemp 
 
 and flax. 
 Salt-cod, red -herrings, sprats, and kip- 
 per'd salmons. 
 
 Nuts, oranges, and lemons, 
 
 Each pungent spice, and aromatic 
 gum, 
 
 Gas, pepper, soaplees, brandy, gin, 
 and rum ; 30 
 
 Alamode-beef and greens — the Lon- 
 don soil — 
 
 Glue, coal, tobacco, turpentine and 
 oil, 
 
 Bark.assafoetida, squills, vitriol, hops. 
 
 In short, all whiffs, and sniffs, and 
 puffs, and snuffs. 
 
 From metals, minerals, and dyewood 
 stuffs, 
 
 Fruits, victual, drink, solidities, or 
 slops — 
 
 In flasks, casks, bales, trucks, wag- 
 gons, taverns, shops, 
 
 Boats, lighters, cellars, wharfs, and 
 warehouse-tops. 
 
 That, as we walk upon the river's 
 ridge, 
 Assault the nose — below the 
 bridge. 40 
 
 A walk, however, as tradition tells. 
 That once a poor blind Tobit used to 
 
 choose. 
 Because, incapa;ble of other views. 
 
 He met with 'such a sight of smells.' 
 
 But on, and on, and on, 
 la spite of all unsavoury shocks, 
 Progress the stout Sir Peter and Sir 
 John, 
 Steadily steering ship-like for the 
 
 docks — 
 And now they reach a place the Muse, 
 
 unwilling. 
 Recalls for female slang and vulgar 
 doing, 50 
 
 The famous gate of Billing, 
 That does not lead to cooing — 
 And now they pass that House that is 
 so ugly 
 
THE TURTLES 
 
 397 
 
 A Customer to people looking smug- 
 
 gi'y— 
 
 And now along that fatal Hill they pass 
 Where centuries ago an Oxford bled, 
 And prov'd — too late to save his life, 
 alas ! — 
 That he was ' off his head.' 
 
 At last before a lofty brick-built pile 
 Sir Peter stopp'd, and with mysterious 
 smile 6a 
 
 Tingled a bell that served to bring 
 The wire-drawn genius of the ring, 
 A species of commercial Samuel 
 
 Weller— 
 To whom Sir Peter — tipping him a 
 wink, 
 And something else to drink — 
 ' Show us the cellar.' 
 
 Obsequious bowed the man, and led 
 
 the way 
 Down sundry flights of stairs, where 
 
 windows small, 
 Dappled with mud,let in a dingy ray — 
 A dirty tax, if they were tax'd at all. 70 
 At length they came into a, cellar 
 
 damp, 
 With venerable cobwebs fringed 
 
 around, 
 A cellar of that stamp 
 Which often harbours vintages re- 
 
 nown'd, 
 Thp feudal Hock, or Burgundy the 
 
 courtly, 
 With sherry, brown or golden. 
 Or port, so olden, 
 Bereft of body 'tis no longer portly — 
 But old or otherwise — to be vera- 
 cious — 
 That cobwebb'd cellar, damp, and 
 
 dim, and spacious, 80 
 
 Held nothing crusty — but crus- 
 
 taceous. 
 
 Prone, on the chilly floor, 
 Five splendid Turtles^such a five ! 
 Natives of some West Indian shore. 
 Were flapping all alive. 
 Late landed from the Jolly Planter's 
 yawl — 
 
 A sight whereon the dignitaries fix'd 
 Their eager eyes, with ecstasy unmix'd. 
 Like fathers that behold their infants 
 
 crawl. 
 Enjoying every little kick and 
 
 sprawl. 90 
 
 Nay — far from fatherly the thoughts 
 
 they bred. 
 Poor loggerheads from far Ascension 
 
 ferried ! 
 The Aldermen too plainly wish'd them 
 
 dead 
 And Aldermanbury'd I 
 
 ' There ! ' cried Sir Peter, with an air 
 Triumphant as an ancient victor's, 
 And pointing to the creatures rich and 
 ; rare, 
 ' There 's picters I ' 
 ' Talk of Olympic Games ! They're 
 
 not worth mentioii ; 
 The real prize for wrestling is when 
 Jack, 100 
 
 In Providence or Ascension, 
 Can throw a lively turtle on its back ! ' 
 
 ' Aye ! ' cried Sir John, and with a 
 
 score of nods, 
 Thoughtful of classical symposium, 
 
 ' There 's food for Gods ! 
 There 's nectar ! there 's ambrosium ! 
 There 's food for Roman Emperors to 
 eat — 
 Oh, there had been a treat 
 (Those ancient names will sometimes 
 hobble us) 
 For Helio-gobble-us 1 ' no 
 
 ' There were a feast for Alexander's 
 Feast I 
 
 The real sort — ^none of your mock or 
 spurious ! ' 
 
 And then he mention'd Aldermen de- 
 ceased. 
 And ' Epicurius,' 
 
 And how TertuUian had enjoy'd such 
 foison ; 
 
 And speculated on that verdigrease 
 That isn't poison. 
 
 ' Talk of your Spring, and verdure, 
 and all that I 
 
398 
 
 THE TURTLES 
 
 Give me green fat 1 
 As for your Poets with tJieir groves of 
 myrtles 120 
 
 And billing turtles, 
 Give me, for poetry, them Turtles 
 there, 
 A-billing in a bill of fare ! ' 
 
 ' Of all the things I ever swallow — 
 Good, well-dressed turtle beats them 
 
 hollow — 
 It almost makes me wish, I 
 
 vow. 
 To have two stomachs, like a 
 
 cow ! ' 
 And lo ! as with the cud, an inward 
 
 thrill 
 Upheaved his waistcoat and disturb'd 
 
 his frill, 
 His mouth was oozing and he work'd 
 
 his jaw — 130 
 
 ' I almost think that I could eat one 
 
 raw ! ' 
 
 And thus, as ' inward love breeds out- 
 ward talk,' 
 
 The portly pair continued to discourse ; 
 
 And then^as Gray describes of life's 
 divorce — 
 
 With ' longing lingering look ' pre- 
 pared to walk, — 
 
 Having thro' one delighted sense at 
 
 least, 
 Enjoy 'd a sort of Barmecidal feast. 
 And with prophetic gestures, strange 
 
 to see, 
 Forestall'd the civic Banquet yet to 
 
 be, 
 Its callipash and callipee ! 14a 
 
 A pleasant prospect — but 
 alack ! 
 
 Scarcely each Alderman had tum'd 
 his back, 
 
 When seizing on the moment so pro- 
 pitious. 
 
 And having learn'd that they were so 
 delicious 
 To bite and sup, 
 
 From praises so high-flown and inju- 
 dicious, — 
 And nothing could be more per- 
 nicious ! 
 
 The Turtles fell to work, and ate each 
 other up ! 
 
 MORAL 
 
 Never, from folly or urbanity. 
 Praise people thus profusely to their 
 faces, ISO 
 
 Till quite in love with their own 
 graces. 
 They're eaten up by vanity ! 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 Three traitors, Oxford — Francis — Bean, 
 
 Have missed their wicked aim ; 
 And may all shots against the Queen, 
 
 In future do the same : 
 For why, I mean no turn of wit, 
 
 But seriously insist 
 That if Her Majesty were hit 
 
 No one would be so miss'd. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS UNCOLLECTED 
 POEMS 
 
 (1821-1845) 
 
 TO HOPE 
 
 O ! TAKE, young Seraph, take thy harp, 
 And play to me so cheerily ; 
 For grief is dark, and care is sharp, 
 And life wears on so wearily. 
 O ! take thy harp ! 
 
 Oh ! sing as thou wert wont to do, 
 When, all youth's sunny season long, 
 I sat and listen 'd to thy song, 
 And yet 'twas ever, ever new. — 
 With magic in each heav'n-tun'd 
 string, 10 
 
 The future bliss thy constant theme. 
 Oh then each little woe took wing 
 Away, like phantoms of a dream ; 
 
 As if each sound. 
 
 That flutter'd round, 
 Had floated over Lethe's stream ! 
 
 By all those bright and happy hours 
 We spent in life's sweet eastern bow'rs. 
 Where thouwould'st sit and smile, and 
 
 show, 
 Ere buds were come — where flow'rs 
 
 would blow, 20 
 
 And oft anticipate the rise 
 Of Ufa's warm sun that scal'd the 
 
 skies. 
 By many a story of love and glory. 
 And friendships promis'd oft to me, 
 By all the faith I lent to thee, 
 
 Oh ! take, young Seraph, take thy 
 
 harp, 
 And play to me so cheerily ; 
 For grief is dark, and care is sharp. 
 And life wears on so wearily. 
 
 O I take thy harp I 30 
 
 Perchance the strings will sound less 
 
 clear. 
 That long have lain neglected by 
 In sorrow's misty atmosphere — 
 It ne'er may speak as it hath spoken, 
 Such joyous notes so brisk and high ; 
 But are its golden cords all broken ? 
 Are there not some, though weak and 
 
 low, 
 To play a lullaby to woe ? 
 
 But thou can'st sing of love no more, 
 For Celia show'd that dream was 
 vain — 40 
 
 And many a fancied bliss is o'er. 
 That comes not e'en in dreams again. 
 Alas ! alas ! 
 How pleasures pass, 
 And leave thee now no subject, save 
 The peace and bliss beyond the 
 
 grave ! — 
 Then be thy flight among the skies ; 
 Take, then, Oh ! take the skylark's 
 wing, 
 
400 
 
 TO HOPE 
 
 And leave dull earth, and heav'nward 
 
 rise 
 O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing so 
 On skylark's wing ! 
 
 Another life-spring there adorns 
 Another youth, — without the dread 
 Of cruel care, whose crown of thorns 
 Is here for manhood's aching head. — 
 
 Oh, there are realms of welcome day, 
 A world where tears are wiped away ! 
 Then be thy flight among the skies ; 
 Take then. Oh ! take the skylark's 
 
 wing, 
 And leave dull earth, and heav'nward 
 
 rise 60 
 
 O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing 
 On skylark's wing ! 
 
 ODE TO DR. KITCHENER 
 
 Ye Muses nine inspire 
 And stir up my poetic fire ; 
 Teach my burning soul to speak 
 With a bubble and a squeak ! 
 Of Dr. Kitchener I fain would sing. 
 Till pots, and pans, and mighty kettles 
 ring. 
 
 O culinary Sage ! 
 (I do not mean the herb in use. 
 That always goes along with goose) 
 How have I feasted on thy page : 10 
 ' When like a lobster boil'd, the morn 
 From black to red began to turn,' 
 Till midnight, when I went to bed, 
 And clapped my tewah-diddle ' on my 
 head. 
 
 Who is there cannot tell. 
 Thou lead'st a life of living well ? 
 ' What baron, or squire, or knight of 
 
 the shire. 
 
 Lives half so well as a holy Fry-er ? ' 
 
 In doing well thou must be reckon'd 
 
 The first, and Mrs. Fry the second ; 20 
 
 And twice a Job — for in thy fev'rish 
 
 toils 
 Thou wast all over roasts — as well as 
 boils. 
 
 Thou wast indeed no dunce. 
 To treat thy subjects and thyself at 
 once. 
 Many a hungry poet eats 
 His brains like thee. 
 But few there be 
 Could live so long on their receipts. 
 
 What living soul or sinner 
 Would slight thy invitation to a 
 dinner, 30 
 
 Ought with the Danai'des to dwell. 
 Draw gravy in a cullender and hear, 
 Forever in his ear 
 The pleasant tinkling of thy dinner 
 bell. 
 
 Immortal Kitchener ! thy fame 
 Shall keep itself when Time makes 
 game 
 Of other men's — yea, it shall keep all 
 
 weathers, 
 And thou shalt be upheld by the pen 
 
 feathers. 
 Yea, by the sauce of Michael Kelly, 
 Thy name shall perish never, 40 
 But be magnified for ever — 
 — By all whose eyes are bigger than 
 their belly ! 
 
 Yea, till the world is done — 
 
 — To a turn — and Time puts out the 
 sun. 
 
 Shall live the endless echo of thy 
 name. 
 
 But, as for thy more fleshy frame. 
 
 Ah ! Death's carnivorous teeth will 
 tittle 
 
 Thee out of breath, and eat it for 
 cold victual ; 
 
 But still thy fame shall be among 
 the nations 
 
 Preserv'd to the last course of gene- 
 rations. 50 
 
 ' The doctor's composition for a nightcap. 
 
ODE TO DR. KITCHENER 
 
 401 
 
 Ah me, my soul is touch'd with sor- 
 row 
 To think how flesh must pass away- 
 So mutton, that is warm to- 
 day, 
 
 Is cold and turned to hashes on the 
 morrow ! 
 Farewell ! I would say more, 
 
 but I 
 Have other fish to fry. 
 
 TO A CRITIC 
 
 O CRUEL One how littel dost thou knowe 
 How manye Poetes with Unhappyenesse 
 Thou may'st have slaine ; ere they began to blowe 
 Like to yonge Buddes in theyre firste Sappyenesse I 
 Even as Pinkes from littel Pipinges growe. 
 Great Poetes yet maye come of Singinges small ; 
 Which if an hungrede Worme doth gnawe belowe 
 Fold up theyre stryped leaves and dye withal. 
 Alake, that pleasant Flowfe must fayde and fall 
 Because a Grubbe hath eat into its Head, — 
 That els had growne so fayre and eke soe tal 
 Towards the Heaven and opende forthe and spreade 
 Its blossoms to the Sunne for Men to read 
 In soe bright hues of Lovelinesse indeede ! 
 
 TO CELIA 
 
 Old Fictions say that Love hath eyes. 
 Yet sees, unhappy boy ! with none ; 
 Blind as the night ! — but Fiction lies, 
 For Love doth always see with one. 
 
 To one our graces all unveil. 
 To one our flaws are all exposed ; 
 But when with tenderness we hail, 
 He smiles, and keeps the Critic closed. 
 
 But when he's scorn'd, abused, es- 
 tranged, 
 He opes the eye of evil ken, 10 
 
 And all his angel friends are changed 
 To demons — and are hated then ! 
 
 Yet once it happ'd that, semi-blind. 
 He met thee, on a summer day, 
 And took thee for his mother kind, 
 And frown'd as he was push'd away. 
 
 But still he saw thee shine the same, 
 Though he had op'd his evil eye, 
 And found that nothing but her shame 
 Was left to know his mother by ! zo 
 
 And ever since that morning sun. 
 He thinks of thee ; and blesses Fate 
 That he can look with both, on one 
 Who hath no ugliness to hate. 
 
402 
 
 FARE THEE WELL 
 
 Before our banns be published like a tax, 
 Ask'd on the portals of St. Mary Axe, 
 If thou wilt marry me — then prythee tell — 
 Oh now — or fare thee well I 
 
 Think of old maids of seventy^fourscore. 
 Fourscore old women at the temple's door. 
 Those that can read, and those that learn to spell- 
 Oh now — or fare thee well ! 
 
 Suppose our names a history — suppose 
 Our love forepicked to pieces, like a rose 
 Shed blushing all abroad — my Isabel ! 
 Oh now — or fare thee well ! 
 
 MIDNIGHT 
 
 Unfathomable Night ! how dost thou sweep 
 Over the flooded earth, and darkly hide 
 The mighty city under thy full tide. 
 
 Making a silent palace for old Sleep ; 
 
 Like his own Temple under the hush'd deep, 
 Where all the busy day he doth abide, 
 And, forth at the late dark, outspreadeth wide 
 
 His dusky wings whence the cold waters sweep ! 
 
 How peacefully the living millions lie ! 
 
 Lull'd unto death beneath his poppy spells ; — 
 
 There is no breath — no living stir — no cry — 
 
 No tread of foot — no song — no music-call, — 
 Only the sound of melancholy bells — 
 
 The voice of Time, — Survivor of them all ! 
 
 ON A SLEEPING CHILD 
 
 O, 'tis a touching thing to make one weep — 
 A tender infant with its curtain 'd eye. 
 Breathing as it would neither live nor die. 
 
 With that unmoving countenance of sleep 1 
 
ON A SLEEPING CHILD 403 
 
 As if its silent dream, serene and deep, 
 
 Had lined its slumbers with a still blue sky ; 
 
 So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie. 
 With no more life than roses', just to keep 
 
 The blushes warm and the mild odorous breath : 
 O blossom-boy I so calm is thy repose, 10 
 
 So sweet a compromise of life and death, 
 'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose, 
 
 For Memory to stain their inward leaf, 
 
 Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief. 
 
 Thine eyelids slept so beauteously, I deem'd 
 No eyes would wake more beautiful than they ; 
 Thy glossy cheeks so unimpasslon'd lay, 
 
 I loved their peacefulness, and never dream'd 
 
 Of dimples ; for thy parted lips so seem'd 
 I did not think a smile, could sweetlier play, 
 Nor that so graceful life could charm away 
 
 Thy graceful death, till those blue eyes upbeam'd. 
 Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drown'd, 
 
 And roses bloom more rosily for joy. 
 And odorous silence ripens into sound. 
 
 And fingers move to mirth, — All-beauteous boy ! 
 How dost thou waken into smiles, and prove, 
 If not more lovely, thou art more like Love ! 
 
 SONNET 
 
 WRITTEN IN KEATS'S 'ENDYMION' 
 
 I SAW pale Dian, sitting by the brink 
 
 Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains 
 From cloudy steeps ; and I grew sad to think 
 
 Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains. 
 And he but a hush'd name, that Silence keeps 
 
 In dear remembrance, — lonely, and forlorn. 
 Singing it to herself until she weeps 
 
 Tears that perchance still glisten in the morn ; — 
 And as I mused, in dull imaginings. 
 
 There came a flash of garments, and I knew 
 The awful Muse by her harmonious wings 
 
 Charming the air to music as she flew — 
 Anon there rose an echo through the vale 
 Gave back Endymion in a dream-like tale. 
 
404 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 WRITTEN ON A PICTURE IN THE EXHIBITION, CALLED 
 'the DOUBTFUL SNEEZE' 
 
 The doubtful sneeze ! a failure quite — 
 A winker half, and half a gaper — 
 Alas ! to paint on canvas here 
 What should have been on tissue-pa.per ! 
 
 SONG 
 
 O Lady, leave thy silken thread 
 
 And flowery tapestrie. 
 
 There 's living roses on the bush, 
 
 And blossoms on the tree ; 
 
 Stoop where thou wilt, thy careless 
 
 hand 
 Some random bud will meet ; 
 Thou canst not tread but thou wilt 
 
 find 
 The daisy at thy feet. 
 
 'Tis like the birthday of the world. 
 When earth was born in bloom ; lo 
 The light is made of many dyes, 
 The air is all perfume ; 
 
 There 's crimson buds, and white and 
 
 blue — 
 The very rainbow show'rs 
 Have l^rn'd to blossoms where they 
 
 fell, 
 And- sown thp. earth with flow'rs. 
 
 There 's fairy tulips in the East, 
 The garden of the sun ; 
 The very streams reflect the hues. 
 And blossom as they run : 20 
 
 While morn opes like a crimson rose, 
 Still wet with pearly showers ; 
 Then, lady, leave the silken thread 
 Thou twinest into flow'rs ! 
 
 THE TWO SWANS 
 
 A FAIRY TALE 
 
 Immortal Imogen, crown'd queen above 
 The lilies of thy sex, vouchsafe to hear 
 A fairy dream in honour of true love — 
 True above ills, and frailty, and all fear — • 
 Perchance a shadow of his own career 
 Whose youth was darkly prison'd and long twin'd 
 By serpent-sorrow, till white Love drew near. 
 And sweetly sang him free, and round his mind 
 A bright horizon threw, wherein no grief may wind. 
 
THE TWO SWANS 405 
 
 1 aaw a tower builded on a lake, 10 
 
 Mock'd by its inverse shadow, dark and deep — 
 That seem'd a still intenser night to make, 
 Wherein the quiet waters sunk to sleep,^ — 
 And, whatsoe'er was prison'd in that keep, 
 A monstrous Snake was warden : — round and round 
 In sable ringlets I beheld him creep 
 Blackest amid black shadows, to the ground. 
 Whilst, his enormous head the topmost turret crown'd. 
 
 From whence he shot fierce light against the stars, 
 Making the pale moon paler with affright ; zo 
 
 And with his ruby eye out-threaten'd Mars^ — 
 That blazed in the mid-heavens, hot and bright — 
 Nor slept, nor wink'd, but with a steadfast spite . 
 Watch'd their wan looks and tremblings in the skies ; 
 And that he might not slumber in the night, 
 The curtain-lids were pluck'd from his large eyes, 
 So he might never drowze, but watch his secret prize. 
 
 Prince or princess in dismal durance pent. 
 Victims of old Enchantment's love or hate. 
 
 Their lives must all in painful sighs be spent, 30 
 
 Watching the lonely waters soon and late, 
 And clouds that pass and leave them to their fate, 
 Or company their grief with heavy tears : — 
 Meanwhile that Hope can spy no golden gate 
 For sweet escapement, but in darksome f ears' 
 They weep and pine away as if immortal years. 
 
 No gentle bird with gold upon its wing 
 Will perch upon the grate — the gentle bird 
 Is safe in leafy dell, and will not bring 
 
 Freedom's sweet keyrnote and commission-word 40 
 
 Learn'd of a fairy's lips, fqr-pity stirr'd — 
 Lest while he trembling sings, untimely guest ! 
 Watch'd by that cruel snake and darkly heard. 
 He leave a widow on her lonely nest, 
 To press in silent grief the darlings of her breast. 
 
 No gallant knight, adventurous, in his bark, 
 Will seek the fruitful perils of the place, 
 To rouse with dipping oar the waters dark 
 That bear that serpent-image on their face. 
 
 And Love, brave Love ! though he attempt the base, 50 
 
 Nerved to his loyal death, he may not win 
 His captive lady from the strict embrace 
 Of that foul serpent, clasping her within 
 His sable folds— like Eve enthrall'd by the old Sin. 
 
4o6 THE TWO SWANS 
 
 But there is none — no knight in panoply, 
 Nor Love, intrench'd in his strong steely coat : 
 No little speck — no sail — no helper nigh, 
 No sign — no whispering — no plash of boat : — 
 The distant shores show dimly and remote. 
 
 Made of a deeper mist, — serene and grey, — 60 
 
 And slow and mute the cloudy shadows float 
 Over the gloomy wave, and pass away, 
 Chased by the silver beams that on their marges play. 
 
 And bright and silvery the willows sleep 
 Over the shady verge — no mad winds tease 
 Their hoary heads ; but quietly they weep 
 Their sprinkling leaves' — half fountains and half trees : 
 There lilies be — and fairer than all these, 
 A solitary Swan her breast of snow 
 
 Launches against the wave that seems to freeze 70 
 
 Into a chaste reflection, still below. 
 Twin-shadow of herself wherever she may go. 
 
 And forth she paddles in the very noon 
 Of solemn midnight, like an elfin thing 
 Charm 'd into being by the argent moon — 
 Whose silver light for love of her fair wing 
 Goes with her in the shade, still worshipping 
 Her dainty plumage : — all around her grew 
 A radiant circlet, like a fairy ring ; 
 
 And all behind, a tiny little clue 80 
 
 Of light to guide her back across the waters blue. 
 
 And sure she is no meaner than a fay, 
 Redeem'd from sleepy death, for beauty's sake, 
 By old ordainment : — silent as she lay, 
 Touch'd by a moonlight wand I saw her wake, 
 And cut her leafy slough, and so forsake 
 The verdant prison of her lily peers, 
 That slept amidst the stars upon the lake — 
 A breathing shape — restored to human fears. 
 And new-born love and grief — self-conscious of her tears. 90 
 
 And now she clasps her wings around her heart, 
 And near that lonely isle begins to glide 
 Pale as her fears, and ofttimes with a start 
 Turns her impatient head from side to side 
 In universal terrors — all too wide 
 To watch ; and often to that marble keep 
 Upturns her pearly eyes, as if she spied 
 Some foe, and crouches in the shadows steep 
 That in the gloomy wave go diving fathoms deep. 
 
THE TW© SWANS 407 
 
 And well she may, to spy that fearful thing 100 
 
 All down the dusky walls in circlets wound, 
 Alas I for what rare prize, with many a ring 
 Girding the marble casket round and round ? 
 His folded tail, lost in the gloom profound. 
 Terribly darkeneth the rocky base ; 
 But on the top his monstrous head is crown 'd 
 With prickly spears, and on his doubtful face 
 Gleam his unwearied eyes, red watchers of the place. 
 
 Alas ! of the hot fires that nightly fall, 
 
 No one will scorch him in those orbs of spite, no 
 
 So he may never see beneath the wall 
 That timid little creature, all too bright. 
 That stretches her fair neck, slender and white. 
 Invoking the pale moon, and vainly tries 
 Her throbbing throat, as if to charm the night 
 With song — but, hush — it perishes in sighs. 
 And there will be no dirge sad-swelling though she dies! 
 
 She droops — she sinks — she leans upon the lake, 
 Fainting again into a lifeless flower ; 
 
 But soon the chilly springs anoint and wake no 
 
 Her spirit from its death, and with new power 
 She sheds her stifled sorrows in a shower 
 Of tender song, timed to her falling tears — 
 That wins the shady summit of that tower. 
 And, trembling all the sweeter for its fears. 
 Fills with imploring moan that cruel monster's ears. 
 
 And, lo ! the scaly beast is all deprest. 
 Subdued like Argus by the might of sound — 
 What time Apollo his sweet lute addrest 
 
 To magic converse with the air, and bound 130 
 
 The many monster eyes, all slumber-drown'd : — 
 So on the turret-top that watchful snake 
 Pillows his giant head, and lists profound. 
 As if his wrathful spite would never wake, 
 Charm'd into sudden sleep for Love and Beauty's sake ! 
 
 His prickly crest lies prone upon his crown. 
 And thirsty lip from lip disparted flies. 
 To drink that dainty flood of music down — 
 His scaly throat is "big with pent-up sighs — 
 And whilst his hollow ear entranced lies, 140 
 
 His looks for envy of the charmed sense 
 Are fain to listen, till his steadfast eyes. 
 Stung into pain by their own impotence. 
 Distil enormous tears into the lake immense. 
 
4o8 THE TWO SWANS 
 
 Oh, tuneful swan ! oh, melancholy bird ! 
 Sweet was that midnight miracle oi song, 
 Rich with ripe sorrow, needful of no word 
 To tell of pain, and love, and love's deep wrong — 
 Hinting a piteous tale — perchance how long 
 Thy unknown tears were mingled with the lake, 150 
 
 What time disguised thy leafy mates among — 
 And no eye knew what human love and ache 
 Dwelt in those dewy leaves, and heart so nigh to break. 
 
 Therefore no poet will ungently touch 
 The water-lily, on whose eyelids dew 
 Trembles like tears ; but ever hold it such 
 As human pain may wander through and through, 
 Turning the pale leaf paler in its hue — 
 Wherein life dwells, transfigured, not entomb'd 
 By magic spells. Alas ! who ever knew j6o 
 
 Sorrow in all its shapes, leafy and plumed. 
 Or in gross husks of brutes eternally inhumed ? 
 
 And now the winged song has scaled the height 
 Of that dark dwelling, builded for despair. 
 And soon a little casement flashing bright 
 Widens self -open 'd into the cool air — 
 That music like a bird may enter there 
 And soothe the captive in his stony cage ; 
 For there is nought of grief, or painful care. 
 But plaintive song may happily engage 170 
 
 From sense of its own ill, and tenderly assuage. 
 
 And forth into the light, small and remote, 
 A creature, like the fair son of a king, 
 Draws to the lattice in his jewell'd coat 
 Against the silver moonlight glistening. 
 And leans upon his white hand listening 
 To that sweet music that with tenderer tone 
 Salutes him, wondering what kindly thing 
 Is come to soothe him with so tuneful moan, 
 Singing beneath the walls as if for him alone ! 180 
 
 And while he listens, the mysterious song. 
 Woven with timid particles of speech. 
 Twines into passionate words that grieve along 
 The melancholy notes, and softly teach 
 The secrets of true love, — that trembling reach 
 His earnest ear, and through the shadows dun 
 He missions like replies, and each to each 
 Their silver voices mingle into one. 
 Like blended streams that make one music as they run. 
 
THE TWO SWANS 409 
 
 ' Ah Love ! my hope is swooning in my heart, — 19a 
 
 Ay, sweet! my cage is strong and hung full high- 
 Alas 1 our lips are held so far apart. 
 Thy words come faint, — they have so far to fly ! — 
 If I may only shun that serpent-eye, — 
 Ah me ! that serpent-eye doth never sleep ; — 
 Then nearer thee, Love's martyr, I will die ! — 
 Alas, alas ! that word has made me weep I 
 For pity's sake remain safe in thy marble keep ! 
 
 ' My marble keep ! it is my maft)le tomb ! — 
 Nay, sweet ! but thou hast there thy living breath — 200 
 
 Aye to expend in sighs for this hard doom ; — 
 But I will come to thee and sing beneath. 
 And nightly so beguile this serpent wreath ; — 
 Nay, I will find a path from these despairs.— 
 Ah, needs then thou must tread the back of deatli. 
 Making his stony ribs thy stony stairs. — 
 Behold his ruby eye, how fearfully it glares ! ' 
 
 Full sudden at these, words, the princely youth 
 Leaps on the scaly back that slumbers, still 
 Unconscious of his foot, yet not for ruth, aro 
 
 But numb'd to dulness by the fairy skill 
 Of that sweet music (all more wild and shrill 
 For intense fear) that charm 'd him as he lay — 
 Meanwhile the lover nerves his desperate will, 
 Held some short throbs by natural dismay, 
 Then, down, down the serpent-track begins his darksome way. 
 
 Now dimly seen — now toiling out of sight, 
 Eclipsed and cover'd by the envious wall ; 
 Now fair and spangled in the sudden light. 
 
 And clinging with wide arms for fear of fall : 220 
 
 Now dark and shelter'd by a kindly pall 
 Of dusky shadow from his wakeful foe ; 
 Slowly he winds adown — dimly and small, 
 Watch'd by the gentle Swan that sings below, 
 Her hope increasing, still, the larger he doth grow. 
 
 But nine times nine the Serpent folds embrace 
 The marble walls about — which he must tread 
 Before his anxious foot may touch the base : 
 Long is the dreary path, and must be sped I 
 But Love, that holds the mastery of dread, 233 
 
 Braces his spirit, and with constant toil 
 He wins his way, and now, with arms outspread. 
 Impatient plunges from the last long coil : 
 So may all gentle Love ungentle Malice foil ! 
 
410 THE TWO SWANS 
 
 The song is hush'd, the charm is all complete, 
 And two fair Swans are swimming on the lake : 
 But scarce their tender bills have time to meet, 
 When fiercely drops adown that cruel Snake — 
 His steely scales a fearful rustling make, 
 
 Like autumn leaves that tremble and foretell 240 
 
 The sable storm ; — the plumy lovers quake — 
 And feel the troubled waters pant and swell, 
 Heaved by the giant bulk of their pursuer fell. 
 
 His jaws, wide yawning like the gates of Death, 
 Hiss horrible pursuit — his red eyes glare 
 The waters into blood — his eager breath 
 Grows hot upon their' plumes : — now, minstrel fair ! 
 She drops her ring into the waves, and there 
 It widens all around, a fairy ring 
 
 Wrought of the silver light — the fearful pair 230 
 
 Swim in the very midst, and pant and cling 
 The closer for their fears, and tremble wing to wing. 
 
 Bending their course over the pale grey lake. 
 Against the pallid East, wherein light play'd 
 In tender flushes, still the baffled Snake 
 Circled them round continually, and bay'd 
 Hoarsely and loud, forbidden to invade 
 The sanctuary ring — his sable mail 
 RoU'd darkly through the flood, and writhed and made 
 A shining track over the waters pale, z6o 
 
 Lash'd into boiling foam by his enormous tail. 
 
 And so they sail'd into the distance dim. 
 Into the very distance — small and white. 
 Like snowy blossoms of the spring that swim 
 Over the brooklets — followed by the spite 
 Of that huge serpent, that with wild affright 
 Worried them on their course, and sore annoy, 
 Till on the grassy marge I saw them 'light. 
 And change, anon, a gentle girl and boy. 
 Locked in embrace of sweet unutterable joy ! s7o 
 
 Then came the Morn, and with her pearly showers 
 Wept on them, like a mother, in whose eyes 
 Tears are no grief ; and from his rosy bowers 
 The Oriental sun began to rise. 
 Chasing the darksome shadows from the skies ; 
 Wherewith that sable Serpent far away 
 Fled, like a part of night — delicious sighs 
 From waking blossoms purified the day. 
 And little birds were singing sweetly from each spray. 
 
411 
 
 ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY' 
 
 Ah me ! those old familiar bounds ! 
 That classic house, those classic 
 grounds, 
 
 My pensive thought recalls ! 
 What tender urchins now confine, 
 What little captives now repine, 
 
 Within yon irksome walls ? 
 
 Ay, that 's the very house ! I know 
 Its ugly windows, ten a-row 1 
 
 Its chimneys in the rear ! 
 And there 's the iron rod so high, lo 
 That drew the thunder from the sky. 
 
 And turn'd our table-beer ! 
 
 There I was birch'd! there I was bred! 
 There like a little Adam fed 
 
 From Learning's woeful tree ! 
 The weary tasks I used to con ! — 
 The hopeless leaves I wept upon ! — 
 
 Most fruitless leaves to me ! — ' 
 
 The summon'd class l^the awful 
 
 bow ! — 
 I wonder who is master now 20 
 
 And wholesome anguish sheds ! 
 How many ushers now employs, 
 How many maids to see the boys 
 
 Have nothing in their heads ! 
 
 And Mrs. S*** ?— Doth she abet 
 (Like Pallas in the parlour) yet 
 
 Some favour'd two or three, — 
 The little Crichtons of the hour, 
 Her muffin-medals that devour, 
 
 And swill her prize — bohea ? 30 
 
 Ay, there 's the play-ground ! there 's 
 
 the lime 
 Beneath whose shade in summer's 
 
 prime 
 So wildly I have read ! — 
 Who sits there now, and skims the 
 
 cream 
 Of young Romance, and weaves a 
 
 dream 
 Of Love and Cottage-bread ? 
 
 Who struts the Randall of the walk ? 
 Who models tiny heads in chalk ? 
 
 Who scoops the light canoe ? 
 What early genius buds apace ? 40 
 Where 's Poynter ? Harris ? Bowers ? 
 Chase ? 
 
 Hal Baylis ? blithe Carew ? 
 
 Alack ! they're gone — a thousand 
 
 ways ! 
 And some are serving in ^ the Greys,' 
 
 And some have perish'd young ! — 
 Jack Harris weds his second wife ; 
 Hal Baylis drives the wane of life ; 
 
 And blithe Carew — is hung ! 
 
 Grave Bowers teaches ABC 
 
 To savages at Owhyee ; 50 
 
 Poor Chase is with the worms ! — 
 AH, all are gone — the olden breed ! — 
 New crops of mushroom boys succeed, 
 
 ' And push us from our forms ! ' 
 
 Lo ! where the scramble forth, and 
 
 shout, 
 And leap, and skip, and mob about, 
 
 At play where we have play'd ! 
 Some hop, some run (some fall), some 
 
 twine 
 Their crony arms ; some in the shine, 
 And some are in the shade ! 60 
 
 Lo ! there what mix'd conditions run ! 
 The orphan lad ; the widow's son ; 
 • And Fortune's favour'd care — 
 The wealthy-born, for whom she hath 
 Mac-Adamized the future path — 
 The Nabob's pamper'd heir ! 
 
 Some brightly starr'd — some evil 
 
 born, — 
 For honour some, and some for 
 
 scorn,— 
 For fair or foul renown ! 
 Good, bad, indiff'rent — none may 
 
 lack ! 70 
 
 Look, here 's a. White, and there 's 
 
 a Black ! 
 And there 's a Creole brown 1 
 
 ' No connexion with any other ode. 
 
412 ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY 
 
 Some laugh and sing, some mope and 
 
 weep, 
 And wish their frugal sires would keep 
 
 Their only sons at home ; — 
 Some tease the future tense, and plan 
 The full-grown doings of the man. 
 
 And pant for years to come ! 
 
 A foolish wish ! There 's one at 
 
 hoop; 
 And four at fives ! and five who 
 stoop 80 
 
 The marble taw to speed ! 
 And one that curvets in and out. 
 Reining his fellow Cob about, — 
 Would I were in his steed •! 
 
 Yet he would gladly halt and drop 
 That boyish harness ofif, to swop 
 
 With this world's heavy van — 
 To toil, to tug. O little fool ! 
 While thou canst be z. horse at school 
 
 To wish to be a man ! 90 
 
 Perchance thou deein'st it were a 
 
 thing 
 To wear a crown,-^to be a king ! 
 
 And sleep on regal down ! 
 Alas ! thou know'st not kingly cares ; 
 Far happier is thy head that wears 
 
 That hat without a crown ! 
 
 And dost thou think that years acquire 
 New added joys ? Dost think thy sire 
 
 More happy than his son ? 
 That manhood's mirth ? — Oh, go thy 
 ways 100 
 
 To Drury Lane when plays. 
 
 And see how forced our fun ! 
 
 Thy taws are brave ! — thy tops are 
 
 rare ! — 
 Our tops are spun with coils of care. 
 
 Our dumps axe: no delight ! — 
 The Elgin marbles are but tame. 
 And 'tis at best a sorry game 
 
 To fly the Muse's kite ! 
 
 Our hearts are dough, our heels are 
 
 lead. 
 Our topmost joys fall dull and dead 110 
 
 Like balls with no rebound ! 
 And often with a faded eye 
 We look behind, and send a sigh 
 
 Towards that merry ground ! 
 
 Then be contented. Thou hast got 
 The most of heaven in thy young lot ; 
 
 There 's sky-blue in thy cup ! 
 Thou'ltfindthyManhoodall too fast — 
 Soon come, soon gone ! and Age at 
 last 
 
 A sorry breaking-up ! 120 
 
 ADDRESS TO MR. CROSS, OF EXETER 'CHANGE 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF THE ELEPHANT 
 *'Tis Greece^ but living Greece no more.' — Giaour. 
 
 Oh, Mr. Cross ! 
 Permit a sorry stranger to draw near, 
 
 And shed a tear 
 (I've shed my shilling) for thy recent 
 loss ! 
 
 I've been a visitor, 
 Of old, a sort of a Buffon inquisitor 
 Of thy menagerie — and knew the 
 beast 
 
 That is deceased ! — 
 
 I was the Damon of the gentle giant, 
 And oft have been, 10 
 
 Like Mr. Kean, 
 Tenderly fondled by his trunk com- 
 pliant ; 
 Whenever I approach'd, the kindly 
 
 brute 
 Flapp'd his prodigious ears, and bent 
 his knees, — 
 It makes me freeze 
 
ADDRESS TO MR. CROSS, OF EXETER 'CHANGE 413 
 
 To think of it ! — No chums could bet- 
 ter suit, 
 
 Exchanging grateful looks for grateful 
 fruit, — 
 
 For so our former dearness was begun. 
 
 I bribed him with an apple, and be- 
 guiled 1 9 
 
 The beast of his afiection like a child ; 
 
 And well he loved me till his life was 
 done 
 (Except when he was wild) : 
 
 It makes me blush for human friends 
 — but none 
 
 I have so truly kept or cheaply won ! 
 
 Here is his pen ! — 
 The casket, — but the jewel is away ! — 
 The den is rifled of its denizen — 
 
 Ah, well a day ! 
 This fresh free air breathes nothing of 
 
 his grossness. 
 And sets me sighing, even for its close- 
 ness. 30 
 This light one-storey. 
 Where, like a cloud, I used to feast 
 
 ' my eyes on 
 
 The grandeurof his Titan-like horizon, 
 Tells a dark tale of its departed glory .- 
 The very beasts lament the change, 
 like me ; 
 The shaggy Bison 
 Leaneth his head dejected on his knee! 
 Th' Hyaena's laugh is hush'd, and 
 
 Monkey's pout. 
 The Wild Cat frets in a complaining 
 
 whine, 
 The Panther paces restlessly a.bout, 40 
 
 To walk her sorrow out ; 
 The Lions in a deeper bass repine, — 
 The Kangauoo wrings its sorry short 
 fore paws, 
 Shrieks come from the Ma- 
 caws ; 
 The old bald Vulture shakes his naked 
 head, 
 And piheth for the dead, 
 The Boa writhes into a double knot, 
 The Keeper groans 
 Whilst sawing bones, 49 
 And looks askance at the deserted spot- 
 
 Brutal and rational lament his loss. 
 The flower of thy beastly family ! 
 
 Poor Mrs. Cross 
 Sheds frequent tears into her daily 
 tea. 
 
 And weakens her Bohea ! 
 
 Oh Mr. Cross, how little it gives birth 
 To grief, when human greatness goes 
 to earth ; 
 How few lament for Czars ! — 
 But oh the universal heart o'erflow'd 
 At his high mass, 60 
 
 Lighted by gas. 
 When, like Mark Antony, the keeper 
 show'd 
 The Elephantine scars ! — 
 Reporters' eyes 
 Were of an egg-like size. 
 Men that had never wept for murder'd 
 
 Marrs ! 
 Hard-hearted editors, with iron faces 
 Their sluices all unclosed, — 
 And discomposed 
 Compositors went fretting to their 
 cases ! — 70 
 
 That grief has left its traces : 
 The poor old Beef-eater has gone much 
 greyer 
 With sheer regret. 
 And the Gazette 
 Seems the least trouble of the beast's 
 Purveyor ! 
 
 And I too weep ! — A dozen of great 
 
 men 
 I could have spared without a single 
 
 tear ; 
 But then 
 They are renewable from year to 
 
 year! 
 Fresh Gents would rise though Gent 
 
 resign'd the pen ; So 
 
 I should not wholly 
 Despair for six months of another 
 
 Nor, though F********* lay on his 
 small bier. 
 Be melancholy, — 
 But when will such an Elephant 
 appear ! 
 
414 ADDRESS TO MR. CROSS, OF EXETER 'CHANGE 
 
 Though Penley were destroy'd at 
 Drury Lane, 
 His like might come again ; 
 Fate might supply 
 A second Powell, if the first should die ; 
 Another Bennet, if the sire were 
 snatch'd ; 90 
 
 Barnes — might be match'd ; 
 And Time .fill up the gap 
 Were Parsloe laid upon the green 
 
 earth's lap, 
 Ev'n Clareraont might be equall'd — 
 
 I could hope 
 (AUhumau greafnessis, alas, so puny!) 
 For other Egertons — another Pope, 
 But not another Chunee ! 
 
 Well ! he is dead ! 
 And there 's a gap in Nature of eleven 
 
 Feet high by seven — 100 
 Five living tons!— and I remain — nine 
 stone 
 
 Of skin and bone I 
 
 grave s 
 
 It is enough to make me shake my 
 head 
 And dream of the 
 
 brink — 
 'Tis worse to think 
 How like the Beast's the sorry life I've 
 led!— 
 A sort of show 
 Of my poor public self and my 
 sagacity, 
 To profit the rapacity 109 
 Of certain folks in Paternoster Row, 
 A slavish toil to win an upper storey — 
 
 And a hard glory 
 Of wooden beams about my weary 
 brow ! 
 Oh, Mr. C. ! 
 If ever you behold me twirl my 
 
 pen 
 To earn a public supper, that is, eat 
 
 In the bare street, — 
 Or turn about their literary den — 
 Shoot me ! 
 
 [IN MEMORIAM] 
 
 Little eyes that scarce did see. 
 Little lips that never smiled ; 
 Alas ! my little dear dead child. 
 Death is thy father, and not me, 
 I but embraced thee, soon as he. 
 
 ODE TO THE LATE LORD MAYOR 
 
 ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS ' VISIT TO OXFORD '1 
 
 'Now, Night descending, the proud scene is o'er 
 But lives in Settle's numbers one day more.' * 
 
 Pope— On the Lord MayQr's Show. 
 O Worthy Mayor !— I mean to say Ex-Mayor ! 
 Chief Luddite of the ancient town of Lud ! 
 
 Incumbent of the City's easy chair ! 
 
 Conservator of Thames from mud to mud ! 
 Great river-bank director I 
 And dam inspector ! . 
 Great guardian of small sprats that swim the flood ! 
 
ODE TO THE LATE LORD MAYOR 415 
 
 Lord of the scarlet gown and furry cap ! 
 
 King of Mogg's map ! 
 Keeper of Gates that long have ' gone their gait ! ' >o 
 
 Warder of London stone and London log ! 
 Thou first and greatest of the civic great, 
 
 Magog or Gog ! — 
 
 Honorable Ven — 
 (Forgive this little liberty between us), 
 Augusta's first Augustus !■ — Friend of men 
 
 Who wield the pen ! 
 
 Dillon's Maecenas ! 
 Patron of learning where she ne'er did dwell. 
 Where literature seldom finds abettors, 20 
 
 Where few — except the postman and his bell — 
 
 Encourage the bell-letters I — 
 Well hast thou done. Right Honorable Sir — 
 Seeing that years are such devouring ogresses, 
 And thou hast made some little journeying stir, — 
 To get a Nichols to record thy Progresses ! 
 
 Wordsworth once wrote a trifle of the sort ; 
 
 But for diversion, 
 For truth — for nature — everything in short — 
 I own I do prefer thy own ' Excursion.' 30 
 
 The stately story 
 
 Of Oxford glory — 
 The Thames romance — yet nothmg of a fiction — 
 Like thine own stream it flows along the page — 
 
 ' Strong, without rage,' 
 In diction worthy of thy jurisdiction ! 
 To future ages thou wilt seem to be 
 
 A second Parry ; 
 
 For thou didst carry 
 Thy navigation to a fellow crisis. 40 
 
 He penetrated to a Frozen Sea, 
 And thou — to where the Thames is turned to Isis I ' 
 
 1 like thy setting out ! 
 
 Thy coachman and thy coachmaid boxed together ! ^ 
 I like thy Jarvey's serious face-^in doubt 
 Of ' four fine animals ' — no Cobbetts either ! " 
 1 like the slow state pace — the pace allowed 
 The best for dignity * — and for a crowd, 
 
 ^ The Chaplain doubts the correctness of the Thames being turned into the Isis at Oxford ; of 
 course he is right— according to the course of the river, it must be the'Isis that is turned into the 
 Thames, 
 
 ^ 'As soon as the female attendant of the Lady Mayoress had taken her seat, dressed with 
 becoming neatness, at the side of the. well-looking coachman, the carriage drove away,'^ Visit 
 
 ^ * The coachman^s countenance was reserved and thoughtful, indicating full consciousness of the 
 test by which his equestrian skill would this day be tried, — Vi'si/. 
 
 ^ ' The carriage drove away ; not, however, with that violent and extreme rapidity which rather 
 
4i6 ODE TO THE LATE LORD MAYOR 
 
 And very July weather, 
 So hot that it let off the Hounslow powder ! ' 50 
 
 I like the She-Mayor's proffer of a seat , 
 To poor Miss Magnay, fried to a white heat " ; 
 'Tis well it didn't chance to be Miss Crowder ! 
 1 like the steeples with their weathercocks on ; 
 Discerned about the hour of three, p.m. ; 
 I like thy party's entrance into Oxon, 
 For oxen soon to enter into them ! 
 I like the ensuing banquet better far. 
 Although an act of cruelty began it ; — 
 
 For why — before the dinner at the Star — 60 
 
 Why was the poor Town-clerk sent off to plan it 7 
 
 I like your learned rambles not amiss, 
 
 Especially at Bodley's, where ye tarried 
 
 The longest — doubtless because Atkins carried 
 
 Letters (of course from Ignorance) to Bliss ! ' 
 
 The other Halls were scrambled through more hastily ; 
 
 But I like this — 
 I like the Aldermen who stopped to drink 
 Of Maudlin's ' classic water ' very tastily *, 
 
 Although I think — what I am loth to think — 70 
 
 Except to Dillon, it has proved no Castaly ! 
 
 I like to find thee finally afloat ; 
 
 I like thy being barged and Water-Bailiff'd, 
 
 Who gave thee » lift 
 To thy state-galley in his own state-boat. 
 I like thy small sixpennyworths of largess 
 Thrown to the urchins at, the City's charges ; 
 I like the sun upon thy breezy fanners, 
 Ten splendid scarlet silken stately banners ! 
 Thy gilded bark shines out quite transcendental ! 80 
 
 I like dear Dillon still. 
 
 Who quotes from ' Cooper's Hill,' 
 And Birch, the cookly Birch, grown sentimental ° ; 
 I like to note his civic mind expanding 
 And quoting Denham, in the watery dock 
 
 Of Iffley lock — 
 Plainly no Locke upon the Understanding ! 
 
 astounds than jrratifies the beholders ; but at that steady and majestic pace, which is always an 
 indication of real greatness.* 
 
 ' ^ On approaching Hounslow, there was seen at some distance a hugfe volume of dark smoke. 
 The Chaplain thought it was only a blowing up for rain, but it tumeaout to be the spontaneous 
 combustion of a powder-mill.* 
 
 ^ *The Lady Mayoress, observing that they (the Magnays) must be somewhat crowded in the 
 chaise, invited Miss Magnay to take the fourth seat.' 
 
 3 'The Rev. Dr. Bliss, of St. John's College, the Registrar of the University, to whom 
 Mr. Alderman Atkins had letters of introduction. —Page 32. 
 
 * ' The buttery was next visited, in which some of the party tasted tl>e classic water.' — Page 57. 
 
 ' Mr. Alderman Birch here called to the recollection of the party the beautiful lines of Sir John 
 Denham on the river Thames:— "Tho' deep yet clear," &c.'— Page 90. 
 
ODE TO THE LATE LORD MAYOR 417 
 
 I like thy civic deed 
 
 At Runnymede, 
 Where ancient Britons came in arms to barter 90 
 
 Their lives for right — Ah, did not Waithman grow 
 
 Half mad to show 
 Where his renowned forefathers came to bleed — 
 And freeborn Magnay triumph at his Charter ? 
 I like full well thy ceremonious setting 
 The justice-sword (no doubt it wanted whetting !) 
 On London stone ; but I don't like the waving 
 Thy banner over it ', for I must own 
 
 Flag over stone 
 Reads like a most superfluous piece of paving I 100 
 
 I like thy Cliefden treat ; but I'm not going 
 To run the civic story through and through. 
 But leave thy barge to Pater Noster Row-ing, 
 
 My plaudit to renew. — 
 Well hast thou done, Right Honorable rover, 
 To leave this lasting record of thy reign, 
 A reign, alas ! that very soon is ' over 
 And gone,' according to the Rydal strain ! 
 
 "Tis piteous how a mayor 
 
 Slips through his chair. no 
 
 I say it with a meaning reverential, 
 But let him be rich, lordly, wise, sentential. 
 Still he must seem a thing inconsequential — 
 A melancholy truth one cannot smother ; 
 
 For why ? 'tis very clear 
 
 He comes in at one year 
 
 To go out by the other ! 
 This is their Lordship's universal order ! — 
 But thou shalt teach them to preserve a name — 
 Make future Chaplains chroniclers of fame ! izo 
 
 And every Lord Mayor his own Recorder ! 
 
 ODE TO, EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD, ESQ. 
 
 Oh, Mr. Gibbon !— : 
 I do not mean the Chronicler of Rome • 
 
 He would have told thee loftily, that no man 
 In modern times may play the antique Roman, 
 And tear a Sabine virgin from her home : — 
 
 But Mr. Gibbon, 
 Thou, — with the surreptitious rib on, 
 
 ' ' It was also a part of the ceremony, whiph, though important, is simple, that the City banner 
 shoald wave over the stone.'— Page 144. 
 
41 8 ODE TO EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD. ESQ. 
 
 What shall I say to thee, thou Jason,— nay, 
 
 What will our Wilberforce and Stephen say. 
 
 Thou cruel kidnapper of young white woman ! 
 
 Were there no misses, — none 
 
 All on the start and ready for a run 
 
 To Gretna Smithy — even by the mail, 
 
 That thou must go befooling 
 A quiet maiden at her country schooling. 
 And stop her lessons with an idle tale, — 
 
 Sully the happy hue 
 Of her calm thoughts, and trouble her sky-blue — 
 Spoil her embroideries, and falsely wheedle 
 Her pretty hand from the delightful needle. 
 
 Merely to mar her piece. 
 Planting those stitches in her maiden heart, 
 That only should have made Rebecca smart, 
 Or robed young Isaac in a silken fleece ? 
 Was there no willing Love, 
 With roving eyes, 
 More gay than wise, 
 To bend with thy removal to remove ? 
 Could'st thou not calm the doubt 
 Of Foote twice asked in vain, and ask her out ? 
 There *s Madame Vestris — but she has a mate, 
 
 And Paton hath as bad — 
 
 But thou might'st add 
 A single Cubitt to thy single state. 
 Take such, and welcome to more wives than Buncle, 
 Or gentle Olive, that Princess of No-land, 
 She owns some great expectancies in Poland, 
 And has no follower — I mean no uncle ! 
 
 VAUXHALL 
 
 Come, come, I am very 
 Disposed to be merry — 
 So hey ! for a wherry - 
 
 I beckon and bawl ! 
 'Tis dry, not a damp night. 
 And pleasure will tramp light 
 To music and lamp light 
 
 At shining Vauxhall ! 
 
 Ay, here 's the dark portal- 
 The check taking mortal 
 I pass, and turn short all 
 At once on the blaze — 
 
 Names famous in story. 
 Lit up con amore, 
 All flaming in glory. 
 Distracting the gaze ! 
 
 Oh my name lies fallow — 
 Fame never will hallow 
 In red light and yellow 
 
 Poetical toil — 
 I've long tried to write up 
 My name, and take flight up ; 
 But ink will not light up 
 
 Like cotton and oil ! 
 
VAUXHALL 
 
 419 
 
 But sad thoughts, keep under ! — 
 The painted Rotundec 
 Invites me. I wonder 
 
 Who 's singing so clear ? 
 'Tis Sinclair, high-flying, 
 Scotch ditties supplying ; 30 
 
 But some hearts are sighing 
 
 For Dignum, I fear ! 
 
 How bright is the lustre, 
 How thick the folks muster, 
 And eagerly cluster, 
 
 On bench and in box, — 
 Whilst Povey is waking 
 Sweet sounds, or the taking 
 Kate Stephens is shaking 
 
 Her voice and her locks ! 40 
 
 What clapping attends her ! — 
 The white doe befriends her — 
 How Braham attends her 
 
 Away by the hand. 
 For Love to succeed her ; 
 The Signor doth heed her, , 
 And sigheth to lead her 
 
 Instead of the band ! 
 
 Then out we all sally — 
 
 Time 's ripe for the Ballet, So 
 
 Like bees they all rally 
 
 Before the machine ! — 
 But I am for tracing 
 The bright walks and facing 
 The groups that are pacing 
 
 To see and be seen. 
 
 How motley they mingle — 
 What men might one single, 
 And names that would tingle 
 
 Or tickle the ear — 
 Fresh Chinese contrivers 
 Of letters — survivors 
 Of pawnbrokers — divers 
 
 Beau Tibbses appear ! 
 
 Such little and great men. 
 And civic and state men — 
 Collectors and rate-men — 
 
 How pleasant to nod 
 To friends — to note fashions, 
 To make speculations 
 On people and passions — 
 
 To laugh at the odd ! 
 
 To sup on true slices 
 Of ham — with fair prices 
 For foul — while cool ices 
 
 And liquors abound — 
 To see Blackmore wander, 
 A small salamander, 
 Adown the rope yonder. 
 
 And light on the ground I 
 
 Oh, the fireworks are splendid ; 
 But darkness is blended — 
 Bright things are soon ended. 
 
 Fade quickly and fall ! 
 There goes the last rocket ! — 
 Some cash out of pocket. 
 By stars in the socket, 
 
 I go from Vauxhall I 
 
 6a 
 
 70 
 
 TO MR. WRENCH AT THE ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE 
 
 Oh very pleasant Mr. Wrench, — 
 The first, upon the pit's first bench, 
 
 I've scrambled to my place. 
 To hail thee on these summer boards 
 With joy, even critic-craft affords, 
 
 And watch thy welcome face ! 
 
 Ere thou art come, how I rejoice 
 To hear thy free and easy voice, 
 Lounging about the slips ; 
 
 And then thy figure comes and owns lo 
 The voice as careless as the tones 
 That saunter from thy lips. 
 
 Oh come and cast a quiet glance, 
 To glad a nameless friend, askance 
 
 The lamps' ascending glare ; 
 Better it is than bended knees, 
 Heart-squeezing, and profound con- 
 ges— 
 
 That old familiar air. 
 
420 TO MR. WRENCH AT THE ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE 
 
 Even in the street, in that apt face, 
 Full of gay gravity, I trace 20 
 
 The soul of native whim ; 
 A constant, never-failing store 
 Of quiet mirth, that ne'er runs o'er. 
 
 But ay is near the brim. 
 
 Quoth I, There goes a happy wight, 
 Inimical to spleen and spite. 
 
 And careless of all care ; 
 Who oils the ruffled waves of strife. 
 And makes the work-day suit of life 
 
 Of very easy wear. 30 
 
 Lord I if he had some people's ills 
 Tocope — their hungry bonds and bills. 
 
 How faintly they would tease ; 
 Things that have cost both tears and 
 
 sighs — 
 Their foes, as motelings in his eyes — 
 
 Their duns, his summer fleas ! 
 
 The stage, I guess, is not thy school — 
 Thou dost not antic like the fool 
 
 That wept behind his mask ; 
 Thy playing is thy play — a sport — 40 
 A revel, as perform 'd at Court, 
 
 And not a trade — a task ! 
 
 Gay Freeman, art thou hired for him ? 
 No — 'tis thy humour and thy whim 
 
 To be that easy guest ; 
 Whereas whoever plays for pelf, 
 (Like Bennett) only gives Aim-self, 
 
 Or her, like Mrs. West ! 
 
 Nay, thou — to look beyond the stage, 
 Thy life is but another page 50 
 
 Continued of the play ; 
 The same companionable sprite^- 
 Thy whim and pleasantry by night 
 
 Are with thee in the day ! 
 
 TO MISS KELLY 
 
 OF THE ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE 
 
 Kelly, two quiet hours agone. 
 Thy part was o'er, the play wa 
 done. 
 
 The tragic vision fled. 
 My lobster salad is discuss'd, 
 My wine and water mingled just. 
 
 And thou art in my head ! 
 
 Clifford is gone — for all the while, 
 And Baker's everlasting smile 
 
 Is vanish'd from me quite, 
 Like foolish portraits on a wall, i 
 
 Sway'd by a curtain's rise or fall. 
 
 And not for after sight. 
 
 But thou, without or with my will, 
 Thy ringing tones attend me still, 
 
 And melancholy looks ; 
 Again I see, and echo these 
 Again, like golden passages 
 
 Gather'd from olden books. 
 
 Not apt to lend my faith to cheats, 
 Or look for honey in the sweets 20 
 
 Of artificial flowers ; 
 Though critical and curst withal. 
 Though early mingled grief and gall, 
 
 I recognize thy powers. 
 
 Tears thou canst bring, where tears 
 
 have sprung, 
 Oft, from an aching heart — not wrung 
 
 By griefs at second hand ; 
 And smiles, to lips that have not curl'd 
 Seldom at humours of a world 
 
 Most vigilantly scann'd. 30 
 
 And years bring very chilly damps, 
 That dim the splendour of the lamps. 
 
 And shame the canvas skies ; 
 The brightest scenes, I know not how. 
 Have changed — and Mrs. Grove is 
 now 
 
 No fairy in my eyes. 
 
TO MISS KELLY 
 
 42 1 
 
 1 cannot weep when lovers weep, 
 Nor throne a tyrant in my sleep, 
 
 Nor quake at tragic screams ; 
 The fond, the fervent faith is flown 40 
 Of boyhood ; and a play is grown 
 
 Less real than my dreams. 
 
 And yet when I confront thee, still 
 I quite forget that sudden chill 
 
 So perfect is thy art ; 
 Again the vision cheats my soul, 
 For why ? Thou dost present a whole. 
 
 Where others play a part. 
 
 The saddest or the shrewdest flights 
 Of tragical or comic wights 50 
 
 Are ne'er put out of joint, 
 
 And things by feebler authors writ, 
 Are better'd by thy better wit. 
 And dullness finds a point. 
 
 A kind of verbal novelist, 
 
 Up and down life, thou dost enlist 
 
 AH humours, high and low ; 
 That, dramatised, inform thy face 
 And voice, with every trick and trace 
 
 Of human whim and woe ! 60 
 
 The stage, it is thy element, 
 Wherein thy mind preserves its bent. 
 
 Thou dost not seek or scorn 
 The critic's meed, the public praise. 
 As if ordain'd to live in plays, — 
 
 Not actress made, but born 1 
 
 HINTS TO PAUL PRY 
 
 Oh, pleasing, teasing, Mr. Pry, 
 Dear Paul — but not Virginia's Paul, 
 
 As some might haply deem, to spy 
 The umbrella thou art arm'd withal. 
 
 Cool hat, and ample pantaloons. 
 
 Proper for hot and tropic noons ; — 
 
 Oh no ! for thou wert never born 
 To watch the barren sea and cloud 
 
 In any desert isle forlorn — 
 Thy home is always in a crowd 10 
 
 Drawn nightly, such is thy stage luck. 
 
 By Liston — that dramatic Buck. 
 
 True as the evening's primrose flower. 
 True as the watchman to his beat. 
 
 Thou dost attend upon the hour 
 And house in old Haymarket Street. 
 
 Oh, surely thou art much miscall'd. 
 
 Still Paul — ^yet we are never pall'd ! 
 
 Friend of the keyhole and the crack. 
 That lets thee pry within and pore. 
 
 Thy very nose betrays the knack — zi 
 Upturn'd through kissing with the 
 door ; 
 
 A peeping trick that each dear friend 
 
 Sends thee to Coventry, to mend ! 
 
 Thy bended body shows thy bent, 
 
 Inclined to news in every place ; 
 Thy gossip mouth and eyes intent, 
 
 Stand each a query in thy face ; 
 Thy hat a curious hat appears. 
 Pricking its brims up like thy ears ; 30 
 Thy pace, it is an ambling trot. 
 
 To post thee sooner here and there. 
 To every house where thou shouldst 
 not; 
 
 In gait, in garb, in face, and air. 
 The true eavesdropper we perceive, 
 Not merely dropping in at eve, — 
 
 But morn and noon, through all the 
 span 
 
 Of day, — to disconcert and fret. 
 Unwelcome guest to every man, 
 
 A kind of dun, without a debt, 40 
 Well cursed by porter in the hall. 
 For calling when there is no call. 
 
 Harm-watching, harm thou still dost 
 catch — 
 That rule should save thee many a 
 sore ; 
 But watch thou wilt, and, like a watch, 
 
 A box attends thee at the door — 
 The household menials e'en begin 
 To show thee out ere thou art in ! 
 
422 
 
 HINTS TO PAUL PRY 
 
 Old Grasp regards thee with a frown, 
 Old Hardy marks thee for a shot, so 
 
 Young Stanley longs to knock thee 
 down, 
 And Subtle mourns her ruin'd plot, 
 
 And bans thy bones — alas ! for why ! 
 
 A tender curiosity 1 
 
 Oh leave the Hardys to themselves — 
 
 Leave Mrs. Subtle to her dreams — 
 
 'Tis true that they were laid on 
 
 shelves — 
 
 Leave Stanley, junior, to his 
 
 schemes ; 
 
 More things there are, the public sigh 
 
 To know the rights of, Mr. Pry ! 60 
 
 There 's Lady L the late Miss 
 
 P , 
 
 Miss P and lady both were late, 
 
 And two in ten can scarce agree. 
 
 For why the title had to wait ; 
 But thou mightst learn from her own 
 
 lip 
 What wind detain'd the lady-ship ? 
 
 Or Mr. P. 1 — the sire that nursed 
 Thy youth, and made thee what 
 thou art, 
 
 Who form'd thy prying genius first — 
 (Thou wottest his untender part), 70 
 
 'Twould be a friendly call and fit. 
 
 To know ' how soon he hopes to sit.' 
 
 Some people long to know the truth 
 Whether Miss T. does mean to try 
 For Gibbon once again — in sooth. 
 Thou mightst indulge them, Mr. 
 Pry; 
 A verbal extract from the brief 
 Would give some spinsters great re- 
 lief! 
 
 Suppose, dear Pry, thou wert to dodge 
 
 The porter's glance, and just drop 
 
 in 80 
 
 At Windsor's shy sequester'd lodge, 
 (Thou wilt, if any man can win 
 
 His way so far) — and kindly bring 
 
 Poor Cob's petition to the king. 
 
 There's Mrs. Coutts — hath she out- 
 grown 
 
 The compass of a prying eye ? 
 And, ah ! there is the Great Unknown, 
 
 A man that makes the curious sigh ; 
 'Twere worthy of your genius quite 
 To bring that lurking man to light. 90 
 
 O, come abroad, with curious hat. 
 And patch'd umbrella, curious 
 too — 
 To poke with this, and pry with that — 
 Search all our scandal through and 
 through. 
 And treat the whole world like a pie 
 Made for thy finger, Mr. Pry ! 
 
 TO THOMAS BISH, ESQ. 
 
 'The oyster.woman locked her fish up, 
 And trudged away to cry "no Bish "— .'— ^«(/j^/'*ff. 
 
 My Bish, since fickle Fortune 's dead. 
 Where throbs thy speculating head 
 
 That hatch 'd such matchless stories 
 Of gaining, like Napoleon, all 
 Success on every capital, 
 
 And thirty thousand glories ? 
 
 Dost thou now sit when evening 
 
 comes, 
 Wrapt in its cold and wintry glooms. 
 And dream o'er faded pleasures ? 
 
 See numbers rise and numbers fall, 10 
 Hear Lottery's last funereal call 
 O'er all her vanish'd treasures ? 
 
 Thy head, distract 'twixt weal and 
 
 woe. 
 Feels the last Lottery like a blow 
 
 From malice — aimed at thee ; 
 No prizes pass in decent rank, 
 Nothing is left thee but a blank, 
 
 And worthy Mrs. B. 
 
TO THOMAS BISH, ESQ. 
 
 423 
 
 Perchance at times thy wits maystrive 
 With cards to keep the game alive, 20 
 
 And mock the old arena, 
 By fighting Fortune at Ecarte, 
 Thou Charing Cross's Bonaparte 1 
 
 In little St. Helena. 
 
 Thou'rt out of luck — for to thy share, 
 Not as of old, falls blank despair ; 
 
 The thought oft gives the vapours. 
 In some ' cursed cottage of content ' 
 Thy baffled hopeless hours are spent 
 
 Spelling the daily papers. 30 
 
 No more thy name in column stares 
 On the lured reader unawares ; 
 
 The voice of Fame is o'er ! 
 No more it breathes thee into print ; 
 What is Fame's breath ? There 's 
 nothing in't — 
 
 The merest puff — no more ! 
 
 The puff to others now belongs. 
 The Wrights have risen upon thy 
 wrongs, 
 
 Rowlands to Hunts recoil ! 
 The wheel of fortune, now forlorn, 40 
 Turns but to grind the roasted corn. 
 
 Greased with Macassar oil. 
 
 Election chances seemed a vent 
 For thy desires — but Parliament 
 
 Is not so easy won. 
 Numbers were once to thee a treat, 
 But now by numbers thou wert beat. 
 
 And Rowland Stephenson. 
 
 At Drury, too, the chance was thine ; 
 But thou shalt in past glory shine, so 
 
 Not as the uncertain actor ; 
 Not as the man that opens wide 
 The floodgate for the public tide. 
 
 But as the Great Contractor. 
 
 And when — but Heaven protract the 
 
 day — 
 The time is come for Life's decay. 
 
 Prolonged shall be thy joys. 
 A favourite wheel shall carry thee. 
 And like thy darling Lottery, 
 
 Be drawn by Blue-coat boys: 60 
 
 A tumulus shall cover thee 
 And thine. A barrow it will be. 
 
 Sacred to thy one wheel. 
 And genuine tears, my Bish, from eyes 
 Of those who never got a prize. 
 
 At morn and eve shall steal. 
 
 TIME, HOPE, AND MEMORY 
 
 I HEARD a gentle maiden, in the Spring, 
 Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing ; 
 ' Fly through the world, and I will follow thee, 
 Only for looks that may turn back on me ; 
 
 ' Only for roses that your chance may throw — 
 Though withered — I will wear them on my brow. 
 To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain ; 
 Warmed with such love, that they will bloom again. 
 
 ' Thy love before thee, I must tread behind. 
 Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind ; 
 But trust not all her fondness, though it seem. 
 Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream. 
 
 ' Her face is smiling, and her voice is . sweet ; 
 
 But smiles betray, and music sings deceit ; 
 
 And words speak false ; — yet, if they welcome prove, 
 
 I'll be their echo, and repeat their love. 
 
424 
 
 TIME, HOPE, AND MEMORY 
 
 ' Only if wakened to sad truth, at. last, 
 The bitterness to come, and sweetness past ; 
 When thou art vext, then, turn again, and see 
 Thou hast loved Hope, but Memory loved thee.' 
 
 FLOWERS 
 
 I WILL not have the mad Clytie 
 Whose head is turn'd by the sun ; 
 The tulip is a courtly quean, 
 Whom, therefore, I will shun ; 
 The cowslip is a country wench. 
 The violet is a nun ; — 
 But I will woo the dainty rose. 
 The queen of every one ! 
 
 The pea is but a wanton witch. 
 
 In too much haste to wed, , lo 
 
 And clasps her rings on every 
 
 hand ; 
 The wolfsbane I should dread : 
 
 Nor will I dreary rosemarye, 
 That always mourns the dead ; — 
 But I will woo the dainty rose, 
 With her cheeks of tender red ! 
 
 The lily is all in white, like a Saint, 
 
 And so is no mate for me — 
 
 And the daisy's cheek is tipp'd with a 
 
 blush. 
 She is of such low degree ; 20 
 
 Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves, 
 And the broom 's betroth'd to the 
 
 bee; — 
 But I will plight with the dainty rose. 
 For fairest of all is she. 
 
 I LOVE THEE 
 
 I LOVE thee — I love thee ! 
 
 Tis all that I can say ; — 
 It is my vision in the night, 
 
 My dreaming in the day ; 
 The very echo of my heart. 
 
 The blessing when I pray, 
 I love thee — I love thee. 
 
 Is all that I can say. 
 
 I love thee — I love thee ! 
 
 Is ever on my tongue ; 
 In all my proudest poesy 
 
 That chorus still is sung ; 
 
 It is the verdict of my eyes, 
 
 Amidst the gay and young : 
 I love thee — I love thee, 
 
 A thousand maids among. 
 I love thee — I love thee ! 
 
 Thy bright and hazel glance, 
 The mellow lute upon those lips, 
 
 Whose tender tones entrance ; 20 
 But most, dear heart of hearts, thy 
 proofs 
 
 That still these words enhance, 
 I love thee — I love thee ; 
 
 Whatever be thy chance. 
 
 BALLAD 
 
 It was not in the winter 
 Our loving lot was cast ! 
 
 It was the time of roses, 
 We plucked them as we passed ! 
 
 That churlish season never frowned 
 
 On early lovers yet ! — 
 Oh no — the world was newly crowned 
 
 With flowers, when first we met. 
 
BALLAD 425 
 
 'Twas twilight, and I bade you go, 
 But still you held me fast ; — 10 
 
 It was the time of roses, — 
 We plucked them as we passed ! 
 
 What else could peer my glowing cheek 
 That tears began to stud ? — 
 
 And when I asked the like of Love 
 You snatched a damask bud, — 
 
 And oped it to the dainty core 
 Still glowing to the last : — 
 
 It was the time of roses, 
 We plucked them as we passed ! zo 
 
 ELEGY ON DAVID LAING, ESQ. 
 
 BLACKSMITH AND JOINER (WITHOUT LICENCE) AT GRETNA GREEN 
 
 Ah me ! what causes such complaining breath, 
 
 Such female moans, and flooding tears to flow ? 
 It is to chide with stern, remorseless Death, 
 For laying Laing low ! 
 From Prospect House there comes a, sound of woe— 
 A shrill and persevering loud lament, 
 Echoed by Mrs. T.'s Establishment 
 ' For Six Young Ladies, 
 In a retired and healthy part of Kent.' 
 
 All weeping, Mr. L gone down to Hades ! 10 
 
 Thoughtful of grates, and convents, and the veil ! 
 Surrey takes up the tale, 
 And all the nineteen scholars of Miss Jones, 
 With the two parlour-boarders and th' apprentice — 
 So universal this mis-timed event is — 
 
 Are joining sobs and groans ! 
 The shock confounds all hymeneal planners. 
 
 And drives the sweetest from their sweet behaviours : 
 The girls at Manor House forget their manners, 
 
 And utter sighs Uke paviours ! so 
 
 Down — down through Devon and the distant shires 
 
 Travels the news of Death's remorseless crime ; 
 And in all hearts, at once, all hope expires 
 Of matches against time ! 
 
 Along the northern route 
 The road is water'd by postilions' eyes ; 
 The topboot paces pensively about, 
 » And yellow jackets are all stain'd with sighs ; 
 There is a sound of grieving at the Ship, 
 And sorry hands are wringing at the Bell, 30 
 
 In aid of David's knell. 
 The postboy's heart is cracking — not his whip ! — 
 
 To gaze upon those useless empty collars 
 His wayworn horses seem so glad to slip — 
 And think upon the dollars 
 P 3 
 
426 
 
 ELEGY ON DAVID LAING, ESQ. 
 
 That used to urge his gallop — quicker ! quicker ! 
 
 All hope is fled, 
 
 For Laing is dead — 
 Vicar of Wakefield^Edward Gibbon's vicar ! 
 
 The barristers shed tears — 
 Enough to feast a snipe (snipes live on suction) — 
 
 To think in after years 
 No suits will come of Gretna Green abduction, 
 
 Nor knaves inveigle 
 Young heiresses in marriage scrapes or legal ; 
 
 The dull reporters 
 Look truly sad and seriously solemn, 
 
 To lose the future column 
 On Hymen-Smithy and its fond resorters ! — 
 
 But grave Miss Daulby and the teaching brood 
 Rejoice at quenching the clandestine flambeau — - 
 
 That never real beau of flesh and blood 
 Will henceforth lure young ladies from their Chambaud. 
 
 Sleep — David Laing ! — sleep 
 In peace, though angry governesses spurn thee ! 
 Over thy grave a thousand maidens weep. 
 
 And honest postboys mourn thee ! 
 Sleep, David ! — safely and serenely sleep, 
 
 Bewept of many a learned legal eye ! — 
 To see the mould above thee in » heap 
 
 Drowns many a lid that heretofore was dry !- 
 Especially of those that, plunging deep, 
 
 In love, would ' ride and tie ! ' 
 Had I command, thou should'st have gone thy ways 
 In chaise and pair — and lain in P^re-la-Chaise ! 
 
 40 
 
 so 
 
 ODE 
 
 'MI give him dash for dash.* 
 
 J[eRda]n, farewell ! farewell to all 
 Who ever prais'd me, great or small ; 
 
 Your poet's course is run I 
 A weekly — no, an ev'ryday 
 Reviewer takes my fame away, 
 
 And I am all undone I 
 
 1 cannot live an author long ! 
 When I did write, O I did wrong 
 To aim at being great ; 
 
 A Diamond Poet in a pin 10 
 
 May twinkle on in peace, and win 
 No diamond critic's hate L 
 
 No small inditer of reviews 
 Will analyse his tiny muse. 
 
 Or lay his sonnets waste ; 
 Who strives to prove that Richardson, 
 That calls himself a diamond one, 
 
 Is but a bard of paste ? 
 
ODE 
 
 427 
 
 The smallest bird that wings the sky- 
 May tempt some sparrowshot andMie; 
 
 But midges still go free ! 21 
 
 The peace that shuns my board and 
 
 bed 
 May settle on a lowlier head, 
 
 And dwell, ' St. John, with thee 1 ' 
 
 I aim'd at higher growth ; and now 
 My leaves are wither'd on the bough, 
 I'm choked by bitter shrubs 1 
 
 O Mr. F. C. W. ! 
 
 What can I christen thy review 29 
 But one of ' Wormwood Scrubs ? ' 
 
 The very man that sought me once— 
 Can I so soon be grown a dunce ? — 
 
 He now derides my verse ; 
 But who, save me, will fret to find 
 The editor has changed his mind, — 
 
 He can't have got a worse. 
 
 A LAMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY 
 
 Well hast thou cried, departed Burke, 
 All chivalrous romantic Tvork 
 
 Is ended now and past !— 
 That iron age — ^which some have 
 
 thought 
 Of metal rather overwrought — 
 
 Is now all overcast ! 
 
 Ay, — where are those heroic knights 
 Of old — those armadillo wights 
 
 Who wore the plated vest ! — 9 
 Great Charlemagne, and all his peers 
 Are cold — enjoying with their spears 
 
 An everlasting rest ! — 
 
 The bold King Arthur sleepeth sound, 
 So sleep his knights who gave that 
 Round 
 
 Old Table such eclat ! 
 Oh Time has pluck'd that plumy brow ! 
 And none engage at turneys now 
 
 But those who go to law. 
 
 Grim John o' Gaunt is quite gone by. 
 And Guy is nothing but a Guy, 20 
 
 Orlando lies forlorn ! — 
 Bold Sidney, and his kidney— nay. 
 Those ' early Chainpions '^what are 
 they 
 
 But ' Knights without a morn ! ' 
 
 No Percy branch now. perseveres 
 Like those of old in breaking spears — 
 
 The name is now a lie ! — 
 Surgeons, alone, by any chance, 
 Are all that ever couch a lance 
 
 To couch a body's eye 1 30 
 
 Alas for Lion-Hearted Dick, 
 That cut the Moslems to the quick. 
 
 His weapon lies in piece, — 
 Oh, it would warm them in a trice, 
 If they could only have a spice 
 
 Of his old mace in Greece 1 
 
 The fam'd Rinaldo lies a-cold. 
 
 And Tancred too, and Godfrey bold, 
 
 That scal'd the holy wall ! 
 No Saracen meets Paladin, 40 
 
 We hear of no great Saladin, 
 
 But only grow the small. 
 
 Our Cressys too have dwindled since 
 To penny things — at our Black Prince 
 
 Historic pens would scoff — 
 The only one we moderns had 
 Was nothing but a Sandwich lad, 
 
 And measles took him off ! — 
 
 Where are those old and feudal clans. 
 Their pikes, and bills, and partizans,sa 
 
 Their hauberks — >jerkins — buffs ? 
 A battle was a battle then, 
 A breathing piece of work — but men 
 
 Fight now — with powder puffs ! 
 
 The curtal-axe is out of date ! 
 
 The good old cross-bow bends to Fate 
 
 'Tis gone — the archer's craft ! 
 No tough arm bends the springing 
 
 yew, 
 And jolly draymen ride, in lieu 
 
 Of Death, upon the shaft. — 60 
 
42 8 A LAMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY 
 
 The spear— the gallant tilter's pride— 
 The rusty spear is laid aside, 
 
 Oh spits now domineer !^— 
 The coat of mail is left alone, — 
 And where is all chain-armour gone ? 
 
 Go ask at Brighton Pier. 
 
 We fight in ropes and not in lists. 
 Bestowing hand-cuffs with our fists, 
 
 A low and vulgar art ! — 
 No mounted man is overthrown — 70 
 A tilt ! — it is a thing unknown — 
 
 Except upon a cart. 
 
 Methinks I see the bounding barb. 
 Clad like his chief in steely garb. 
 
 For warding steel's appliance ! — 
 Methinks I hear the trumpet stir ! 
 'Tis but the guard to Exeter, 
 
 That bugles the ' Defiance ! ' 
 
 In cavils when will cavaliers 
 
 Set ringing helmets by the ears, Eo 
 
 And scatter plumes about ? 
 Or blood — if they are in the vein ? 
 That tap will never run again — 
 
 Alas the Casque is out ! 
 
 No iron-crackling now is scor'd 
 By dint of battle-axe or sword. 
 
 To find a vital place — 
 Though certain Doctors still pretend 
 Awhile, before they kill a friend. 
 
 To labour through his case. 90 
 
 Farewell, then, ancient men of might ! 
 Crusader ! errant squire, and knight ! 
 
 Our coats and customs soften, — 
 To rise would only make ye weep — 
 Sleep oh, in rusty iron sleep, 
 
 As in a safety-coffin F 
 
 ODE 
 
 IMITATED FROM HORACE 
 
 Oh ! well may poets make a fuss 
 In summer time, and sigh ' O rus ! ' 
 
 Of London pleasures sick : 
 My heart is all at pant to rest 
 In greenwood shades, — my eyes detest 
 
 This endless meal of brick ! 
 
 What joy have I in June's return ? 
 My feet are paifch'd — my eyeballs 
 burn, 
 
 I scent no flowery gust ; 9 
 
 But faint the flagging zephyr springs, 
 With dry Macadam on its wings, 
 
 And turns me ' dust to dust.' 
 
 My sun his daily course renews 
 Due east, but with no Eastern dews ; 
 
 The path is dry and hot ! 
 His setting shows more tamely still, 
 He sinks behind no purple hill. 
 
 But down a chimney's pot ! 
 
 Oh 1 but to hear the milk-maid blithe, 
 Or early mower whet his scythe ao 
 The dewy meads among ! — 
 
 My grass is of that sort — alas ! — 
 That makes no hay, — call'd sparrow- 
 grass 
 By folks of vulgar tongue ! 
 
 Oh ! but to smell the woodbine sweet ! 
 I think of cowslip-cups — but meet 
 
 With very vile rebuffs ! 
 For meadow buds, I get a whiff 
 Of Cheshire cheese, — or only sniff 
 
 The turtle made at Cuff's. 30 
 
 How tenderly Rousseau review'd 
 His periwinkles ! — mine are stew'd ! 
 
 My rose blooms on a gown 1 
 I hunt in vain for eglantine. 
 And find my blue-bell on the sign 
 
 That marks the Bell and Crown ! 
 
 Where are ye, birds ! that blithely wing 
 From tree to tree, and gaily sing 
 
 Or mourn in thickets deep ? 
 My cuckoo has some ware to sell, 40 
 The watchman is my Philomel, 
 
 My blackbird is a sweep ! 
 
ODE 
 
 429 
 
 Where are ye, linnet I lark ! and 
 
 thrush ! 
 That perch on leafy bough and bush, 
 
 And tune the various song ? 
 Two hurdy-gurdists, and a poor 
 Street-Handel grinding at my door, 
 
 Are all my ' tuneful throng.' 
 
 Where are ye, early-purling streams. 
 Whose waves reflect the morning 
 beams 50 
 
 And colours of the skies ? 
 My rills are only puddle-drains 
 From shambles — or reflect the stains 
 
 Of calimanco-dyes. 
 
 Sweet are the little brooks that run 
 O'er pebbles glancing in the sun. 
 
 Singing in soothing tones : — 
 Not thus the city streamlets flow ; 
 They make no music as they go, 
 
 Tho' never ' ofi the stones.' 60 
 
 Where are ye, pastoral pretty sheep. 
 That wont to bleat, and frisk, and leap 
 
 Beside your woolly dams ? 
 Alas ! instead of harmless crooks. 
 My Corydons use iron hooks, 
 
 And skin — not shear — the lambs. 
 
 The pipe whereon, in olden day, 
 Th' Arcadian herdsman us'd to play* 
 Sweetly — here soundeth not ; 
 
 But merely breathes unwelcome 
 fumes, 70 
 
 Meanwhile the city boor consumes 
 The rank weed — ' piping hot. ' 
 
 All rural things are vilely mock'd. 
 On every hand the sense is shock'd 
 
 With objects hard to bear : 
 Shades, — vernal shades ! — where wine 
 
 is sold ! 
 And for a turfy bank, behold 
 
 An Ingram's rustic chair I 
 
 Where are ye, London meads and 
 
 bow'rs, 
 And gardens redolent of flow'rs 80 
 
 Wherein the zephyr wons ? 
 Alas ! Moor Fields are fields no more ! 
 See Hatton's Garden brick'd all o'er ; 
 
 And that bare wood — St. John's. 
 
 No pastoral scene procures me peace ; 
 I hold no Leasowes in my lease. 
 
 No cot set round with trees : 
 No sheep-white hill my dwelling flanks 
 And omnium furnishes my banks 
 
 With brokers — not with bees. 90 
 
 Oh ! well may poets make a fuss 
 In summer time, and sigh ' rus ! ' 
 
 Of city pleasures sick : 
 My heart is all at pant to rest 
 In greenwood shades, — myeyes detest 
 
 This endless meal of brick ! 
 
 STANZAS TO TOM WOODGATE, OF HASTINGS 
 
 Tom ! — are you still within this land 
 Of Uvers — still on Hastings' sand. 
 
 Or roaming on the waves, — 
 Or has some billow o'er you rolled. 
 Jealous that earth should lap so bold 
 
 A seaman in her graves ? 
 
 On land the rush-light lives of men 
 Go out but slowly ; nine in ten, 
 By tedious long decline, — 
 
 Not so the jolly sailor sinks, 10 
 
 Who founders in the wave, and drinks 
 The apoplectic brine ! 
 
 Ay, while I write, mayhap your head 
 Is sleeping on an oyster-bed, — 
 
 I hope 'tis far from truth ! 
 With periwinkle eyes ; — your bone 
 Beset with mussels, not your own. 
 
 And corals at your tooth ! 
 
430 STANZAS TO TOM WOODGATE, OF HASTINGS 
 
 Still does the Chance pursue the 
 
 chance 
 The main affords — the Aidant dance 20 
 
 In safety on the tide ? 
 Still flies that sign of my good-will 
 A Uttle bunting thing — but still 
 
 To thee a flag of pride ? 
 
 Does that hard, honest hand now clasp 
 The tiller in its careful grasp — 
 
 With every summer breeze 
 When ladies sail, in lady-fear — 
 Or, tug the oar, a gondolier 
 
 On smooth Macadam seas ? 30 
 
 Or are you where the flounders keep. 
 Some dozen briny fathoms deep, 
 
 Where sands and shells abound — 
 With some old Triton on your chest 
 And twelve grave mermen for a 'quest. 
 
 To find that you are — drowned ? 
 
 Swift is the wave, and apt to bring 
 A sudden doom^-perchance I sing 
 
 A mere funereal strain ; — 
 You have endured the utter strife — 40 
 And are — the same in death or life, 
 
 A good man in the main I 
 
 Oh, no — I hope the old brown eye 
 Still watches ebb and flood and sky ; 
 
 That still the old brown shoes 
 Are sucking brine up — pumps indeed ! 
 Your tooth still full of ocean weed. 
 
 Or Indian — which you choose. 
 
 I like you, Tom ! and in these lays 
 Give honest worth its honest praise, 50 
 
 No puff at honour's cost ; 
 For though you met these words of 
 
 mine, 
 All letter-learning was a line 
 
 You, somehow, never crossed ! 
 
 Mayhap, we ne'er shall meet again, 
 Except on that Pacific main, 
 
 Beyond this planet's brink ; — 
 Yet as we erst have braved the wea- 
 ther, 
 Still we may float awhile together. 
 
 As comrades on this ink ! 60 
 
 Many a scudding gale we've had 
 Together, and, my gallant lad, 
 
 Some perils we have passed ; 
 When huge and black the wave 
 
 careered, 
 And oft the giant surge appeared 
 
 The master of our mast : — 
 
 'Twas thy example taught me how 
 To climb the billow's hoary brow, 
 
 Or cleave the raging heap — 
 To bound along the ocean wild, 70 
 With danger only as a child. 
 
 The waters rocked to sleep. 
 
 Oh, who can tell that brave delight. 
 To see the hissing wave in might, 
 ^ Come rampanit like a snake ! 
 To leap his horrid crest, and feast 
 One's eyes upon the briny beast, 
 Left couchant in the wake ! 
 
 The simple shepherd's love is still 
 To bask upon a sunny hill, 80 
 
 The herdsman roams the vale — 
 With both their fancies I agree ; 
 Be mine the swelling, scooping sea, 
 
 That is both hill and dale ! 
 
 I yearn for that brisk spray — I yearn 
 To feel the wave from stem to stern 
 
 Uplift the plunging keel. 
 That merry step we used to dance, 
 On board the Aidant or the Chance, 
 
 The ocean ' toe and heel,' 90 
 
STANZAS TO TOM WOODGATE, OF HASTINGS 431 
 
 I long to feel the steady gale, 
 
 That fills the broad distended sail — 
 
 The seas on either hand 1 
 My thought, like any hollow shell. 
 Keeps mocking at my ear the swell 
 
 Of waves against the land. 
 
 It is no fable — that old strain 
 Of sirens ! — so the witching main 
 
 Is singing — and I sigh I 
 My heart is all at once inclined 
 To seaward — and I seem to find 
 
 The waters in my eye I 
 
 Methinks I see the shining beach ; 
 
 The merry waves, each after each, 
 
 Rebounding o'er the flints ; — 
 
 I spy the grim preventive spy ! 
 The jolly boatmen standing nigh ! 
 The maids in morning chintz I 
 
 And there they float — the sailing 
 
 craft ! 
 The sail is up — the wind abaft — no 
 
 The ballast trim and neat. 
 Alas ! 'tis all a dream — a lie ! 
 A printer's imp is standing by, 
 
 To haul my mizen sheet I 
 
 My tiller dwindles to a pen — 
 My craft is that of bookish men — 
 
 My sale — let Longman tell I 
 Adieu the wave ! the wiod I the spray I 
 Men — maidens — chintzes — fade away I 
 
 Tom Woodgate, fare thee well ! 120 
 
 THE LOGICIANS 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATION 
 
 ' Meta] 
 -Scrii, 
 
 iphysics were a large field in which to exercise the weapons logic had put into their hands.* 
 'lerus. 
 
 See here two cavillers, 
 
 Would-be unravellers 
 Of abstruse theory and questions mystical, 
 
 In tete-a-tete. 
 
 And deep debate, 
 Wrangling according to forms syllogistical. 
 
 Glowing and ruddy 
 The light streams in upon their deep brown study, 
 And settles on our bald logician's skull : 
 But still his meditative eye looks dull 10 
 
 And muddy. 
 For he is gazing inwardly, like Plato ; 
 
 But to the world without 
 And things about, 
 His eye is blind as that of a potato : 
 
 In fact, logicians 
 See but by syllogisms — taste and smell 
 
 By propositions ; 
 And never let the common dray-horse senses 
 
 Draw inferences. 20 
 
432 THE LOGICIANS 
 
 How wise his brow ! how eloquent his nose ! 
 
 The feature of itself is a negation ! 
 
 How gravely double is his chin, that shows 
 
 Double deliberation ; 
 His scornful lip forestalls the confutation I 
 O this is he that wisely with a major 
 And minor proves a greengage is no ganger ! — 
 
 By help of ergo, 
 That cheese of sage will make no mite the sager. 
 And Taurus is no bull to toss up Virgo ! — 30 
 
 O this is he that logically tore his 
 Dog into dogmas — following Aristotle — 
 Cut up his cat into ten categories. 
 And cork'd an abstract conjuror in a bottle ! 
 O this is he that disembodied matter, 
 And proved that incorporeal corporations 
 
 Put nothing in no platter, 
 And for mock turtle only supp'd sensations ! 
 O this is he that palpably decided, 
 
 With grave and mathematical precision 4" 
 
 How often atoms may be subdivided 
 
 By long division ; 
 O this is he that show'd I is not I, 
 And made a ghost of personal identity ; 
 Proved ' Ipse ' absent by an alibi. 
 And frisking in some other person's entity ; 
 He sounded all philosophies in truth. 
 Whether old schemes or only supplemental : — 
 And had, by virtue of his wisdom-tooth, 
 A dental knowledge of the transcendental ! So 
 
 The other is a shrewd severer wight, 
 
 Sharp argument hath worn him -nigh the bone : 
 
 For why ? he never let dispute alone, 
 
 A logical knight-errant. 
 That wrangled ever, — morning, noon and night. 
 From night to morn : he had no wife apparent 
 
 But Barbara Celdrent ! 
 Woe unto him he caught in a dilemma. 
 For on the point of his two fingers full 
 He took the luckless wight, and gave with them a 
 Most deadly toss, like any baited bull. 
 Woe unto him that ever dared to breathe 
 A sophism in his angry ear ! for that 
 He took ferociously between his teeth, 
 And shook it — like a terrier with a rat ! 
 In fact old Controversy ne'er begat 
 
 One half so cruel 
 And dangerous as he, in verbal duel ! 
 
THE LOGICIANS 
 
 433 
 
 No one had ever so complete a fame 
 
 As a debater ; 
 And for art logical his name was greater 
 
 Than Dr. Watts's name ! — 
 
 70 
 
 Look how they sit together ! 
 Two bitter desperate antagonists, 
 Licking each other with their tongues, like fists, 
 
 Merely to settle whether 
 This world of ours had ever a beginning — 
 
 Whether created. 
 
 Vaguely undated. 
 Or time had any finger in its spinning : 
 When, lo ! — for they were sitting at the basement — 
 A hand, like that upon Belshazzar's wall, 
 
 Lets fall 
 A written paper through the open casement. 
 
 ' O foolish wits ! (thus runs the document) 
 
 To twist your brains into a double knot 
 
 On such a barren question ! Be content 
 
 That there is such a fair and pleasant spot 
 
 For your enjoyment as this verdant earth. 
 
 Go eat and drink, and give your hearts to mirth ; 
 
 For vainly ye contend ; 
 Before you can decide about its birth. 
 
 The world will have an end ! ' 
 
 DEATH IN THE KITCHEN 
 
 'Are w« not here now? ' continued the corporal (striking the end of liis stick perpendicularly on 
 the floor, so as to ffive an idea of health and stability) — ' and are we not ' (dropping his hat upon 
 the ground) * gone ?— -In a moment ! * — Tristram Shandy, 
 
 Trim, thou art right ! — 'Tis sure that I, 
 And all who hear thee, are to die. 
 
 The stoutest lad and wench 
 Must lose their places at the will 
 Of Death, and go at last to fill 
 
 The sexton's gloomy trench. 
 
 The dreary grave ! — O, when I think 
 How close we stand upon its brink, 
 
 My inward spirit groans 1 9 
 
 My eyes are filled with dismal dreams 
 Of coffins, and this kitchen seems 
 
 A charnel full of bones ! 
 
 Yes, jovial butler, thou must fail. 
 As sinks the froth on thine own ale ; 
 
 Thy days will soon be done 1 
 Alas ! the common hours that strike, 
 Are knells, for life keeps wasting, like 
 
 A cask upon the run. 
 
 Ay, hapless scullion ! 'tis thy case, 
 Life travels at a scouring pace, zo 
 
 Far swifter than thy hand. 
 The fast-decaying frame of man 
 Is but a kettle or a pan 
 
 Time wears away with — sand ! 
 
434 
 
 DEATH IN THE KITCHEN 
 
 Thou needst not, mistress cook ! be 
 
 told, 
 The meat to-morrow will be cold 
 
 That now is fresh and hot : 
 E'en thus our flesh will, by and by. 
 Be cold as stone ; — Cook, thou must 
 die. 
 There 's death within the pot. 30 
 
 Susannah, too, my lady's maid, 
 Thy pretty person once must aid 
 
 To swell the buried swarm ! 
 The ' glass of fashion ' thou wilt hold 
 No more, but grovel in the mould 
 
 That 's not the ' mould of form ! ' 
 
 Yes, Jonathan, that drives the coach. 
 He too will feel the fiend's approach — 
 
 The grave will pluck him down : 
 He must in dust and ashes lie, 40 
 
 And wear the churchyard livery, 
 
 Grass green, turn'd up with brown. 
 
 How frail is our uncertain breath ! 
 The laundress seems full hale, but 
 Death 
 Shall her ' last linen ' bring. 
 
 The groom will die, like all his kind ; 
 And e'en the stable boy will find 
 This life no stable thing. 
 
 Nay, see the household dog — even 
 
 that 
 The earth shall take ; — the very cat so 
 
 Will share the common fall ; 
 Although she hold (th6 proverb saith) 
 A ninefold life, one single death 
 
 Suffices for them all I 
 
 Cook, butler, Susan, Jonathan, 
 The girl that scours the pot and 
 pan. 
 
 And those that tend the steeds — 
 All, all shall have another sort 
 Of service after this ; — in short — 
 
 The one the parson reads ! 60 
 
 The dreary grave ! — O, when I think 
 How close we stand upon its brink, 
 
 My inward spirit groans ! 
 My eyes are filled with dismal dreams 
 Of cofiins, and this kitchen seems 
 
 A charnel full of bones I 
 
 [EPISTLE TO MISS CHARLOTTE REYNOLDS] 
 
 My dear Lot, 
 There 's a blot ! — 
 This is to write 
 That Sunday night 
 By the late 
 Coach at eight, 
 We shall get in 
 To little Britain, — 
 So have handy 
 Gin, rum. Brandy 
 A lobster, — may be — 
 Cucumbers, they be 
 Also in season 
 And within reason — 
 Porter — by Gum ! 
 Against we come — 
 In lieu of Friday 
 Then we keep high day 
 And holy, as long as 
 We can. I get strong as 
 A horse — i.e., pony 
 
 Jane tho' keeps boney. 
 How is your mother. 
 Still with your brother. 
 And Marian too — 
 And that good man too 
 Call'd your papa, Miss. 
 After these ah Miss I 
 Don't say I never 
 Made an endeavovir 
 To write you verses 
 Tho' this lay worse is 
 Than any I've written 
 The truth is, I've sitten 
 So long over letters 
 Addressed to your betters 
 That— that— that 
 Some how — 
 My pen — 
 
 Amen. 
 
 [July II, 1828.] 
 
 T. Hood. 
 
435 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF THE GIRAFFE 
 
 They say, God wot ! 
 
 She died upon the spot : 
 
 But then in spots she was so rich, — 
 
 I wonder which ? 
 
 ON THE REMOVAL OF A MENAGERIE 
 
 Let Exeter Change lament its change, 
 Its beasts and other losses — 
 Another place thrives by its case. 
 Now Charing has two Crosses. 
 
 BIRTHDAY VERSES 
 
 GooD-MORROW to the golden Morning! 
 
 Good-morrow to the world's de- 
 light ! 
 I've come to bless thy life's beginning, 
 
 That hath made my own so bright ! 
 
 I have brought no roses, Dearest ! 
 Summer lies upon her bier ; 
 
 It was when all sweets were over 
 Thou wert born to bless the year. 
 
 But I bring thee jewels. Fairest ! 
 
 In thy bonny locks to shine ; lo 
 And, if love seem in their glances, 
 
 They have learn'd that look of 
 
 THE FAREWELL 
 
 TO A FRENCH AIR 
 
 Fare thee well, 
 
 Gabrielle ! 
 Whilst I join France 
 With bright cuirass and lance ! 
 
 Trumpets swell, 
 
 Gabrielle I 
 War-horses prance, 
 And cavaliers advance! 
 
 In the night, 
 Ere the fight. 
 In the night 
 I'll think of thee ! 
 
 And in prayer, 
 Lady fair. 
 In thy prayer 
 Then think of me ! 
 
 Death may knell, 
 
 Gabrielle ! 
 Where my plumes dance 
 By arquebuss or lance. 
 
 Then farewell, 
 
 Gabrielle ! 
 Take my last glance. 
 Fair Miracle of France. 
 
436 
 
 ON A PICTURE OF HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 Why, Love, why 
 Such a Water-rover ? 
 Would she love thee more 
 For coming half seas over ? 
 
 Why, Lady, why 
 So In love with dipping ? 
 Must a lad of Greece 
 Come all over dripping ? 
 
 Why, Cupid, why 
 Make the passage brighter ? 
 Were not any boat 
 Better than a lighter ? 
 
 Why, Maiden, why 
 So intrusive standing ? 
 Must thou be on the stair, 
 When he 's on the landing ? 
 
 FOR THE FOURTEENTH OF FEBRUARY 
 
 No popular respect will I omit 
 To do thee honour on this happy day, 
 When every loyal lover tasks his wit 
 His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay. 
 And to his mistress dear his hopes convey. 
 Rather, thou knowest, I would still outrun 
 All calendars with Love's, — whose date alway 
 Thy bright eyes govern better than the sun, — 
 For with thy favour was my life begun ; 
 And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles. 
 And not by summers, for I thrive on none 
 But those thy cheerful countenance compiles — 
 Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, 
 Love, thou art every day my Valentine ! 
 
 A BUNCH OF FORGET-ME-NOTS 
 
 Forget me not ! It is the cry of clay. 
 
 From infancy to age, from ripe to rotten ; 
 For who, ' to dumb forgetfulness a prey,' 
 Would be forgotten ? 
 
 Hark the poor infant, in the age of pap, 
 A little Laplander on nurse's lap. 
 
 Some strange, neglectful, gossiping old Trot, 
 Meanwhile on dull Oblivion's lap she lieth, 
 In her shrill Baby-lonish language crieth — 
 What ? 
 ' Forget-me-not ! ' 
 
A BUNCH OF FORGET-ME-NOTS 437 
 
 The schoolboy writes unto the self-same tune, 
 
 The yearly letter, guiltless of a blot, 
 ' We break up on the twenty-third of June ' ; 
 
 And thfen, with comps. from Dr.- Polyglot, 
 ' P.S. Forget me not I ' 
 
 When last my elder brother sailed for Quito, 
 
 My chalky foot had in a hobble got — 
 Why did he plant his timber toe on my toe, 
 
 To stamp on memory's most tender spot ao 
 
 ' Forget me not ! ' 
 
 The dying nabob, on whose shrivelled skin 
 The Indian ' muUiga ' has left its ' tawny," 
 Leaving life's pilgrimage so rough and thorny, 
 
 Bindeth his kin 
 Two tons of sculptured marble to allot — 
 
 A small ' Forget me not I ' 
 
 The hardy sailor parting from his wives, 
 
 Sharing among them all that he has got. 
 Keeps a fond eye upon their after-lives, 30 
 
 And says to seventeen — ' If I am shot. 
 Forget me not.' 
 
 Why, all the mob of authors that now trouble 
 
 The world with cold-pressed volumes and with hot. 
 
 They all are seeking reputation's bubble, 
 Hopelessly hoping, like Sir Walter Scott, 
 
 To tie in fame's own handkerchief a double 
 Forget-me-Anot ! 
 
 A past past tense. 
 In fact, is sought for by all human kind, 40 
 
 And hence 
 Our common Irish wish — to leave ourselves behind. 
 
 Forget me not ! — It is the common chorus 
 Swell'd by all those behind us and before us ; 
 
 Each fifth of each November 
 
 Calls out ' Remember ! ' 
 And even a poor man of straw will try 
 
 To live by dint of powder and of plot. 
 In short, it is the cry of every Guy— 
 
 ' Forget me not ! ' so 
 
438 
 
 THE POET'S PORTION 
 
 What is a mine — a treasury — a dower — 
 
 A magic talisman of mighty power ? 
 
 A poet's wide possession of the earth : 
 
 He has th' enjoyment of a flower's birth 
 
 Before its budding — ere the first red streaks, 
 
 And winter cannot rob him of their cheeks. 
 
 Look if his dawn be not ere other men's ! 
 
 Twenty bright flushes — ere another kens 
 
 The first of sunlight is abroad, he sees 
 
 Its gold election of the topttiost trees. 
 
 And opes the splendid fissures of the morn. 
 
 When do his fruits delay ? When doth his corn 
 
 Linger for harvesting ? Before the leaf 
 
 Is commonly abroad, in his piled sheaf 
 
 The flagging poppies lose their ardent flame. 
 
 No sweet there is, no pleasure you can name, 
 
 But he will sip it first — before the lees ; — 
 
 'Tis his to taste rich honey ere the bees 
 
 Are busy with the brooms : he may forestal 
 
 June's rosy advent for his coronal, 
 
 Before expectance buds upon the bough. 
 
 Twining his thoughts to bloom upon his brow. 
 
 Oh ! blest to see the flower in its seed. 
 
 Before its leafy presence ; for, indeed. 
 
 Leaves are but wings on which the summer flies, 
 
 And each thing, perishable, fades and dies, 
 
 Except in thought ; but his rich thinkings be 
 
 Like overflows of immortality — 
 
 So that what there is steeped shall perish never. 
 
 But live and bloom, and be a joy for ever ! 
 
 30 
 
 'I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN' 
 
 LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY's ALBUM 
 
 A PRETTY task, Miss S , to ask 
 
 A Benedictine pen. 
 That cannot quite at freedom write 
 
 Like those of other men. 
 No lover's plaint my Muse must paint 
 
 To fill this page's span. 
 But be correct and recollect 
 
 I'm not a single man. 
 
 Pray only think, for pen and ink 
 
 How hard to get along, 10 
 
 That may not turn on words that burn 
 
 Or Love, the life of song 1 
 Nine Muses, if I chooses, I 
 
 May woo all in a clan, 
 ButoneMissS 1 daren't address — 
 
 I'm not a single man. 
 
'I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN' 
 
 439 
 
 Scribblers unwed, with little head 
 
 May eke it out with heart, 
 And in their lays it often plays 
 
 A rare first-fiddle part. 20 
 
 They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss, 
 
 But if 7 so began, 
 I have my fears about my ears — 
 
 I'm not a single man. 
 
 Upon your cheek I may not speak, 
 
 Nor on your lip be warm, i 
 I must be wise about your eyes. 
 
 And formal with your form ; 
 Of all that sort of thing, in short. 
 
 On T. H. Bayly's plan, 30 
 
 I must not twine a single line — 
 
 I'm not a single man. 
 
 A watchman's part compels my heart 
 
 To keep you off its beat, 
 And I might dare as soon to swear 
 
 At you, as at your feet. 
 I can't expire in passion's fire 
 
 As other poets can — 
 My life (she 's by) won't let me die — 
 
 I'm not a single man. 40 
 
 Shut out from love, denied a dove. 
 
 Forbidden bow and dart. 
 Without a groan to call my own. 
 
 With neither hand nor heart ; 
 To Hymen vow'd, and not allow'd 
 
 To flirt e'en with your fan. 
 Here end, as just a friend, I must — 
 
 I'm not a single man. 
 
 PLAYING AT SOLDIERS 
 
 'Who'll serve the King?' 
 
 What little urchin is there never 
 Hath had that early scarlet fever, 
 
 Of martial trappings caught ? 
 Trappings well called — because they 
 
 trap 
 And catch full many a country chap 
 
 To go where fields are fought ! 
 
 What little urchin with a rag 
 Hath never made a little flag 
 
 (Our plate will shew the manner), 
 And wooed each tiny neighbour still. 
 Tommy or Harry, Dick or Will, 11 
 
 To come beneath the banner ! 
 
 Just like that ancient shape of mist. 
 In Hamlet, crying ' 'List, O 'list ! ' 
 
 Come, who will serve the king, 
 And strike frog-eating Frenchmen 
 
 dead 
 And cut off Boneyparty's head ? — 
 
 And all that sort of thing. 
 
 So used I, when I was a boy. 
 
 To march with military toy, zo 
 
 And ape the soldier-life ; 
 And with a whistle or a hum, 
 I thought myself a Duke of Drum 
 
 At least, or Earl of Fife. 
 
 With gun of tin and sword of lath, 
 Lord ! how I walk'd in glory's path 
 
 With regimental mates, 
 By sound of trump and rub-a-dubs, 
 To 'siege the washhouse — charge the 
 tubs — 
 
 Or storm the garden gates ! 30 
 
 Ah me ! my retrospective soul ! 
 As over memory's muster-roll 
 
 I cast my eyes anew. 
 My former comrades all the while 
 Rise up before me, rank and file. 
 
 And form in dim review. 
 
 Ay, there they stand, and dress in line, 
 Lubbock, and Fenn, and David Vine, 
 
 And dark ' Jamakey Forde ! ' 
 And limping Wood, and ' Cocky 
 Hawes,' 40 
 
 Our captain always made, — because 
 
 He had a real sword ! 
 
 Long Lawrence, Natty Smart, and 
 
 Soame, 
 Who said he had a gun at home, 
 
 But that was all a brag ; 
 Ned Ryder, too, that used to sham 
 A prancing horse, and big Sam Lamb 
 
 That would hold up the flag ! 
 
44° 
 
 PLAYING AT SOLDIERS 
 
 Tom Anderson, and ' Dunny White,' 
 Who never right-abouted right, so 
 
 For he was deaf and dumb ; 
 Jack Pike, Jem Crack, and Sandy 
 
 Gray 
 And Dickey Bird, that wouldn't play 
 
 Unless he had the drum. 
 
 And Peter Holt, and Charley jepp, 
 A chap that never kept the step — 
 
 No more did ' Surly Hugh ; ' 
 Bob Harrington, and 'Fighting Jim' — 
 We often had to halt for him, 
 
 To let him tie his shoe. «o 
 
 ' Quarrelsome Scott,' and Martin 
 
 Dick, 
 That killed the bantam cock, to stick 
 
 The plumes within his hat ; 
 Bill Hook, and little Tommy Grout 
 That got so thumped for calling out 
 
 ' Eyes right ! ' to ' Squinting Matt.' 
 
 Dan Simpson, that, with Peter Dodd, 
 Was always in the awkward squad, 
 
 And those two greedy Blakes, 
 That took our money to the fair 70 
 To buy the corps a trumpet there. 
 
 And laid it out in cakes. 
 
 Where are they now ? — an open war 
 'With open mouth declaring for ? — 
 
 Or fall'n in bloody fray ? 
 Compell'd to tell the truth I am, 
 Their fights all ended with the sham, — 
 
 Their soldiership in play. 
 
 Brave Soame sends cheeses out in 
 
 trucks. 
 And Martin sells the cock he plucks, 80 
 
 And Jepp now deals in wine ; 
 Harrington bears a lawyer's bag. 
 And warlike Lamb retains his flag, 
 
 But on a tavern sign. 
 
 They tell me Cocky Hawes's sword 
 Is seen upon a broker's board : 
 
 And as for ' Fighting Jim,' 
 In Bishopsgate, last Whitsuntide, 
 His unresisting cheek I spied 
 
 Beneath a Quaker brim ! 90 
 
 Quarrelsome Scott is in the church. 
 For Ryder now your eye must search 
 
 The marts of silk and lace — 
 Bird's drums are fiU'd with figs and 
 
 mute. 
 And I — I've got a substitute 
 
 To soldier in my place ! 
 
 THE SWEETS OF YOUTH 
 
 * Sweets to the sweet — farewell.'— ^flw«/.p/. 
 
 Time was I liked a cheesecake well enough ; 
 
 All human children have a sweetish taste — 
 I used to revel in a pie, or pufi. 
 
 Or tart — we all were tartars in our youth ; 
 To meet with jam or jelly was good luck. 
 
 All candies most compfcicently I crumped, 
 A stick of liquorice was good to suck,. 
 
 And sugar was as often liked as lumped ; 
 On treacle's ' linked sweetness long drawn out,' 
 
 •Or honey, I could feast like any fly, 
 I thrilled when lollipops were hawk'd about. 
 
 How pleased to compass hard bake or bull's eye. 
 How charmed if fortune in ray power cast 
 
 Elecampane— but that campaign is past I 
 
441 
 
 ODE TO N. A. VIGORS, ESQ. 
 
 ON THE PUBLICATION OF 'THE GARDENS AND MENAGERIE 
 
 OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY' 
 
 *Give you good den.' — Shakespeare. 
 
 So Mr. v., — no Vigors — I beg pardon — 
 
 You've published your Zoological Garden ! 
 A book of which I've heard a deal of talk, 
 And your Menagerie — indeed, 'tis too bad o' me. 
 But I have never seen your Beast Academy I 
 
 Or set my feet 
 
 In Brute-on Street, 
 Or ever wandered in your ' Bird-cage Walk.' 
 
 Yet, I believe that you were truly born 
 
 To be a kind of brutal overseer, lo 
 
 And, like the royal quarterings, appear 
 
 Between a lion and a unicorn : 
 
 There is a sort of reason about rhyme 
 
 That I have pondered many, many a time ; 
 
 Where wbrds, like birds of feathei;. 
 
 Likely to come together. 
 Are quite prophetically made to chime : 
 So your own office is forestalled, O Vigors ! 
 Your proper Surname having but one single 
 
 Appropriate jingle, 20 
 
 Tigers ! 
 
 Where is your gardening volume ? like old Mawe's ! 
 Containing rules for cultivating brutes. 
 
 Like fruits 
 
 Through April, May or June, 
 As thus — now rake your Lions' manes, and prune 
 
 Your Tigers' claws ; 
 About the middle of the month, if fair. 
 Give your Chameleons air ; 
 
 Choose shady walls for Owls, 30 
 
 Water your Fowls, 
 And plant your Leopards in the sunniest spots ; 
 Earth up your Beavers ; train your Bears to climb ; 
 Thin out your Elephants about this time ; 
 And set some early Kangaroos in pots. 
 
 In some warm sheltered place. 
 
 Prepare a hot-bed for the Boa race. 
 Leaving them room to swell ; 
 Prick out your Porcupines ; and blanch your Ermine ; 
 Stick up Opossums ; trim your Monkeys well ; 40 
 
 And ' destroy all vermin.' 
 
442 ODE TO N. A. VIGORS, ESQ. 
 
 Oh, tell me, Mr. Vigors ! for the fleas 
 Of curiosity begin to tease — 
 If they bite rudely I must crave your pardon, 
 
 But if a man may ask, 
 
 What is the task 
 You have to do in this exotic garden ? 
 If from your title one may guess your ends. 
 You are a sort of Secretary Bird 
 
 To write home word S« 
 
 From ignorant brute beasts to absent friends. 
 Does ever the poor little Coati Mundi 
 
 Beg you to write to ma' 
 
 To ask papa 
 To send him a new suit to wear on Sunday ? 
 Does Mrs. L. request you'll be so good 
 — Acting a sort of Urban to Sylvanus — 
 As write to her ' two children in the wood,' 
 Addressed — post paid — to Leo Africanus ? 
 Does ever the great Sea-Bear Londinensis 60 
 
 Make you amanuensis 
 To send out news to some old Arctic stager — 
 ' Pray write that Brother Bruin, on the whole, 
 
 Has got a head on this day's pole. 
 And say my'Ursa has been made a Major ' ? 
 Do you not write dejected letters — very — 
 Describing England for poor ' Happy Jerry,' 
 Unlike those emigrants who take in flats. 
 Throwing out New South Wales for catching sprats ? 
 Of course your penmanship you ne'er refuse 70 
 
 For ' begging letters ' from poor Kangaroos ; 
 Of course you manage bills and their acquittance. 
 And sometimes pen for Pelican a double 
 Letter to Mrs. P., and brood in trouble. 
 Enclosing a small dab, as a remittance ; 
 Or send from Mrs. B. to her old cadger. 
 Her full-length, done by Hervey, that rare draughtsman 
 
 And skilful craftsman, 
 A game one too, for he can draw a Badger. 
 
 Does Dr. Bennett never come and trouble you 80 
 
 To break the death of Wolf to Mrs. W. ? 
 
 To say poor Buffalo his last has puffed, 
 
 And died quite suddenly, without a will. 
 
 Soothing the widow with a tender quill, 
 
 And gently hinting — ' would she like him stuffed ? ' 
 
 Does no old sentimental Monkey weary 
 
 Your hand at times to vent his scribbling itch ? 
 
 And there your pen must answer to the query 
 
 Of Dame Giraffe, who has been told her deary 
 
 Died on the spot — and wishes to know which ? 90 
 
ODE TO N. A. VIGORS, ESQ. 
 
 443 
 
 New candidates meanwhile your help are waiting 
 
 To fill up cards of thanks, with due refinement. 
 
 For Missis 'Possum, after her confinement ; 
 
 To pen a note of pretty Poll's dictating — 
 
 Or write how Charles the Tenth's departed reign 
 
 Disquiets the crowned Crane, 
 
 And all the royal Tigers ; 
 
 To send a bulletin to brother Asses 
 
 Of Zebra's health, what sort of night he passes; — 
 
 Is this your duty, Secretary Vigors ? 
 
 Or are your brutes but Garden-brutes indeed, 
 
 Of the old shrubby breed, 
 Dragons of holly — Peacocks cut in yew ? 
 
 But no — I've seen your book, 
 And all the creatures look 
 Like real creatures, natural and true ! 
 Ready to prowl, to growl, to prey, to fight, 
 Thanks be to Harvey who their portraits drew, 
 And to the cutters praise is justly due, 
 To Branston always, and to always Wright. 
 Go on then, publishing your monthly parts. 
 
 And let the wealthy crowd. 
 
 The noble and the proud. 
 Learn of brute beasts to patronise the Arts. 
 So may your Household flourish in the Park, 
 And no long Boa go to his long home, 
 No Antelope give up the vital spark. 
 But all with this your scientific tome. 
 Go on as swimmingly as old Noah's Ark 1 
 
 THE PAINTER PUZZLED 
 
 'Draw, Sir! '—OldPlay. 
 
 Well, something must be done for 
 May, 
 
 The time is drawing nigh. 
 To figure in the Catalogue 
 
 And woo the public eye. 
 
 Something I must invent and paint ; 
 
 But, oh ! my wit is not 
 Like one of those kind substantives 
 
 That answer Who and What ? 
 
 Oh, for some happy hit ! to throw 
 The gazer in a trance : lo 
 
 But pose la — there I am posed. 
 As people say in France. 
 
 In vain I sit and strive to think, 
 
 I find my head, alack ! 
 Painfully empty, still, just like 
 
 A bottle — on the rack. 
 
 In vain I task my barren brain 
 Some new idea to catch, 
 
 And tease my hair — ideas are shy 
 Of ' coming to the scratch.' 
 
 In vain I stare upon the air, 
 No mental visions dawn ; 
 
 A blank my canvas still remains, 
 And worse — a blank undrawn : 
 
444 
 
 THE PAINTER PUZZLED 
 
 An ' aching void ' that mars my rest 
 
 With one eternal hint, 
 For, Uke the little goblin page. 
 
 It still keeps crying ' Tint ! ' 
 
 But what to tint ? ay, there 's 
 rub. 
 
 That plagues me all the while. 
 As, Selkirk-like, I sit without 
 
 A subject for my i'le. 
 
 ' Invention 's seventh heaven 
 bard 
 
 Has written — but my case 
 Persuades me that the creature dwells 
 
 In quite another place. 
 
 Sniffing the lamp, the ancients thought 
 
 Demosthenes must toil ; 
 But works of art are works indeed, 
 
 And always ' smell of oil.' 40 
 
 the 
 
 30 
 
 the 
 
 Yet painting pictures some folks 
 think. 
 
 Is merely play and fun ; 
 That what is on an easel set 
 
 Must easily be done. 
 
 But, zounds ! if they could sit in this 
 
 Uneasy easy-chair, 
 They'd very soon be glad enough 
 
 To cut the camel's hair ! 
 
 Oh ! who can tell the pang it is 
 To sit as I this day — S" 
 
 With all my canvas spread, and yet 
 Without an inch of way. 
 
 Till, mad at last to find I am 
 Amongst such empty skuUers, 
 
 I feel that I could strike myself 
 But no — I'll ' strike my colours.' 
 
 THE DEATH-BED 
 
 We watch'd her breathing thro' the 
 
 night. 
 Her breathing soft and low. 
 As in her breast the wave of life 
 Kept heaving to and fro ! 
 
 So silently we seemed to speak — 
 So slowly moved about ! 
 As we had lent her half our powers 
 To eke her living out ! 
 
 Our very hopes belied our fears 
 Our fears our hopes belied — 10 
 
 We thought her dying when she slept, 
 And sleeping when she died ! 
 
 For when the morn came dim and 
 
 sad — 
 And chill with early showers, 
 Her quiet eyelids closed — ^she had 
 Another morn than ours ! 
 
 ANTICIPATION 
 
 * Coming events cast their shadow before.* 
 
 I HAD a vision in the summer light — 
 
 Sorrow was in it and my inward sight 
 
 Ached with sad images. The touch of tears 
 
 Gush'd down my cheeks :— the figur'd woes of years 
 
 Casting their shadows across sunny hours. 
 
 Oh there was nothing sorrowful in flow'rs 
 
 Wooing the glances of an April sun, 
 
 Or apple blossoms opening one by one 
 
 Their crimson bosoms — or the twitter'd words 
 
 And warbled sentences of merry birds ; — 
 
ANTICIPATION 
 
 445 
 
 Or the small glitter and the humming wings 
 
 Of golden flies and many colour'd things — 
 
 Oh these were nothing sad — nor to see Her, 
 
 Sitting beneath the comfortable stir 
 
 Of early leaves — casting the playful grace 
 
 Of moving shadows on so fair a face — 
 
 Nor in her brow serene — nor in the love 
 
 Of her mild eyes drinking the light above 
 
 With a long thirst — nor in her gentle smile — 
 
 Nor in her hand that shone blood-red the while 
 
 She rais'd it in the sun. All these were dear 
 
 To heart and eye — ^but an invisible fear 
 
 Shook in the trees and chill'd upon the air, 
 
 And if one spot was laughing brightest^-there 
 
 My soul most sank and darken'd in despair ! — 
 
 As if the shadows of a curtain'd room 
 
 Haunted me in the sun — as if the bloom 
 
 Of early flow'rets had no sweets for me 
 
 Nor apple blossoms any blush to see — 
 
 As if the noon had brought too bright a day — 
 
 And little birds were all too gay !— too gay ! 
 
 As if the beauty of that Lovely One 
 
 Were all a fable. — Full before the sun 
 
 Stood Death and cast a shadow long before, 
 
 Like a dark pall enshrouding her all o'er, 
 
 Till eyes, and lips, and smiles, were all no more ! 
 
 30 
 
 THE STAGE-STRUCK HERO 
 
 ' It must be. So Plato ?— Thou reasonest l—WelV—Schaol Calo. 
 
 It 's very hard ! oh, Dick, my boy. 
 It 's very hard one can't enjoy 
 
 A little private spouting ; 
 But, sure as Lear or Hamlet Uves, 
 Up comes our master, bounce ! and 
 gives 
 
 The tragic Muse a routing ! 
 
 Ay, there he comes again ! be quick ! 
 And hide the book — a playbook, 
 Dick, 
 
 He must not set his eyes on ! 
 It 's very hard, the churlish elf 10 
 Will never let one stab one's self 
 
 Or take a bowl of pison ! 
 
 It 's very hard, but when I want 
 To die — as Cato did — I can't. 
 Or go non compos mentis^— 
 
 But up he comes, all fire and flame — 
 No doubt he'd do the very same 
 With Kemble for a 'prentice ! 
 
 Oh, Dick 1 Oh, Dick ! it was not so 
 Some half a dozen years ago ! 20 
 
 Melpomene was no sneaker. 
 When, under Reverend Mister Poole, 
 Each little boy at Enfield School 
 
 Became an Enfield's Speaker 1 
 
 No cruel master-tailor's cane 
 Then thwarted the theatric vein ; 
 
 The tragic soil had tillage. 
 O dear dramatic days gone by ! 
 You, Dick, were Richard then — and I 
 
 Play'd Hamlet to the village, 30 
 
446 
 
 THE STAGE-STRUCK HERO 
 
 Or, as Macbeth, the dagger clutch'd, 
 Till all the servant-maids were 
 touch'd — 
 Macbeth, I think, my pet is ; 
 Lord, how we spouted Shakespeare's 
 
 works — 
 Dick, we had twenty Uttle Burkes, 
 And fifty Master Settles ! 
 
 Why, there was Julius Caesar Dunn, 
 And Norval, Sandy Philips — one 
 
 Of Elocution's champions — 
 Genteelly taught by his mamma 40 
 To say, not father, but papa. 
 
 Kept sheep upon the Grampians ! 
 
 Coriolanus Crumpe — and Fig 
 
 In Brutus, with brown-paper wig. 
 
 And Huggins great in Cato ; 
 Only he broke so often off, 
 To have a fit of whooping-cough. 
 
 While reasoning with Plato. 
 
 And Zanga too, — but I shall weep. 
 If longer on this theme I keep, so 
 
 And let remembrance loose, Dick — 
 Now, forced to act — it 's very hard — 
 Measure for Measure with a yard — 
 
 You, Richard, with a goose, Dick ! 
 
 Zounds ! Dick, it 's very odd our dads 
 Should send us there when we were 
 lads 
 
 To learn to talk like Tullies ; 
 And now, if one should just break out. 
 Perchance, into a Uttle spout, 
 
 A stick about the skull is. 6a 
 
 Why should stage-learning form a part 
 Of schooling for the tailor's art ? 
 
 Alas ! dramatic notes, Dick, 
 So well record the sad mistake 
 Of him, who tried at once to make 
 
 Both Romeo and Coaies, Dick ! 
 
 ODE TO JOSEPH HUME, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 'I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.^ 
 
 Oh, Mr. Hume, thy name 
 Is travelling post upon the road 
 to fame. 
 With four fast horses and two sharp 
 postillions ; 
 Thy reputation 
 Has friends by numeration. 
 Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, 
 
 Millions. 
 Whenever public men together dine, 
 They drink to thee 
 With three times three — 
 
 That 's nine. 10 
 
 And oft a votary proposes then 
 To add unto the cheering one cheer 
 more — 
 Nine and One are Ten ; 
 Or somebody for thy honour still 
 more keen. 
 Insists on four times four— r- 
 Sixteen I 
 
 In Parliament no star shines more 
 
 or bigger, 
 And yet thou dost not care to cut 
 a figure ; 
 Equally art thou eloquent and 
 able, 
 Whether in showing how to save the 
 nation, 20 
 
 Or laying its petitions on the 
 Table 
 Of Multiplication. 
 In motions thou art second unto 
 
 none, 
 Though Fortune on thy motions 
 
 seems to frown, 
 For though you set a number down 
 
 You seldom carry one. 
 Great at a speech thou art, thougli 
 
 some folks cough. 
 But thbu art greatest at a paring 
 off. 
 
ODE TO JOSEPH HUME, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 447 
 
 But never blench, 
 Although in stirring up corruption's 
 worms 30 
 
 You make some factions 
 Vulgar as certain fractions. 
 Almost reduced unto their lowest 
 terms. 
 Go on, reform, diminish, and re- 
 trench, 
 Go on, for ridicule not caring, 
 Sift on from one to nine with all 
 
 their noughts. 
 And make state cyphers eat up 
 their own aughts, 
 And only in thy saving be un- 
 sparing ; 
 At soldiers' uniforms make awful 
 
 rackets. 
 Don't trim though, but iintrim 
 their jackets. / 40 
 
 Allow the tin mines no tin 
 
 tax, 
 Cut off the Great Seal's wax ; 
 Dock all the dock-ysirds, lower masts 
 
 and sails. 
 Search foot by foot the Infantry's 
 
 amounts. 
 Look into all the Cavalry's ac- 
 counts, 
 And crop their horses' tails. 
 Look well to Woolwich and each 
 
 money vote, 
 Examine all the cannons' charges 
 well, 
 And those who found th' Ar- 
 tillery compel 
 To forge twelve pounders for a five 
 pound note. 50 
 
 Watch Sandhurst too, its debts and 
 its Cadets, — 
 Those Military pets. 
 Take Army — no, take Leggy Tailors 
 Down to the Fleet, for no one but a 
 
 nincum 
 Out of our nation's narrow income 
 Would furnish such wide trousers 
 to the Sailors. 
 Next take to wonder him, 
 The Master of the Horse's horse from 
 under him : 
 
 Retrench from those who tend on 
 Royal ills 
 Wherewith to gild their pills. 60 
 And tell the Staghounds' Master he 
 must keep 
 The deer, &c., cheap. 
 Close as new brooms 
 Scrub the Bed Chamber Grooms ; 
 Abridge the Master of the Ceremonies 
 
 Of his very moneys ; 
 In short, at every salary have a 
 pull. 
 And when folks come for pay 
 On quarter-day. 
 Stop half, and make them give re- 
 ceipts in full. 70 
 
 Oh, Mr. Hume, don't drink. 
 Or eat — or sleep, a wink. 
 Till you have argued over each reduc- 
 tion. 
 Let it be food to you, repose and 
 suction. 
 Tho' you should make more 
 motions, by one half 
 Than any telegraph. 
 Item by item all these things en- 
 force. 
 Be on your legs till lame, and talk till 
 
 hoarse ; 
 Have lozenges — mind, Dawson's — in 
 
 your pocket. 
 And swing your arms till aching in 
 their socket ; 8a 
 
 Or if awake you cannot keep, 
 Talk of retrenchment in your sleep, 
 Expose each Peachum, and shew up 
 
 each Lockit, — 
 Go down to the M.P.'s before you 
 
 sup. 
 And while they're sitting blow them 
 
 up, 
 As Guy Fawkes could not do with all 
 his nous ; 
 But now we live in different Novem- 
 bers, 
 And safely you may walk into 
 the House, 
 First split its ears, and then divide its 
 members ! 
 
448 
 
 THE BALLAD 
 
 O, WHEN I was a little boy — 
 This print the time recalls — 
 
 What strips of song there hung along 
 Old palings and old walls ! 
 
 O, how they flaunted in the air, 
 And flutter'd on their strings ! 
 
 I'd heard of Muses, and they seemed 
 Like feathers from their wings — 
 
 Dim flimsy papers, little fit 
 
 With Newland's bills to rank ; lo 
 But O ! there seem'd whole millions 
 there 
 
 In notes of Boyhood's Bank ! 
 
 With what a charm of black and white 
 They witch'd the urchin sense ! 
 
 How blest if I could stop and buy I 
 How pensive — without pence ! 
 
 How hard, alas ! if forced to pass 
 
 By that enchanted place. 
 In dismal sort — a farthiiig short — 
 
 To long for ' Chevy Chase.' 20 
 
 One comfort liv'd — if pence were 
 scant, 
 There still was Mary Dunn — 
 So stored with song, she seem'd the 
 whole 
 Nine Muses rolled in one. 
 
 Her pocket mpney never went 
 For cheesecake or for tart ; 
 
 She purchased all new songs, I had 
 The old ones each by heart. 
 
 When Mary set to sing, to read, 
 All sport and play stood still — 31 
 
 Her words could lock a waggon wheel 
 And stop the march to drill. 
 
 Meanwhile, the tragic tale she told 
 
 Of Babies in the Wood 
 And gentle Redbreast, — or t'hat bole 
 
 Cock Robin, Robin Hood, 
 
 Will Scarlet, and his merry mates, 
 Who Lincoln Green had on — 
 
 I listen'd till I thought myself 
 A little Little John. 41 
 
 O, happy times ! O, happy rhymes ! 
 
 For ever ye're gone by ! 
 Few now — if any — are the lays 
 
 Can make me smile or sigh. 
 
 Perchance myself am changed — per 
 chance 
 
 I do their authors wrong — 
 But scarce a modern ballad now 
 
 Seems worthy ' an old song.' 
 
 TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTHER 
 
 Love thy Mother, little one ! 
 Kiss and clasp her neck again ; 
 Hereafter she may have a son 
 Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain. 
 Love thy Mother, little one I 
 
 Gaze upon her living eyes. 
 And mirror back her love for thee ; 
 Hereafter thoumayst shudder sighs 
 To meet them when they cannot see. 
 Gaze upon her living eyes ! 10 
 
 Press her lips the while they glow 
 With love that they have often told ; 
 
 Hereafter thou mayst press in woe, 
 And kiss them till thine own are cold 
 Press her lips the while they glow 
 
 Oh ! revere her raven hair ! 
 Although it be not silver-grey. 
 Too early Death, led on by care. 
 May snatch, save one dear lock away 
 Oh ! revere her raven hair ! 21 
 
 Pray for her at eve and morn. 
 That Heav'n may long the strokedefer 
 For thou mayst live the hour forlorn 
 When thou wilt ask to die with her. 
 Pray for her at eve and morn ! 
 
449 
 
 EPIGRAM ON A PICTURE 
 
 This picture very plainly shows 
 How little many a painter knows 
 
 Of colour, though he thinks it. 
 
 T herein depicts a view, 
 
 And underneath gamboge and blue 
 
 Informs us that T. pinxil. 
 
 ANSWER TO PAUPER 
 
 Don't tell ine of buds and blossoms. 
 
 Or with rose and vi'let wheedle — 
 Nosegays grow for other bosoms, 
 
 Churchwarden and Beadle ! 
 What have you to do with streams ? 
 
 What with sunny skies, or garish, 
 Cuckoo songs or pensive dreams ? — 
 
 Nature 's not your parish ! 
 
 What right have such as you to 
 dun ' 
 For sun or moonbeams, warm or 
 bright? 10 
 
 Before you talk about the sun. 
 
 Pay for wipdow-light 1 
 Talk of passions — amorous fancies ; 
 While your betters' flames mis- 
 carry— 
 If you love your Dolls and Nancys, 
 Don't we make you marry ? 
 
 Talk of wintry chill and storm. 
 
 Fragrant winds, that blanch your 
 bones ; 
 You poor can always keep you warm, 
 
 An't there breaking stones ? xo 
 Suppose you don't enjoy the spring, 
 
 Roses fair and vi'lets meek, — 
 You cannot look for everything 
 
 On eighteenpence a week ! 
 
 With seasons what have you to do ? — 
 
 If corn doth thrive, or wheat is 
 harmed ? — 
 What 's weather to the cropless ? You 
 
 Don't farm — but you are farm'd ! 
 Why everlasting murmurs hurl'd. 
 
 With hardship for the text ? — 30 
 If such as you don't like this world — 
 
 We'll pass you to the next. 
 
 Overseer. 
 
 JARVIS AND MRS. COPE 
 
 A DECIDEDLY SERIOUS BALLAD 
 
 In Bunhill Row, some years ago. 
 There liv'd one Mrs. Cope ; 
 
 A pious woman she was call'd. 
 As Pius as a Pope. 
 
 Not pious in its proper sense, 
 But chatt'ring like a bird 
 
 Of sin. and grace — ^in such a case 
 Mag-piety 's the word. 
 
 Cries she, ' the Reverend Mr. Trigg 
 
 This day a text wiU broach, 10 
 And much I long to hear him preach. 
 
 So Betty call a coach.' 
 A bargain, tho', she wish'd to make 
 
 Ere they began to jog — 
 ' Now, coachman, what d'ye take me 
 for? ' 
 
 Says coachman, ' for a hog.' 
 
45° 
 
 JARVIS AND MRS. COPE 
 
 But Jarvis when, he set her clown, 
 
 A second hog did lack — 
 Whereas she only ofifer'd him 
 
 One shilling and ' a track.' 20 
 
 Said he — ' there an't no tracks in 
 Quaife, 
 
 You and your tracks be both — ' 
 And, affidavit-like, he clench'd 
 
 Her shilling with an oath. 
 
 Said she — ' I'll have you fined for this. 
 And soon it shall be done, 
 
 I'll have you up at Worship Street, 
 You wicked one, — aught one ! ' 
 
 And sure enough, at Worship Street 
 That Friday week they stood, 30 
 
 She said bad language he had used. 
 And thus she ' made it good.' 
 
 ' He said two shilling was his fare, 
 And wouldn't take no less — 
 
 I said one shilling was enough — 
 And he said C — U — S ! 
 
 ' And when I raised ray eyes at that. 
 
 He swore again at them, 
 I said he was a wicked man. 
 
 And he said D — A — M.' 40 
 
 Now Jarvy's turn was come to speak, 
 So he stroked down his hair. 
 
 ' All what she says is false — causi 
 jwhy-? 
 I'll swear I never swear ! 
 
 ' There 's old Joe Hatch, the water 
 man, 
 
 Can tell you what I am, 
 I'm one of seven children, all 
 
 Brought up without a dam ! 
 
 ' He'll say from two year old and lesi 
 Since ever I were nust, S' 
 
 If ever I said C — U — S, 
 , 'I wish I may be oust ! 
 
 ' At Sion Cottage I takes up. 
 And raining all the while, 
 
 To go to New Jerusalem, 
 A wery long two mile. 
 
 ' Well, when I axes for my fare. 
 She rows me in the street, 
 
 And uses words as is not fit 
 
 For coachmen to repeat ! «( 
 
 ' Says she, — I know where you will go 
 You sinner ! I know well — 
 
 Your worship, it 's the P — I — T 
 Of E and double L ! ' 
 
 Now here his worship stopp'd the 
 case — 
 
 Said he — ' I fine you both ! 
 And of the two — why Mrs. Cope 's 
 
 I think the biggest oath ! ' 
 
 MISS FANNY'S FAREWELL FLOWERS 
 
 iVo/ ' the posie o(a.iiog.'—SAaisJ>eare (all but the noO- 
 
 I CAME to town a happy man, 
 
 I need not now dissemble 
 
 Why I return so sad at heart, 
 
 It 's all through Fanny Kemble : 
 
 Oh ! when she threw her flow'rs away, 
 
 What urged the tragic slut on 
 
 To weave in such a wreath as that. 
 
 Ah, me ! a bachelor's button. 
 
 None fought so hard, none fought so 
 
 well, 
 As I to gain some token — 10 
 
 When all the pit rose up in arms, 
 And heads and hearts were broken ; 
 
 Huzza ! said I, I'll have a flower 
 As sure as my name 's Dutton — 
 I made a snatch — I got a catch — 
 By Jove ! a bachelor's button ! 
 
 I've lost my watch — my hat ii 
 
 .smash'd — 
 My clothes declare the racket : 
 I went there in a full dress coat, 
 And came home in a. jacket. xi 
 
 My nose is swell'd, my eye is black, 
 My lip I've got a cut on — 
 Odds buds ! — and what a bud to get— 
 The deuce ! — a bachelor's button ! 
 
MISS FANNY'S FAREWELL FLOWERS 
 
 My chest 's in pain ; I really fear 
 I've somewhat hurt my bellows, 
 By pokes and punches in the ribs 
 From those herbrstrewing fellows. 
 I miss two teeth in my front row ; 
 My corn has had a fut on ; 30 
 
 And all this pain I've had to gain 
 This cursed bachelor's button. 
 
 Had I but won a rose — a bud — 
 
 A pansy, or a daisy — 
 
 A periwinkle — anything — 
 
 But this — it drives me crazy ! 
 
 My very sherry tastes like squills — 
 
 I can't enjoy my mutton ; 
 
 And when I sleep I dream of it — 
 
 Still — still a bachelor's button ! 40 
 
 451 
 
 My place is book'd per coach to-night; 
 
 But oh ! my spirit trembles 
 
 To think how country friends will ask 
 
 Of Knowleses and of Kembles. 
 
 If they should breathe about the 
 
 wreath, 
 When I go back to Sutton, 
 I shall not dare to show my share — 
 That all ! — a bachelor's button ! 
 
 My luck in life was never good, 
 But this my fate will harden : jo 
 I ne'er shall like my farming more, — 
 I know I shan't the Garden : 
 The turnips all may have the fly, 
 The wheat may have the smut on — 
 I care not — I've a blight at heart — 
 Ah me ! — a bachelor's button ! 
 
 THE CHINA-MENDER 
 
 Good morning, Mr. What-d'ye-call ! Well ! here 's another pretty job ! 
 
 Lord help my Lady ! — what a smash ! — if you had only heard her sob ! 
 
 It was all through Mr. Lambert : but for certain he was winy. 
 
 To think for to go to sit down on a table full of Chiny. 
 
 ' Deuce take your stupid head ! ' says my Lady to his very face ; 
 
 But politeness, you know, is nothing, when there 's Chiny in the case : 
 
 And if ever a woman was fond of Chiny to a passion 
 
 It 's my mistress, and all sorts of it, whether new or old fashion. 
 
 Her brother 's a sea-captain, and brings her home ship-loads — 
 
 Such bonzes, and such dragons, and nasty, squatting things like toads ; i 
 
 And great nidnoddin mandarins, with palsies in the head : 
 
 I declare I've often dreamt of them, and had nightmares in my, bed. 
 
 But the frightfuUer they are — lawk ! she loves them all the better : 
 
 She'd have Old Nick himself made of Chiny if they'd let her. 
 
 Lawk-a-mercy ! break her Chiny, and it 's breaking her very heart ; 
 
 If i touch'd it, she would very soon say, ' Mary, we must part.' 
 
 To be sure she is unlucky : only Friday comes Master Randall, 
 
 And breaks a broken spout, and fresh chips a tea-cup handle : 
 
 He 's a dear, sweet little child, but he will so finger and touch. 
 
 And that 's why my Lady doesn't take to children much. : 
 
 Well ! there 's stupid Mr. Lambert, with his two great coat flaps. 
 
 Must go and sit down on the Dresden shepherdesses' laps. 
 
 As if there was no such things as rosewood chairs in the room ; 
 
 I couldn't have made a greater sweep with the handle of the broom. 
 
 Mercy on us !'how my mistress began to rave and tear ! 
 
 Well ! after all, there 's nothing like good ironstone ware for wear. 
 
452 THE CHINA-MENDER 
 
 If ever I marry, that 's flat, I'm sure it won't be John Dockery, 
 
 I should be a wretched woman in a shop full of crockery. 
 
 I should never like to wipe it, though I love to be neat and tidy, 
 
 And afraid of mad bulls on market-days every Monday and Friday. 30 
 
 I'm very much mistook if Mr. Lambert's will be a catch ; 
 
 The breaking the Chiny will be the breaking oflf of his own match. 
 
 Missis wouldn't have an angel, if he was careless about Chiny ; 
 
 She never forgives a chip, if it 's ever so small and tiny. 
 
 Lawk ! I never saw a man in all my hfe in such a taking ; 
 
 I could find in my heart to pity him for all his mischief-making. 
 
 To see him stand a-hammering and stammering, like a zany ; 
 
 But what signifies apologies, if they wont mend old Chaney ! 
 
 If he sent heir up whole crates full, from Wedgwood's and Mr. Spode's, 
 
 He couldn't make amends for the crack'd mandarins and .smash'd toads. 40 
 
 Well ! every one has their tastes, but, for my parts, my own self, 
 
 I'd rather have the figures on my poor dear grandmother's old shelf; 
 
 A nice pea-green poU-parrot, and two reapers with brown ears of corns, 
 
 And a shepherd with a crook after a lamb with two gilt horns, 
 
 And such a Jemmy Jessamy in top-boots and sky-blue vest, 
 
 And a frill and flowered waistcoat, with a fine bowpot at the breast. 
 
 God help her, poor old soul ! I shall come into 'em at her death. 
 
 Though she 's a hearty woman for her years, except her shortness of breath. 
 
 Well ! you think the things Will mend — ^if ttiey wont, Lord mend ns all ! 
 
 My Lady will go in fits, and Mr. Lambert won't need to call : 5" 
 
 I'll be bound in any money, if I had a. guinea to give. 
 
 He won't sit down again on Chiny the longest day he has to live. 
 
 Poor soul ! I only hope it woil't forbid his banns of marriage, ' 
 
 Or he'd better have sat behind on the spikes of my Lady's carriage. 
 
 But you'll join 'em all of course, and stand poor Mi-. Lambert's friend ; 
 
 I'll look in twice a day, just to see, like, how they mend. 
 
 To be sure it is a sight that might draw tears from dogs and cats ; 
 
 Here 's this pretty little pagoda, now, has lost four of its cocked hats : 
 
 Be particular with the pagoda : and then here 's this pretty bowl — 
 
 The Chinese Prince is making love to nothing because of this hole ; 60 
 
 And here 's another Chinese man, with a face just like a doll — 
 
 Do stick his pigtail on again, and just mend his parasol. 
 
 But I needn't tell you what to do ; only do it out of hand, 
 
 And charge whatever you like to charge — my Lady won't make a stand. 
 
 Well ! good morning, Mr. What-d'ye-call ; for it 's time our gOsSip ended : 
 
 And you know the proverb, the less as is said, the sooner the Chiny 's mended. 
 
453 
 
 ODE TO SPENCER PERCEVAL, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 Oh, Mr. Spencer ! — 
 I mean no offence, Sir — 
 Retrencher of each trencher, man or 
 ■woman's ; 
 Maker of days of ember, 
 Eloquent member 
 
 Of the House of Com I mean to 
 
 say short commons. 
 Thou Long Tom Coffin singing out, 
 ' Hold fast '— 
 Avast 1 
 Oh ! Mr. Perceval, I'll bet a 
 dollar, a 
 Great growth of cholera, lo 
 And new deaths reckon'd. 
 Will mark thy Lenten twenty-first 
 
 and second. 
 The best of our physicians, when they 
 con it. 
 Depose the malady is in the air : 
 Oh, Mr. Spencer ! — if the ill is 
 there, 
 Why should you bid the people live 
 upon it ? 
 
 Why should you make discourses 
 
 against courses ; 
 While Doctors, , though they bid us 
 
 rub and chafe, 
 
 Declare, of all resources, 19 
 The man is safest who gets in the safe ? 
 And yet you bid poor suicidal sinners 
 
 Discard their dinners ! 
 Thoughtless how Heav'n above will 
 
 look upon't, 
 For men to die so wantonly of want ! 
 
 By way of a variety. 
 Think of the ineffectual piety 
 Of London's Bishop, at St. Faith's or 
 
 Bride's, 
 Lecturing such chameleon insides. 
 Only to find 
 He 's preaching to the wind. 30 
 Whatever others do, or don't, 
 I cannot — dare notr— must not fast, 
 
 and wont. 
 Unless by night your day you let me 
 keep, 
 And fast asleep ; 
 My constitution can't obey such 
 censors : 
 I must have meat 
 Three times a day to eat, 
 My health 's of such a sort, — 
 To say the truth in short — 
 The coats of my stomach are not 
 Spencers. 40 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 Farewell, Sir Walter Scott, secured 
 From Time, — our greatest of Inditers ! 
 No Author's fame 's so well assur'd. 
 For all who wrote were Under-writen. 
 
4S4 
 
 A PUBLIC DINNER 
 
 ' Sit clown and fall to," said the Barmecide.'— ^raWaw Nights. 
 
 At seveo you just nick it, 
 
 Give card — get wine ticket ; 
 
 Walk round through the Babel, 
 
 From table to table, 
 
 To find — a hard matter, — 
 
 Your name in a platter ; 
 
 Your wish was to sit by 
 
 Your friend Mr. Whitby, 
 
 But stewards' assistance, 
 
 Has placed you at distance, lo 
 
 And thanks to arrangers. 
 
 You sit among strangers ; 
 
 But too late for mending, — 
 
 Twelve sticks come attending 
 
 A stick of a Chairman, 
 
 A little dark spare man. 
 
 With bald shining nob, 
 
 'Mid Committee swell mob, 
 
 In short a short figure, 
 
 You thought the Duke bigger ; zo 
 
 Then silence is wanted, 
 
 Non Nobis is chanted ; 
 
 Then Chairman reads letter, 
 
 The Duke 's a regretter, 
 
 A promise to break it. 
 
 But chair he can't take it ; 
 
 Is grieved to be from us, 
 
 But sends friend Sir Thomas, 
 
 And what is far better, 
 
 A cheque in the letter, 30 
 
 Hear ! hear ! and a clatter. 
 
 And there ends the matter. 
 
 Now soups come and fish in, 
 
 And C brings a dish in ; 
 
 Then rages the battle, 
 
 Knives clatter, forks rattle, 
 
 Steel forks with black handles, 
 
 Under fifty wax candles. 
 
 Your soup-plate is soon full, 
 
 You sip just a spoonful. 40 
 
 Mr. Roe will be grateful 
 
 To send him a plateful ; 
 
 And then comes the Waiter, 
 
 ; Must trouble for 'tater ; ' 
 
 And then you drink wine off 
 
 With somebody — nine off ; 
 
 Bucellas, made handy. 
 
 With Cape and bad Brandy, 
 
 Or East India Sherry, 
 
 That 'S! very hot — very. 50 
 
 You help Mr. Myrtle, 
 
 Then find your mock turtle 
 
 Went off while you lingered 
 
 With waiter light-fingered. 
 
 To make up for gammon, 
 
 You order some salmon, 
 
 Which comes to your fauces, 
 
 With boats without sauces. 
 
 You then make a cut on 
 
 Some Lamb, big as Mutton, 60 
 
 And ask for some grass too, 
 
 But that you must pass too ; 
 
 It serv'd the first twenty, 
 
 But toast there is plenty. 
 
 Then, while lamb gets coldish, 
 
 A goose that is oldish — 
 
 At carving not clever — 
 
 You're begg'd to dissever, 
 
 And when thus you treat it, 
 
 Find no one will eat it. 70 
 
 So, hungry as glutton, 
 
 You turn to your mutton. 
 
 But — no sight for laughter, 
 
 The soup it 's gone after. 
 
 Mr. Green then is very 
 
 Disposed to take sherry, 
 
 And then Mr. Nappy 
 
 Will feel very happy, 
 
 And then Mr. Conner 
 
 Requests the same honour ; So 
 
 Mr. Clark, when at leisure, 
 
 Will really feel pleasure, 
 
 Then Waiter leans over. 
 
 To take off a cover 
 
 From fowls, which all beg of, 
 
 A wing or a leg of ; 
 
 And while they all peck bone. 
 
 You take to a neck bone. 
 
A PUBLIC DINNER 
 
 45 S 
 
 But even your hunger 
 
 Declares for a younger. 90 
 
 A fresh plate you call for, 
 
 But vainly you bawl for ; 
 
 Now taste disapproves it, 
 
 No waiter removes it. 
 
 Still hope newly budding. 
 
 Relies on a pudding ; 
 
 But critics each minute 
 
 Set fancy agin it — 
 
 ' That 's queer vermicelli.' 
 
 ' I say, Vizetelly, 100 
 
 There 's glue in that jelly.' 
 
 ' Tarts bad altogether ; 
 
 That crust 's made of leather.' 
 
 ' Some custard, friend Vesey ? ' 
 
 ' No — batter made easy.' 
 
 ' Some pheese, Mr. Foster ? ' 
 
 ' — Don't like single Glos'ter." 
 
 Meanwhile to top table, 
 
 Like fox in the fable. 
 
 You see silver dishes, no 
 
 With those little fishes, 
 
 The white bait delicious, 
 
 Borne past you officious ; 
 
 And hear rather plainish, 
 
 A sound that 's champaignish. 
 
 And glimpse certain bottles 
 
 Made long in the throttles. 
 
 And sniff — very pleasant ! 
 
 Grouse, partridge, and pheasant. 
 
 And see mounds of ices, 120 
 
 For Patrons and Vices ; 
 
 Pine apple, and bunches 
 
 Of grapes, for sweet munches. 
 
 And fruits of all virtue 
 
 That really desert you. 
 
 You've nuts, but not crack ones, 
 
 Half empty, and black ones ; 
 
 With oranges sallow — 
 
 They can't be called yellow — 
 
 Some pippins well wrinkled, 130 
 
 And plums almond sprinkled, 
 
 Some rout cakes, and so on, 
 
 Then with business to go on ; 
 
 Long speeches are stutter'd. 
 
 And toasts are well butter'd, 
 
 While dames in the gallery. 
 
 All dressed in fallallery. 
 
 Look on at the mummery : 
 
 And listen to flummery. 
 
 Hip, hip, and huzzaing, 140 
 
 And singing and saying. 
 
 Glees, catches, orations, 
 
 And lists of donations. 
 
 Hush, a song, Mr. Tinney — 
 
 ' Mr. Benbow, one guinea ; 
 
 Mr. Frederick Manual, 
 
 One guinea, and annual.' 
 
 Song — Jockey and Jenny — 
 
 ' Mr, Markham, one guinea.' 
 
 ' Have you all filled your glasses ? 150 
 
 Here 's a health to good lasses.' 
 
 The subscription still skinny — 
 
 'Mr. franklin, one guinea,' 
 
 Franklin looks like a ninny ; 
 
 ' Mr. Boreham, one guinea — 
 
 Mr. Brogg, Mr. Finney, 
 
 Mr. Tempest— one guinea, 
 
 Mr. Merrington — twenty,' 
 
 Rough music in plenty. 
 
 Away toddles Chairman, 160 
 
 The little dark spare man 
 
 Not sorry at ending 
 
 With white sticks attending. 
 
 And some vain Tomnoddy, 
 
 Votes in his own body 
 
 To fill the void seat up. 
 
 And get on his feet up, 
 
 To say, with voice squeaking, 
 
 ' Unaccustomed to speaking,' 
 
 Which sends you off seeking 170 
 
 Your hat, number thirty — 
 
 No coach — very dirty. 
 
 So, hungry and fever'd. 
 
 Wet-footed — spoilt-beaver'd. 
 
 Eyes aching in socket. 
 
 Ten pounds out of pocket, 
 
 To Brook-Street the Upper, 
 
 You haste home to supper. 
 
4S6 
 
 ODE TO ADMIRAL LORD GAMBIER, G.C.B. 
 
 'Well, if you reclaim sufch as Hood, your Society will deserve the thanks of the country.'— 
 Temperance Society's Herald, vol, i, No. I, p. 8. 
 
 „ ' My father, when last I from Guinea 
 
 Came home with abundance of wealth, 
 Said, "Jack never be such a ninny 
 
 As to drink " says I, "Father, your health."' 
 
 Nothing like Grog. 
 
 Oh ! Admiral Gam I dare not mention bier. 
 
 In such a temperate ear, — 
 
 Oh ! Admiral' Gam -■ an Admiral of the Blue, 
 
 Of course to read the Navy List aright, 
 For strictly shunning wine of either hue. 
 You can't be Admiral of the Red or White : — 
 Oh, Admiral Gam ! consider ere you call 
 On merry Englishmen to wash their throttles 
 With water only ; and to break their bottles 
 To stick, for fear of trespass, on the wall 
 Of Exeter Hall ! 
 
 Consider, I beseech, the contrariety 
 
 Of cutting off our brandy, gin, and rum 
 
 And then, by tracts, inviting us to come 
 
 And ' mix in your society ! ' 
 
 In giving rules to dine, or sup, or lunch. 
 
 Consider Nature's ends before you league us 
 
 To strip the Isle of Rum of all its punch — 
 
 To dock the Isle of Mull of all its negus — 
 
 Or doom — to suit your milk-and-water view— 
 
 The Isle of Skye to iiothing but sky-blue! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Consider, — for appearance' sake, consider 
 The sorry figure of a spirit-ridder, 
 Going on this crusade against the suttler ; 
 A sort of Hudibras^without a Butler ! 
 
 Consider — ere you break the ardent spirits 
 Of father, mother, brother, sister, daughter ; 
 What are your beverage's washy merits ? 
 Gin may be low — but I have known low-water ' 
 
ODE^O ADMIRAL LORD GAMBIER, G.C.B. 457 
 
 Consider well, before you thus deliver, 
 With such authority, your sloppy canon ; 
 Should British tars taste nothing but the river, 
 Because the Chesapeake once fought the Shannon ? 
 
 VI 
 
 Consider too — before all Eau-de-vie, 
 Schiedam, or other drinkers, you rebut — 
 To bite a bitten dog all curs agree ; 
 But who would cut a man because he 's cut ? 
 
 VII 
 
 Consider — ere you bid the poor to fill 
 Their murmuring stomachs with the ' murmuring rill,'- 
 Consider that their streams are not like ours. 
 Reflecting heav'n, margin'd by sweet flow'rs ; 
 On their dark pools by day no sun reclines. 
 By night no Jupiter, no Venus shines ; 
 Consider life's sour taste, that bids them mix 
 Rum with their Acheron, or gin with Styx : 
 If you jnust pour out water to the poor, oh ! 
 Let it be aqua d'oro ! 
 
 Consider — ere as furious as a grififin. 
 
 Against a, glass of grog you make such work, 
 
 A man may like a stiff 'un, 5° 
 
 And yet not be a Burke ! 
 
 Consider, too, before you bid all skinkers 
 Turn water-drinkers, 
 
 What sort of fluid fills their native rivers ; 
 Their Mudiboo's, and Niles, and Guadalquivers. 
 How should you like, yourself, in glass or mug. 
 
 The Bog— the Bug— 
 The Maine — the Weser — or that freezer, Neva ? 
 Nay, take the very rill of classic ground — 
 Lord Byron found 
 Ev'n Castaly the better for Geneva. 
 
 X 
 
 Consider — if to vote Reform's arrears. 
 
 His Majesty should please to make you peers, 
 
 Your titles would be very far from trumps. 
 
 To figure in a book of blue and red : — 
 
 The Duke of Draw-well — what a name to dread ! 
 
 Marquis of Main-pipe ; Earl New-River-Head ! 
 
 And Temperance's chief, the Prince of Pumps ! 
 
 9 3 
 
458 
 
 THE CIGAR 
 
 'Here comes Mr. Faf(,'—T/u Critic. 
 '1 knew by the smoke that so gracefully curl'd.'— ^oo/'tf. 
 
 Some sigh for this and that, 
 My wishes don't go far, 
 
 The world may wag at will, 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 Some fret themselves to death 
 With Whig and Tory jar ; 
 
 I don't care which is in, 
 So 1 have my cigar. 
 
 Sir John requests my vote, 
 And so does Mr. Marr ; 
 
 I don't care how it goes. 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 Some want a German row, 
 Some wish a Russian war, 
 
 I care not — I'm at peace. 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 I never see the Post, 
 I seldom read the Star, 
 
 The Globe I scarcely heed. 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 They tell me that Bank Stock 
 Is sunk much under par ; 
 
 It 's all the same to me. 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 Honours have come to men 
 My juniors at the Bar ; 
 
 No matter — I can wait. 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 Ambition frets me not ; 
 
 A cab or glory's car 3» 
 
 Are just the same to mc. 
 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 I worship no vain Gods, 
 But serve the household Lar 
 
 I'm sure to be at home, 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 I do not seek for fame, 
 
 A General with a scar ; 
 A private let me be, 
 
 So I have my cigar. 40 
 
 To have my choice among 
 The toys of life's bazaar, 
 
 The deuce may take them all. 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 Some minds are often tost 
 
 By tempests like a tar ; 
 I always seem in port, 
 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 The ardent flame of love 
 
 My bosom cannot char, jo 
 
 I smoke, but do not burn, 
 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
 They tell me Nancy Low, 
 
 Has married Mr. R. ; 
 The jilt ! but I can live. 
 
 So I have my cigar. 
 
4S9 
 
 A CHARITY SERMON 
 
 ' " I would have walked many a mile to have communed with you| and, believe mc, I will 
 shortly pay thee anothei" visit ; but my friends, I fancy, wonder at my stay, so let mc have the 
 money immediately." Trulliber then put on a stern look, and cried out, " Thou dost not intend to 
 rob me ? " 
 
 tt it * » * 
 
 "'I would have thee know, friend^" addressing himself to Adams, " I sliall not leai n my duty 
 from such as thee. 1 know what charity is, better than to give to vagabonds." ^—Joseph Andrews. 
 
 I'm an extremely charitable man — no collar and long hair, though a little 
 
 carroty ; 
 Demure, half-inclined to the unknowfn tongues, but I never gain'd anything 
 
 by Charity — 
 I got a little boy into the Foundling, but his unfortunate mother was traced 
 
 and baited. 
 And the overseers found her out — and she found me out — and the child was 
 
 affiliated. 
 
 Oh, Charity will come home to roost — 
 Like curses and chickens is Charity. 
 
 I once, near Whitehall's very old wall, when ballads danc'd over the whole 
 
 of it. 
 Put a bad five-shilling piece into a beggar's hat, but the old hat had got 
 
 a hole in it ; 
 And a little boy caught it in his little hat, and an officer's eye seem'd to care 
 
 •for it, 
 As my bad crown-piece went through his bad crownpiece, and they took me 
 up to Queen's Square for it. lo 
 
 Oh, Charity, &c. 
 
 I let my very old (condemn 'd) old house to a man, at a rent that was shock- 
 ingly low, ; • 
 
 So I found a roof for his ten motherless babes — all defunct and fatherless 
 now ; 
 
 For the plaguey one-sided party-wall fell in, so did the roof, on son and 
 daughter, 
 
 And twelve jurymen sat on eleven bodies, and brought in a very personal 
 verdict of Manslaughter. 
 
 Oh, Charity, &c. 
 
 I picked up a young well-dress'd gentleman, who had fallen in a fit in St. 
 
 Martin's Court, 
 And charitably offer'd to see him home, — for charity always seem'd to be 
 
 my forte, 
 And I've hart presents for seeing fallen gentlemen home, but this was a very 
 
 unlucky job — 
 Do you know, he got my watch-^my purse — and my handkerchief — for it 
 
 was one of the swell mob. 
 Oh, Charity, &c. 
 
46o 
 
 A CHARITY SERMON 
 
 Being four miles from Town, I stopt a horse that had run away with a man, 
 
 when it seem'd that they must be dash'd tp pieces. 
 Though several kind people were following him with all their might — but 
 
 such following a horse his speed increases ; 20 
 
 I held the horse while he went to recruit his strength ; and I meant to ride 
 
 home, of course ; 
 But the crowd came up and took me up — for it turned out the man had run 
 
 away with the horse. 
 
 Oh, Charity, &c. 
 
 I watch'd last month all the drovers and drivers about the suburbs, for it 's 
 a positive fact. 
 
 That I think the utmost penalty ought always to be enforc'd against every- 
 body under Mr. Martin's Act;' 
 
 But I couldn't catch one hit over the horns, or over the shins, or on the 
 ears, or over the head ; 
 
 And I caught a rheumatism from early wet hours, and got five weeks of ten 
 swell'd fingers in bed. 
 
 Oh, Charity, &c. 
 
 Well, I've utterly done with Charity, though I us'd so to preach about its 
 
 finest fount ; 
 Charity may do for some that are more lucky, but / can't turn it to any 
 
 account — 
 It goes so the very reverse way — even if one chirrups it up with a dust of 
 
 piety ; 
 That henceforth let it be understood, I take my nanie entirely out of the List 
 
 of the Subscribers to the Humane Society. 33 
 
 Oh, Charity, &c. 
 
 A HAPPY NEW YEAR ! 
 
 ' If th^ affairs of this world did not make us so sad, 
 'T would be easy enough to be merry.' — Old Song: 
 
 There is nothing but plague in this 
 house ! 
 There 's the turbot is stole by the 
 cat, 
 The Newfoundland has ate up the 
 grouse, 
 And the haunch has been gnaw'd 
 by a rat ! 
 It 's the day of all days when I wish'd 
 That our friends should enjoy our 
 good cheer ; 
 Mr. Wiggins — our dinner is dish'd, — 
 But I wish you a happy New Year I 
 
 Mr. Rudge has not called, but he 
 will. 
 For his rates, church, and highway, 
 and poor ; 10 
 
 Aud the butcher has brought in his 
 bill- 
 Twice as much as the quarter before. 
 Little Charles is come home with the 
 mumps, 
 And Matilda with measles, 1 fear ; 
 And I've taken two sov'reigns like 
 dumps — 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 
 
 461 
 
 Your poor brother is in the Gazette, 
 
 And your banker is off to New York ; 
 Mr. Bigsby has died in your debt, 
 
 And the ' Wiggins ' has foundered 
 
 near Cork ; 20 
 
 Mr. Merrington's bill has come back ; 
 
 You are chosen to serve overseer ; 
 The new wall is beginning to crack — 
 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
 The best dinner-set's fall'n to the 
 ground ; 
 The militia 's called out, and you're 
 drawn ; 
 Not a piece of our plate can be found. 
 But there 's marks of men's feet 
 on the lawn ; 
 Two anonymous letters have come, 
 That declare you shall die like a 
 Weare ; 30 
 
 And it may — or may not — be a hum- 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
 The old lawsuit with Levy is lost ; 
 You are fined for not cleansing the 
 street ; 
 And the water-pipe 's burst with the 
 frost, 
 Andtheroof letsthe'rain in and sleet. 
 Your old tenant at seventy-four 
 Has gone off in the night, with his 
 gear, 
 And has taken the key of the door — 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
 There 's the ' Sun ' and the ' Phoenix ' 
 to pay, 41 
 
 For the chimney has blaz'd like Old 
 Nick ; 
 The new gig has been jamm'd by 
 a dray, 
 And the old horse has taken to kick. 
 We have hardly a bushel of small. 
 
 And now coal is extravagant dear ; 
 Your greatcoat is stole out of the 
 hall— 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
 The whole green-house is smash'd by 
 the hail. 
 And the plants have all died in the 
 night ; 50 
 
 The magnolia 's blown down by the 
 gale, 
 And the chimney looks far from 
 upright ; 
 And — the deuce take the man from 
 the shop. 
 That hung up the new glass chan- 
 delier ! — 
 It has come, in the end, to one drop, — 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
 There 's misfortune wherever we 
 dodge — 
 It 's the same in the country and 
 town ; 
 There 's the porter has burn'd down 
 his lodge, 
 While he went off to smoke at the 
 Crown. 6a 
 
 The fat butler makes free with your 
 wine, 
 And ' the footman has drunk the 
 strong beer. 
 And the coachman can't walk in 
 a line, — 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
 I havedoubts if your clerk is correct — 
 There are hints of a mistress at Kew, 
 And some day he'll abscond, I expect ; 
 Mr. Brown has built out your back 
 view ; 
 The new housemaid 's the greatest of 
 flirts- 
 She has men in the house, that is 
 clear ; 70 
 
 And the laundress has pawn'd all your 
 shirts, — 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
 Your ' Account of a Visit to Rome,' 
 
 Not a critic on earth seems to laud. 
 And old Huggins is lately come home. 
 
 And will swear that your Claude 
 isn't Claude ; 
 Your election is far from secure, 
 
 Though it 's likely to cost very dear ; 
 You've come out in a caricature — 
 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
462 
 
 A HAPPY NEW YEAR 
 
 You've been christen 'd an ass in the 
 Times, 81 
 
 And the Chronicle calls you a fool ; 
 And that dealer in boys, Dr. Ghririies, 
 Has engaged the next house for a 
 school ; 
 And the play -ground -will run by the 
 bow'r 
 That you took so much trouble to 
 rear — 
 We shaH never have one quiet hour — 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
 Little John will not take to his book, 
 He 's come home black and blue 
 from the cane ; ' 9a 
 
 There 's your uncle is courting his 
 cook, 
 And your mother has married again ! 
 Jacob Jones will be tried with his wife 
 And against them you'll have to 
 appear ; 
 If they're hung you'll be wretched for 
 life— 
 But I wish you a happy New Year ! 
 
 ODE TO MISS KELLY 
 
 ON HER OPENING THE STRAND THEATRE 
 
 Betty — I beg pardon — Fanny K. ! 
 
 (I was just thinking of your Betty Finnikin) — 
 Permit me thus to say, 
 In quite a friendly way — 
 
 1 like your theatre, though but a minikin ; 
 For tho' small stages Kean dislikes to spout on. 
 Renounce me! if I don't agree with Dowton, 
 The Minors are the Passions' proper schools. 
 
 For me, I never can 
 Find wisdom in the plan 
 That keeps large reservoirs for little Pooles. 
 
 I like your boxes where the audience sit 
 
 A family circle ; and your little pit ; 
 
 I like your little stage, where you discuss 
 
 Your pleasant bill of fare, 
 And show us passengers so rich and rare. 
 Your little stage seems quite an omnibus. 
 
 I like exceedingly your Parthian dame. 
 Dimly remembering dramatic codgers. 
 The ghost of Memory — the shade of Fame ! — 
 I-6*d ! what a housekeeper for Mr. Rogers ! 
 I like your Savage, of a one-horse power ; 
 And Terence, done in Irish from the Latin ; 
 And Sally — quite a kitchen-garden flower ; 
 And Mrs. Drake, serene in sky-blue satin ! 
 I like your Girl as speechless as a mummy — 
 
 It shows you can play dummy ! — 
 I like your Boy, deprived of every gleam 
 Of light for ever — a benighted being ! 
 And really think — thoiigh Irish it may seem — 
 
 Your blindness is worth seein?. 
 
ODE TO MISS KELLY 463 
 
 I like your Governess ; and there 's a striking 
 Tale of Two Brothers, that sets tears a-flowing — 
 
 But I'm not going 
 All through the bill to tell you of my liking. 
 Suffice it, Fanny Kelly ! with your art 
 So much in love, like others I have grown, 
 I really mean myself to take a part 
 In ' Free and Easy ' — at my own bespeak — 
 
 And shall three times a week 40 
 
 Drop in and make your pretty house my own ! 
 
 ODE TO SIR ANDREW AGNEW, BART. 
 
 *At certain seasons he makes a prodigious clattering with his bill.' — Seiby- 
 *The bill is rather long, flat, and tinged with ^fxn.'— Bewick. 
 
 Andrew Fairservice, — but I beg pardon, 
 You never labour 'd in Di Vernon's garden. 
 On curly kale and cabbages intent, — 
 Andrew Churchservice was the thing I meant,— 
 You are a Christian — I would be the same, 
 Although we differ, and I'll tell you why. 
 
 Not meaning to make game, 
 
 1 do not like my Church so very High ! 
 
 When people talk, as talk they will. 
 
 About your bill, lo 
 
 They say, among their other jibes and small jeers. 
 That, if you had your way, 
 You'd make the seventh day 
 As overbearing as the Dey of Algiers. 
 Talk of converting Blacks — 
 
 By your attacks, 
 You make a thing so horrible of one day, 
 Each nigger, they will bet a something tidy. 
 Would rather be a heathenish Man Friday, 
 
 Than your Man Sunday I so 
 
 So poor men speak, 
 
 Who, once a week, 
 P'rhaps, after weaving artificial flowers. 
 Can snatch a glance of Nature's kinder bowers. 
 
 And revel in a bloom 
 
 That is not of the loom, 
 Making the earth, the streams, the skies, the trees, 
 
 A Chapel of- Else. 
 Whereas, as you would plan it, 
 Wall'd in with hard Scotch granite, 30 
 
464 ODE TO SIR ANDREW AGNEW, BART. 
 
 People all day should look to their behaviours ;— 
 But though there be, as Shakspeare owns, 
 
 ' Sermons in stones,' 
 Zounds ! Would you have us Work at them like paviours ? 
 
 Spontaneous is pure devotion's fire ; 
 And in a green wood many a soul has built 
 A new Church, with a fir-tree for its spire. 
 Where Sin has prayed for peace, and wept for guilt. 
 Better than if an architect the plan drew ; 
 We know of old how medicines were back'rt, 40 
 
 But true Religion needs not to be quack'd 
 By an Un-merry Andrew ! 
 
 Suppose a poor town-weary sallow elf 
 At Primrose-hill would renovate himself. 
 Or drink (and no great harm) 
 Milk genuine at Chalk Farm, — 
 The innocent intention who would baulk. 
 And drive him back into Sti Bennet Fink ? 
 For my part, for my life, I cannot think 
 A walk on Sunday is ' the Devil's Walk.' 50 
 
 But there 's a sect of Deists, and their creed 
 
 Is D — ing other people to be d — d, — 
 
 Yea, all that are not of their saintly level. 
 
 They make a pious point 
 
 To send, with an ' aroint,' 
 
 Down to that great Fillhellenist, the Devil. 
 
 To such, a ramble by the River Lea, 
 
 Is really treading on the ' Banks of D — .' 
 
 Go down to Margate, wisest of law-makers. 
 
 And say unto the sea, as Canute did, 60 
 
 (Of course the sea will do as it is bid,) 
 ' This is the Sabbath — ^let there be no Breakers ! ' 
 Seek London's Bishop, on some Sunday morn. 
 And try him with your tenets to inoculate, — 
 Abuse his fine souchong, and say in scorn, 
 ' This is not Churchman's Chocolate ! ' 
 
 Or, seek Dissenters at their mid-day meal. 
 
 And read them from your Sabbath Bill some passages. 
 
 And while they eat their mutton, beef, and veal, 
 
 Shout out with holy zeal, — 70 
 
 ' These are not Chappel's sassages ! ' 
 Suppose your Act should act up to your will. 
 Yet how will it appear to Mrs. Grundy, 
 To hear you saying of this pious bill, 
 
 ' It works well — on a Sunday ! ' 
 
ODE TO SIR ANDREW AGNEW, BART. 465 
 
 To knock down apple-stalls is now too late, 
 
 Except to stax-ve some poor old harmless madam ; — 
 
 You might have done some good, and chang'd our fate, 
 
 Could you have upset that, which ruined Adam ! 
 
 'Tis useless to prescribe salt-cod and eggs, So 
 
 Or lay post-horses under legal fetters. 
 
 While Tattersall's on Sunday stirs its Legs, 
 
 Folks look for good examples from their Betters I 
 
 Consider, — Acts of Parliament may bind 
 
 A man to go where Irvings are discoursing — 
 
 But as for forcing ' proper frames of mind,' 
 
 Minds are not framed, like melons, for such forcing I 
 
 Remember, as a Scottish legislator. 
 
 The Scotch Kirk always has a Moderator ; 
 
 Meaning one need not ever be sojourning 9a 
 
 In a long Sermon Lane without a turning. 
 
 Such grave old maids as Portia and Zenobia 
 
 May like discourses with a skein of threads. 
 
 And love a lecture for its many heads, 
 
 But as for me, I have the Hydra-phobia. 
 
 Religion one should never overdo : 
 
 Right glad I am no minister you be, 
 
 For you would say your service, sir, to me. 
 
 Till I should say, ' My service, sir, to you.' 
 
 Six days made all that is, you know, and then 100 
 
 Came that of rest — by holy ordination. 
 
 As if to hint unto the sons of men. 
 
 After creation should come re-creation. 
 
 Read right this text, and do not further search 
 
 To make a Sunday Workhouse of the Church. 
 
 ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAM, ESQ., M.R 
 
 ON THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF DRUNKENNESS 
 
 'Steady, boys, steady.' — Sea Song". 
 
 ' Then didihey fall upon the chai of drinking \ and forthwith began Flaggons to go, Goblets to 
 fl^, great Bowls to ting, Glasses to ring, draw, reach, fill, mix, p-ive it me without water ; so, my 
 Friend, so ; whip me off this Glass neatly, bring me hither some Claret, a full weeping Glass till it 
 run over ! * — Rabelais. 
 
 'Now, seeing that every Vessell was empty, great and small, with not so much at the Bottom as 
 would befuddTe or muddle even a Fly, such as are the Flies of Baieux, I say, seeing- this 
 lamentable sight, Gargantua leapt up on one of the Tables, and with Tears in his eyes as big 
 as Cannon Bullets, did pathetically beseech Pantagruel, as well as he could for the Hiccups ana 
 the Drinking Cups, and all sorts of Cups, as. he valued his precious Body and Soul, one or both, 
 never to drink more than became a reasonable Man, and not a Hog; and a Beast. And the Stint 
 of a reasonably reasonable Man is thus much, to wit, seven Thousandthree Hundred and fifi^^three 
 Hcta;sheads, twice as many Kilderlfins, thrice as many little Kegs, and as many Flaggons, Bottles, 
 ana Tankards as you will, beside. A Christian ought not to drink more. As Gargantua said 
 these Words his Voice grew thick, his Tongue being as it were too huge for his Mouth ; and on 
 a sudden he turned dog;-sick, and fell off the Table a prodigious Fall, whereby there was a horrible 
 Earthquake, from Pans even unto Turkey in Asia, as is remembered unto this day.' — Rabelais. 
 
466 ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAM, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 O, Mr. Buckingham, if I may take 
 
 The liberty witli you and your Committee, 
 
 Some observations I intend to make, 
 
 I hope will prove both pertinent and pretty. 
 
 On Drunkenness you've held a special court. 
 
 But is consistency, I ask, your forte, 
 
 When after (I must say) much Temperance swaggering. 
 
 You issue a Report, 
 
 That 's staggering ! 
 Of course you labour'd without drop or sup, lo 
 
 Yet Certain parts of that Report to read. 
 
 Some men might think indeed, 
 A corkscrew, not a pen, had drawn it up. 
 For instance, was it quite a sober plan 
 On such a theme as drunkenness to trouble 
 
 A poor old man. 
 Who could not e'en see single, much less double. 
 
 Blind some six years, 
 
 As it appears, 
 He gives in evidence, and you receive it, so 
 
 A flaming picture of a flaming palace. 
 Where gin-admirers sipped the chalice 
 And then, (the banter is not bad,) 
 
 Thinks fit to add. 
 You really should have seen it to believe it.* 
 That he could see such sights I must deny. 
 Unless he borrowed Betty Martin's eye. 
 A man that is himself walks in a line. 
 One, not himself, goes serpentine. 
 
 And as he rambles 30 
 
 In crablike scrambles. 
 The while his body works in curves. 
 His intellect as surely swerves, 
 And some such argument as this he utters, 
 ' While men get cut we must have cutters. 
 As long as Jack will have his rum. 
 We must have pink, corvette, and bomb. 
 
 Each sort of craft 
 
 Since Noah's old raft, 
 ■ Frigate and brig, ' , 40 
 
 Ships of all rig, 
 We must have fleets, because our sailors swig, 
 
 * What 19 your occupation? My occupation has been in the weaving line; btii haviv£^ the 
 dropsy six years ago^ I am deprived of my eyesight. 
 
 2734. Dia you not once see a gin-shop burnt down ? — About nine months ago there was the sign of 
 the Aoam and Eve at the corner of Church-street, at Bethnal-green, burnt down, and they had such 
 a quantity of spirits in the house at the time that it was such a terrible fire, that they were obliged 
 to throw everythincr into the middle of the road to keep it away from the liquor, and it was all in 
 flames in the roacf; and the gin-shop opposite was scorched and broke their windows : and there 
 was another gin-shop at the opposite corner, at three corners there were gin-shops, and was, from 
 the fire, just Tike a murdering concern ; for you could not get round the comer at all, it was so 
 thronged that a man could itot believe it unless he saw it. 
 
ODE TO J, S. BUCKINGHAM, ESQ., M.P. 467 
 
 But only get our tars to broths and soups, 
 
 And see how slops will do away with sloops ! 
 
 Turn flip to flummery, and grog to gravy, 
 
 And then what need has England of a navy ? ' ' 
 
 Forgive my muse ; she is a saucy hussy. 
 
 But she declares such reasoning sounds muzzy, 
 
 And that, as sure as Dover stands at Dover, 
 
 The man who entertains so strange a notion 50 
 
 Of governing the ocean, 
 Has been but half seas over. 
 Again : when sober people talk 
 On soberness, would not their words all walk 
 Straight to the point, instead of zig-zag trials. 
 Of both sides of the way, till having crost 
 And crost, they find themselves completely lost 
 Like gentlemen, — rather cut — in Seven Dials ? 
 Just like the sentence following in fact : 
 
 ' Every Act " 6a 
 
 , Of the Legislature,' (so it runs) ' should flow 
 Over the bed,' of what ? — begin your guesses. 
 
 The Bed of Ware ? 
 
 The State Bed of the May'r ? 
 One at the Hummums ? Of MacAdam's ? No. 
 
 A parsley bed ? 
 
 Of caibbage, green or red ? 
 Of onions ? daffodils ? of water-cresses ? 
 A spare-bed with a friend — one full of fleas ? 
 At Bedford, or Bedhampton ?— None of these. 70 
 
 The Thames's bed ? The bed of the New River ? 
 A kennel ? brick-kiln ? or a stack of hay ? 
 
 Of church-yard clay, 
 The bed that 's made for ev'ry mortal liver ? 
 No — give it up, — all guessing I defy in it. 
 It is the bed of ' Truth,' — ' inspired ' forsooth 
 As, if you gave your best best-bed to Truth 
 
 She'd lie in it 1 
 Come, Mr. Biickingham, be candid, come, 
 
 Didn't that metaphor want ' seeing home ' ? Bo 
 
 What man, who did not see far more than real. 
 
 Drink's beau ideal, — 
 Could fancy the mechanic so well thrives. 
 
 In these hard times, 
 
 The source of half his crimes 
 Is going into gin-shops changing fives ! ' 
 
 * 3893. tf temperance were universal, do you think wes/wuld veed any tine-of -battle ships? 
 •■It wouldT be very unsafe for us to be without them. 
 
 ^ 16S6. Do you mean to infer from that, that the law in all its branches should be in accordance 
 with the Divine command ?— 1 do ; every Act of the Legislature should flow over thebed of inspired 
 truth, and receive the impregnation of its righteous and holy principles. 
 
 =* 2512. Are they in the habit of bringing ^5 notes to get changed, as well as sovereigns ?— Very 
 rarely ; I should think a jCS note is an article they seldom put in their pockets. 
 
468 ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAM, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 Whate'er had wash'd such theoretic throats, 
 After a soundish sleep, till twelve next day. 
 And, perhaps, a gulp of soda — did not they 
 
 All change their notes ? 90 
 
 Suppose, mind, Mr. B., I say, suppose 
 
 You were the landlord of the Crown — the Rose — 
 
 The Cock and Bottle, or the Prince of Wales, 
 
 The Devil and the Bag of Nails, 
 
 The Crown and Thistle, 
 
 The Pig and Whistle, 
 Magpie and Stump — take which you like. 
 The question equally will strike ; 
 Suppose your apron on — ^top-boots, — ^fur cap — 
 
 Keeping an eye to bar and tap, «oo 
 
 When in comes, muttering like mad. 
 The strangest customer you ever had ! 
 Well, after rolling eyes and mouthing. 
 
 And calling for a, go of nothing, 
 He thus accosts you in a tone of malice : 
 ' Here 's pillars, curtains, gas, plate-glass — ^What not ? 
 Zounds ! Mr. Buckingham, the shop you've got 
 
 Beats Buckingham Palace ! 
 It 's not to be allowed, Sir ; I'm a Saint, 
 So I've brought a paint-brush, and a pot of paint, no 
 
 You deal in Gin, Sir, 
 
 Glasses of Sin, Sir ; 
 No words:— Gin wholesome ? — ^You're a story-teller — 
 I don't mind Satan standing at your back. 
 The Spirit moveth me to go about. 
 And paint your premises inside and out. 
 
 Black, Sir, coal black, 
 Coal black. Sir, from the garret to the cellar. 
 I'll teach you to sell gin — and, what is more. 
 To keep your wicked customers therefrom, j2o 
 
 I'll paint the Great Death's Head upon your door — 
 Write underneath it, if you please — Old Tom ! ' ' 
 
 Should such a case occur. 
 How would you act with the intruder. Sir ? 
 Surely, not cap in hand, you'd stand and bow. 
 But after hearing him proceed thus far, 
 (Mind — locking up the bar) 
 
 You'd seek the first policeman near, 
 
 ' Here, take away this fellow, here, 
 The rascal is as drunk as David's Sow 1 ' 130 
 
 ' 3006. Do you think it would be of good effect, were the Legisiature to order that those houses 
 should be painted all black, with a large death's head and cross-bones over the door ?— I wish they 
 would do even so much. 
 
ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAM, ESQ., M.P. 469 
 
 If I may ask again — between 
 
 Ourselves and the General Post, I mean — 
 
 What was that gentleman's true situation 
 
 Who said — but could he really stand 
 
 To what he said ? — ' In Scottish land 
 
 The cause o£ Drunkenness was education ! ' ' 
 
 Only, good Mr. Buckingham, conceive it ! 
 
 In modern Athens, a, fine classic roof, 
 
 Christened the High School — that is, over proof I 
 
 Conceive the sandy laddies ranged in classes, 140 
 
 With quaichs and bickers, drinking-horns and glasses, 
 
 Ready to take a lesson in Glenlivet ! 
 
 Picture the little Campbells 'and M'Gregors, 
 
 Dancing, half fou', by way of learning figures ; 
 
 And Murrays, — not as Lindley used to teach — 
 
 Attempting verbs when past their parts of speech — 
 
 Imagine Thompson, learning ABC, 
 
 By O D V. 
 Fancy a dunce that will not drink his wash. 
 And Master Peter Alexander Weddel 150 
 
 Invested with a medal 
 For getting on so very far-in-tosh. 
 Fancy the Dominie — a drouthy body. 
 Giving a lecture upon making toddy. 
 Till having emptied every stoup and cup. 
 He cries, ' Lads I go and play — the school is up I ' 
 
 To Scotland, Ireland is akin 
 
 In drinking, like as twin to twin, — 
 
 When other means are all adrift, 
 
 A liquor-shop is Pat's last shift, j«o 
 
 Till reckoning Erin round from store to store. 
 
 There is one whisky shop in four.^ 
 Then who, but with a fancy rather frisky, 
 And warm besides, and generous with whiskey. 
 Not seeing most particularly clear. 
 Would recommend to make the drunkards thinner. 
 By shutting up the publican and sinner 
 With pensions each of fifty pounds a year ? ' 
 Ods ! taps and topers I private stills and worms ! 
 What doors you'd soon have open to your terms ! 170 
 
 ^ 4502. What are the remote causes that have influenced the habit ofdrinkingf sjiints arnon^^ all 
 classes of the population ? — One of the causes of drunkenness in Scotland is education. 
 
 ^ 3804., Did yon observe the drinking of spirits vcr^ general in Ireland ?— In Ireland, I think, upon 
 a moderate calculation, one shop out of every four is a whiskey -shop, throughout the whole kmg- 
 dom. Those who have been unsuccessful in every other employment, and those who have no capital 
 for any employment, fly to the selling of whiskey as the last shift. 
 
 ' 773' Now suppose we were to give £r,o a-year to every spirit-seller in Belfast, to pension them 
 off (and I am sure it would be much better for the country that they should be paid for -doing 
 nothing than for doing mischief)— 
 
470 ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAM, ESQ., M-.P. 
 
 To men of common gumption, 
 
 How strange, besides, must seem 
 
 At this time any scheme ■ 
 To put a check upon potheen's consumption. 
 When all are calling out for Irish Poor Laws ! 
 Instead of framing more laws. 
 To pauperism, if you'd give a pegger. 
 Don't check, but patronise their ' Kill-the-Beggar ! ' ^ 
 
 If Pat is apt to go in Irish Linen, 
 
 (Buttoning his coat, with nothing but his skin in) i8o 
 
 Would any Christian man — that 's quite himself, 
 
 His wits not floor'd, or laid' upon the shelf; — 
 
 While blaming Pat Iqr rqggedness, poor boy, 
 
 Would he deprive him of his ' Corduroy ! ' ^ 
 
 Would any gentleman, unless inclining 
 To tipsy, take a board upon his shoulder, 
 Near Temple Bar, thus warning the beholder, 
 
 ' Beware or Twining ? ' 
 Are tea dealers, indeed, so deep-designing, 
 As one of your select would set us thinking, 190 
 
 That to each tea-chest we should say Tu Doces, 
 
 (Or doses,) 
 Thou tea-chest drinking ? ' 
 
 What would be said of me 
 Should I attempt to trace 
 The vice of drinking to the high in place. 
 
 And say its roof was on the top o' the tree } ^ 
 But / am not pot-valiant, and I shun 
 To say how high potheen might have a run? 
 
 What would you think, if, talking about stingo, aoo 
 
 I told you that a lady friend of mine. 
 By only looking at her wine 
 Flushed in her face as red as a flamingo ? " 
 Would you not ask of me, like many more, — 
 ' Pray, Sir, what had the lady had before ? ' 
 
 * 794. We have in our neighbourhood a species of whiskey of this kind, railed ' Kill-the- Beggar.* 
 '^ 79^. Another description of. what -would be termed adulterated spirits, is by the vulgar termed 
 
 * Corduroy.' 
 
 ' 789. It is quite common, in Dublin particularly, to have at one end of the counter a large pile 
 of tea-chests for females to go behind, to be hid from sight : but the dangerous secrecy arises chiefly 
 from the want of suspicion in persons going into grocers' shops. 
 
 788. It is a well Known fact, that mechanics' wives not unfrequently get portions of spirituous 
 liquors at grocers' shops, and nave them set down to their husoands' accounts as S9ap, sugar, 
 tea, &c. 
 
 ^ 816. Do you ascribe the great inclination for whiskey at present existing amongf the lower 
 classes, originally to the use of it by the higher classes as a favourite drink ? 1 attribute a very 
 large portion of the evil arising from the use of spirituous liquors to the sanction they have received 
 from tne higher classes ; the respectable in society I hold to be the chief patrons of drunkenness. 
 
 ' 759, What do you mean by the phrase 'run' i- — It means, according to a common saying, that 
 for one gallon made/or the Kingy another is made for the Queen: 
 
 * 4627. A lady informed me lately, that in dining'out, although she' should not taste a drop in the 
 hob and nob at dinner, yet the lifting of tlie glass as frequently as etiquette requires," generally 
 flushed her face a good aeal before dinner was ended. 
 
ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAINI, ESQ., M.P. 471 
 
 Suppose at sea, in Biscay's bay of bays, — 
 
 A rum cask bursting in a blaze, — 
 Should / be thought halt tipsy or whole drunk, 
 If running all about the deck I roar'd 
 
 ' I say, is ever a Cork man aboard ? ' aio 
 
 Answered by some Hibernian Jack Juuk, 
 
 While hitching up his tarry trouser, — 
 How would it sound in sober ears, O how, Sir, 
 If I should bellow with redoubled noise, 
 ' Then sit upon the bung-hole, broth of boys ? ' ^ 
 
 When men — the fact 's well known — reel to and fro, 
 A little what is called how-come-you-so, 
 They think themselves as steady as a steeple. 
 And lay their staggerings on other people — 
 
 Taking that fact in pawn, 22a 
 
 What proper inference would then be drawn 
 By e'er a dray-horse with a head to his tail, 
 
 Should anybody cry. 
 
 To some one going by, 
 
 ' O fie ! O fie I O fie ! 
 You're drunk — you've nigh had half a pint of ale t ' ^ 
 
 One certain sign of fumes within the skull 
 They say is being rather slow and dull, 
 Oblivions quite of what we are about — 
 
 No one can doubt 230 
 
 Some weighty queries rose, and yet 
 
 You miss'd 'em, 
 For instance, when a Doctor so bethumps 
 What he denominates ' the forcing system,' 
 Nobody asks him about forcing-pumps I ' 
 
 Oh say, with hand on heart. 
 Suppose that I should start 
 Some theory like this, — 
 ' When Genesis 
 Was written — before man became a glutton, 240 
 
 And in his appetites ran riot, 
 Content with simple vegetable diet. 
 Eating his turnips without leg of mutton, 
 
 ' 3gol. Are you aware of the cause of the bnrningf of the Kent East Indiaman in the Bay of 
 Biscay ? — Holding a candle over the bang-hole of a cask of spirits, the snuff fell into the caslc and 
 set it on fire. They had not presence of mind to put in the bunjj, which would have put out the fire ; 
 and if a man had sat on the bung-holt it would not have burnt him, and it would have put if out. 
 ■ ^ 4-282. Do many youne; men visit those houses ? — A very g;reat many have done, more so than 
 what visit the regular public.houses. 1 was in one of those places about twelve months ago, wait- 
 ing for a coach, and there came into the beer -shop twenty-two boys, who called for half a gallon of 
 ale, which they drank, and then they called for another. 
 
 •^ wii. The over-stimulation, which too frequently ends in the habit of drunkenness in Great 
 Britain in every class, is the result of the 'QxXix^ forcing system simply. ' 
 
472 ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAM, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 His spinach without lamb — carrots sans beef, 
 
 'Tis my belief 
 He was a polypus, and I'm convinc'd 
 Made other men when he was hash'd or minced ! ' — 
 Did I in such a style as this proceed, 
 Would you not say I was Farre gone, indeed ? ' 
 
 Excuse me, if I doubt at each Assize aso 
 
 How sober it would look in public eyes. 
 For our King's Counsel and our learned Judges 
 When trying thefts, assaults, frauds, murders, arsons, 
 To preach from texts of temperance like parsons. 
 By way of giving tipplers gentle nudges. 
 Imagine my Lord Bayley, Parke or Park,^ 
 Donning the fatal sable cap, and hark, 
 ' These sentences must pass, howe'er I'm pang'd 
 You Brandy must return — and Rum the same — 
 To the Goose and Gridiron, whence you came — 260 
 
 Gin ! — Reverend Mr. Cotton and Jack Ketch 
 Your spirit jointly will despatch — 
 Whiskey, be hang'd 1 ' 
 
 Suppose that some fine morning, 
 
 Mounted upon a, pile of Dunlop cheeses, 
 
 I gave the following as public warning. 
 
 Would there not be sly winking, coughs and sneezes ? 
 
 Or dismal hiss of universal scorn. 
 
 ' My brethren, don't be born, — 
 But if you're born, be well advised — 170 
 
 Don't be baptised. 
 If both take plape, still at the worst 
 
 Do not be nursed, — 
 At every birth each gossip dawdle 
 
 Expects her caudle, 
 At christenings, too, drink always hands about. 
 Nurses will have their porter or their stout, — 
 Don't wear clean linen, for it leads to sin, — 
 
 All washerwomen make a stand for gin — 
 If you're a minister — to keep due stinting, gSo 
 
 Never preach sermons that are worth the printing,' 
 
 ^ 1282. Was not vegetable food prescribed in the first chapter of Genesis?— Vegetable food was 
 appointed when the restorative power of man was complete. The restorative piower in some of the 
 lower animals is still complete. If a polypus be truncated or cut into several pieces, each part will 
 become a perfect animal. — Vide Evidence of Dr. Farre. 
 
 * 975. What happy opportunities, for example, are offered to each Judge and King!s Counsellor 
 at every assize, to denounce all customary use of distilled spirit as the great incitement to crime. 
 ■The proper improvement of such opportunities would do much for temperance. 
 
 ' 4642. When a clergyman gets a new manse lie is fined in a bottle of wine ; when he has been 
 newly married, this circumstance subjects him to the same amicable penalty ; the birth of a child 
 also costs one bottle, and the publication of a sermon another.— 5yy. Dunlop, Esq. 
 
ODE TO J. S. BUCKINGHAM, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 Avoid a steam-boat with a lady in her,' 
 
 And when you court, watch Miss well after dinner.^ 
 
 Never run bills, or if you do don't pay,* 
 
 And give your butter and your cheese away, — * 
 
 Build yachts and pleasure-boats if you are rich, 
 
 But never have them launched or payed with pitch,' 
 
 In fine, for Temperance if you stand high. 
 
 Don't die ! ' « 
 Did I preach thus. Sir, should I not appear 
 Just like the ' parson much bemused with beer ? ' 
 
 Thus far, O Mr. Buckingham, I've gather'd, 
 But here, alas I by space my pen is tether'd. 
 And I can merely thank you all in short. 
 The witnesses that have been called in court. 
 And the Committee for their kind Report, 
 Whence I have picked and puzzled out this moral. 
 
 With which you must not quarrel, 
 'Tis based in charity — That men are brothers, 
 
 And those who make a fuss, 
 
 About their Temperance thus, 
 Are not so much more temperate than others. 
 
 473 
 
 290 
 
 THE UNITED FAMILY 
 
 * We stick at nine.'— il/>-iS. Battle. 
 ' Thrice to thine 
 And thrice to mine, 
 And thrice again, 
 To make up nine.' 
 
 The Weird Sisters in Macbeth. 
 
 How oft in families intrudes 
 The demon of domestic feuds, 
 One liking this, one hating that, 
 Each snapping each, like dog and cat, 
 AVith divers bents and tastes perverse, 
 One's bliss, in fact, another's curse. 
 How seldom anything we see 
 Like our united family ! 
 
 Miss Brown of chapels goes in search, 
 Her sister Susan likes the church ; 10 
 One plays at cards, the other* don't ; 
 One will be gay, the other won't : 
 In pray'r and preaching one persists, 
 The other sneers at Methodists ; 
 On Sundays ev'n they can't agree 
 Like our united family. 
 
 * 4637. The absolute necessity of treating females in the same manner, in steam-boat jaunts, is 
 lamentable. 
 
 ^4637. Some youths have been known to defer their entrance into a temperate society till after 
 'their marriage, lest failure in the usual compliments should be misconstrued, and create a coldness 
 with their future wives. 
 
 ^ It (drinking) is employed in making bargains, at the payment of accounts, 
 
 ^ 4659. A landlady, in settling with a farmer for his butter and cheese, brings out the bottle and 
 the glass with her owii bands, and presses it on his acceptance. How can lie refuse a lady solicit- 
 ing him to do what he is, perhaps, unfortunately alread^^ more than half inclined to ?- 
 
 ■" 4640. The launching bowl is a bonus of drink, varying from ^z to ;£io, according to the size 
 of the ship, bestowed by the owners on the apprentices of a ship-building yard at the launch of 
 a vessel. The graving bowl is given to the journeyman after a vessel is payed with tar. 
 
 ^ 46^8. On the event of a decease, every one g«ls a glass wlio comes within the door until the 
 funeral, and for six weeks after it. 
 
474 
 
 THE UNITED FAMILY 
 
 There 's Mr. Bell, a Whig at heart, 
 His lady takes the Tories' part, 
 While William, junior, nothing loth. 
 Spouts Radical against them both. 20 
 One likes the News, one takes the Age, 
 Another buys the unstamp'd page ; 
 They all say /, and never we, 
 Like our united family. 
 
 Not so with us ; — with equal zeal 
 We all support Sir Robert Peel ; 
 Of Wellington our mouths are full, 
 We dote on Sundays on John Bull, 
 With Pa and Ma on selfsame side, 
 Our house has never to divide — 30 
 No opposition members be 
 In our united family. 
 
 Miss Pope her ' Light Guitar ' enjoys, 
 Her father ' cannot bear the noise,' 
 Her mother's charm'd with all her 
 , songs. 
 
 Her brother jangles with the tongs : 
 Thus discord out of music springs, 
 The most unnatural of things, 
 Unlike the genuine harmony 
 In our united family ! 40 
 
 We all on vocal music doat ; 
 
 To each belongs a tuneful throat, 
 
 And all prefer that Irish boon 
 
 Of melody — ' The YoungMay Moon ' — 
 
 By choice we all select the harp. 
 
 Nor is the voice of one too sharp, 
 
 Another flat — all in one key 
 
 Is our united family. 
 
 Miss Powell likes to draw and paint, 
 But then it would provoke a saint, so 
 Her brother takes her sheep for pigs, 
 And says her trees are periwigs. 
 Pa praises all, black, blue, or brown ; 
 And so does Ma — but upside down ! 
 They cannot with the same eye see, 
 Like our united family. 
 
 Miss Patterson has been to France, 
 Her heart's delight is in a dance ; 
 The thing her brother cannot bear, 
 So she must practise with ii chair. 60 
 
 Then at a waltz her mother winks ; 
 But Pa says roundly what he thinks 
 All dos-a-dos, not vis-a-vis, 
 Like oiir united family. 
 
 We none of us that whirling love. 
 Which both our parents disapprove, 
 A hornpipe we delight in more, 
 Or graceful Minuet de la Cour. 
 A special favouritg with Mamma, 
 Who used to dance it with Papa, 70 
 In this we still keep step, you see, 
 In our united family. 
 
 Then books — to hear the Cobbs' de- 
 bates ! 
 One worships Scott — another hates,- 
 Monk Lewis Ann fights stoutly for, 
 And Jane Ukes ' Bunyan's Holy War.' 
 The father on MaccuUoch pores, 
 The mother says all books are bores ; 
 But blue serene as heav'n are we. 
 In our united family. 80 
 
 We never wrangle to exalt 
 Scott, Baiiim, Bulwer, Hope, or Gait, 
 We care not whether Smith or Hook, 
 So that a novel be the book, 
 And in one point we all are fast, 
 Of novels we prefer the last, — 
 In that the very Heads agree 
 Of our united family ! 
 
 To turn to graver matters still. 
 How much we see of sad self-will I 90 
 Miss Scrope, with brilliant views in 
 
 life, 
 Would be a poor lieutenant's wife. 
 A lawyer has her pa's good word. 
 Her Ma has looked her out a Lord. 
 What would they not all give to be 
 Like our united family ! 
 
 By one congenial taste allied, 
 Our dreams of bliss all coincide. 
 We're all for solitudes and cots, 99 
 And love, if we may choose our lots — 
 As partner in the rural plan 
 Each paints the same dear sort of 
 
 man ; 
 One heart alone there seems to be 
 In our xinited family. 
 
THE UNITED FAMILY 
 
 475 
 
 One heart, one hope, one wish, one 
 
 mind, — 
 One voice, one choice, all of a kind, — ■ 
 And can there be a greater bliss — 
 A little heav'n on earth — than this ? 
 The truth to whisper in your ear. 
 It must be told ! — we are not near no 
 The happiness that ought to be 
 In our united family 1 
 
 Alas ! 'tis our congenial taste 
 That lays our little pleasures waste — 
 We all delight, no doubt, to sing. 
 We all delight to touch the string. 
 But where 's the heart that nine may 
 
 touch ? 
 And nine ' May Moons ' are eight too 
 
 much — 
 Just fancy nine, all in one key, 
 Of our united family ! 120 
 
 The play — Oh how we love a play, 
 But half the bUss is shorn away ; 
 On winter nights we venture nigh, 
 But think of houses in July I 
 Nine crowded in a private box. 
 Is apt to pick the stiffest locks — 
 Our curls would all fall out, though we 
 Are one united family ! 
 
 In art the self-same line we walk. 
 We all are fond of heads in chalk, 130 
 We one and all our talent strain 
 Adelphi prizes to obtain ; 
 Nine turban'd Turks are duly sent, 
 But can the royal Duke present 
 Nine silver palettes — no, not he — 
 To our united family. 
 
 Our eating shows the very thing, 
 We all prefer the liver-wing. 
 Asparagus when scarce and thin, 
 And peas directly they come in, 140 
 
 The marrow-bone^if there be one — 
 The ears of hare when crisply done. 
 The rabbit's brain — we all agree 
 In our united family. 
 
 In dress the same result is seen. 
 We all so doat on apple-green ; 
 But nine in green would seem a school 
 Of charity to quizzing fool — 
 We cannot all indulge our will 149 
 With that sweet silk on Ludgate Hill, 
 No remnant can sufficient be 
 For our united family. 
 
 In reading hard is still our fate. 
 One cannot read o'erlooked by eight. 
 And nine ' Disowned ' — nine ' Pio- 
 neers,' 
 Nine ' Chaperons,' nine ' Buccaneers,' 
 Nine ' Maxwells,' nine ' Tremaines,' 
 
 and such. 
 Would dip into our means too much — 
 Three months are spent o'er volumes 
 
 three. 
 In our united family. 160 
 
 Unhappy Muses ! if the Nine 
 Above in doom with us combine, — 
 In vain we breathe the tender flame. 
 Our sentiments are all the same, 
 And nine complaints address'd to 
 
 Hope 
 Exceed the editorial scope. 
 One in, and eight put out, must be 
 Of our united family ! 
 
 But this is nought — of deadUer kind, 
 A ninefold woe remains behind. 170 
 O why were we so art and part ? 
 So like in taste, so one in heart ? 
 Nine cottages may be to let. 
 But here 's the thought to make us 
 
 fret. 
 We cannot each add Frederick B. 
 To our united family. 
 
476 
 
 SONNET TO OCEAN 
 
 Shall I rebuke thee, Ocean, my old love, 
 That once, in rage, with the wild winds at strife, 
 Thou darest menace my unit of a life, 
 Sending rhy clay below, my soul above. 
 Whilst roar'd thy waves, like lions when they rove 
 By night, and bound upon their prey by stealth ? 
 Yet didst thou ne'er restore my fainting health ? — 
 Didst thou ne'er murmur gently, like the dove ? 
 Nay, dost thou not against my own dear shore 
 Full break, last link between my land and me ? — 
 My absent friends talk in thy very roar, 
 In thy waves' beat their kindly pulse I see, 
 And, if I must not see my England more. 
 Next to her soil, my grave be found in thee! 
 
 CoBLENZ, May '35. 
 
 SONNET.— THINK SWEETEST 
 
 Think, sweetest, if my lids are not now wet, 
 The tenderest tears lie ready at the brim, 
 To see thine own dear eyes — so pale and dim. 
 Touching my soul with full and fond regret, , 
 For on thy ease my heart's whole care is set ; 
 Seeing I love thee in no passionate whim. 
 Whose summer dates but with the rose's trim. 
 Which one hot June can perish and beget, — 
 Ah, no ! I chose thee for affection's pet, 
 
 For unworn love, and constant cherishing: — 
 To smile but to thy smile — or else to fret 
 
 When thou art fretted — rather than to sing 
 Elsewhere. Alas I I ought to soothe and kiss 
 Thy dear pale cheek while I assure thee this ! 
 
 CoBLENZ, '35. 
 
477 
 
 LINES 
 
 ON SEEING MY WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN SLEEPING IN THE 
 SAME CHAMBER 
 
 And has the earth lost its so spacious round, 
 The sky its blue circumference above, 
 That in this little chamber there is found 
 Both earth and heaven — my universe of love ! 
 All that my God can give me, or remove, 
 Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death. 
 Sweet that in this small compass I behove 
 To live their living and to breathe their breath ! 
 Almost I wish that, with one common sigh, 
 We might resign all mundane care and strife. 
 And seek together that transcendent sky. 
 Where Father, Mother, Children, Husband, Wife, 
 Together pant in everlasting life ! 
 
 COBLENZ, Nov. 1835. 
 
 POETRY, PROSE, AND WORSE 
 
 'Esaad Kiuprili solicited in verse permission to resign the government of Candia, The Grand 
 Vizier, Hafiz Fasha, addressed a Ghasel to the Sultan to urge the necessity of greater activity in 
 military preparations ; and Murad, himself a poet, answered likewise in rhyme. Ghazi Ghcrai 
 clothed in Ghasels his official complaint to the Sultan's preceptor. The Grand Vizier, Mustafa 
 Pasha Bahir, made his reports to the Sultan in verse. — Vide Von Hammer on Ot/iontan 
 lAltratHre in the Athenaumfor Nm. 14, 1835. 
 
 O Turkey ! how mild are thy man- 
 ners, 
 Whose greatest and highest of men 
 Are all proud to be rhymers and 
 : scanners, 
 And wield the poetical pen 1 
 
 The Sultan rejects — he refuses — 
 Gives orders to bowstring his man ; 
 
 But he still will coquet with the Muses, 
 And make it a song if he can. 
 
 The victim cut shorter for treason, 
 Though conscious himself of no 
 crime, 10 
 
 Must submit and believe there is rea- 
 son, ; 
 Whose sentence is turned into 
 rhyme 1 
 
 He bows to the metrical iirman 
 As dulcet as song of the South, 
 
 And his head, like self-satisfied Ger- 
 man, 
 Rolls off with its pipe in its mouth. 
 
 A tax would the Lord of the Crescent? 
 
 He levies it still in a lay. 
 And is p'rhaps the sole Bard at this 
 present 
 
 Whose poems are certain to pay. 20 
 
 State edicts unpleasant to swallow 
 He soothes with the charm of the 
 Muse, 
 And begs rays of his brother Apollo 
 ' To gild bitter pills for the Jews, 
 
4/8 
 
 POETRY, PROSE, AND WORSE 
 
 When Jealousy sets him in motion 
 The fair one on whom he looks 
 black, 
 
 He sews up with a sonnet to Ocean, 
 And sends her to drown in her sack. 
 
 His gifts, they are poesies latent 
 With sequins roU'd up in a, purse, 30 
 
 And in making Bashaws, by the pa- 
 tent 
 Their tails are all ' done into verse.' 
 
 He sprinkles with lilies and roses 
 The path of each politic plan. 
 
 And with eyes of Gazelles discomposes 
 The beards of the solemn Divan. 
 
 The Czar he defies in a sonnet. 
 And then a fit nag to endorse 
 
 With his Pegasus, jingling upon it. 
 Reviews all his Mussulman horse. 40 
 
 He sends a short verse, ere he slum- 
 bers. 
 Express unto Meer Ali Beg, 
 Who returns in poetical numbers 
 The thousands that die of the 
 plague. 
 
 He writes to the Bey of a city 
 In tropes of heroical sound. 
 
 And is told in a pastoral ditty 
 
 The place is burnt down to the 
 ground. 
 
 He sends a stern summons, but 
 
 flow'ry. 
 
 To Melex Pasha, for some wrong, 50 
 
 Who describes the dark eyes of his 
 
 Houri, 
 
 And throws off his yoke with a song. 
 
 His Vizier presents him a trophy. 
 Still, Mars to Calliope weds — 
 
 With an amorous hymn to St. Sophy 
 A hundred of pickled Greek heads. 
 
 Each skull with a turban upon it 
 By Royal example is led : 
 
 Even Mesrour the Mute has a Sonnet 
 To Silence composed in his head. 60 
 
 Ev'n Hassan while plying his hammer 
 To punish short weight to the poor, 
 
 With a stanza attempts to enamour 
 The ear that he nails to a door. 
 
 O ! would that we copied from Turkey 
 In this little Isle of our own, 
 
 Where the times are so muddy and 
 murky. 
 We want a poetical tone ! 
 
 Suppose that the Throne in ad- 
 dresses — 
 
 For verse there is plenty of scope — 
 In alluding to native distresses, 71 
 
 Justquoted the 'Pleasures of Hope.' 
 
 Methinks 'twould enliven and chirp 
 us. 
 So dreary and dull is the time. 
 Just to keep a State Poet on purpose 
 To put the King's speeches in 
 rhyme. 
 When bringing new measures before 
 us. 
 As bills for the sabbath or poor. 
 Let both Houses just chaunt them in 
 chorus. 
 And p'rhaps they would get an 
 encore. 80 
 
 No stanzas invite to pay taxes 
 In notes like the notes of the south, 
 
 But we're dunn'd by a fellow what 
 axes 
 With prose and a pen in his mouth. 
 
 Suppose — as no payers are eager — 
 Hard times and a struggle to live — 
 
 That he sung at our doors like a beg- 
 gar 
 For what one thought proper to give? 
 
 Our Law is of all things the dryest 89 
 That earth in its compass can show ! 
 
 Of poetical efforts its highest 
 
 The rhyming its Doe with its Roe. 
 
 No documents tender and silky 
 Are writ such as poets would pen. 
 
 When a beadle is sent after Wilkie,* 
 Or bailiffs to very shy men. 
 
 ' Vide the advertisement of ' The Parish Beadle after Wilkie,' issued by Moon & Co. 
 
POETRY, PROSE, AND WORSE 
 
 479 
 
 The warrants that put in distresses 
 When rates have been owing too long. 
 
 Should appear in poetical dresses, 
 Ere goods be sold off for a song. loo 
 
 Suppose that — Law making its choices 
 Of Bishop, Hawes, Rodwell, or 
 Cooke, — 
 
 They were all setasgleesforfourvoices, 
 To sing all offenders to book ? 
 
 Our criminal code 's as untender, 
 All prose in its legal despatch. 
 
 And no constables seize an offender 
 While pleasantly singing a catch. 
 
 They haul him along like a heifer. 
 
 And tell him ' My covey, you'U 
 
 swing ! ' no 
 
 Not a hint that the wanton young 
 
 zephyr 
 
 Will fan his shoe-soles with her wing. 
 
 The trial has nothing that 's rosy 
 To soften the prisoner's pap. 
 
 And Judge Park appears dreadfully 
 prosy 
 Whilst dooming to death in his cap. 
 
 Would culprits go into hysterics, 
 Their spirits more likely elope, 
 
 If the jury consulted in lyrics, 119 
 The judge made a line of the rope ? 
 
 When men must behungfora warning. 
 How sweet if the law would incline 
 
 In the place of the ' Eight in the morn- 
 ing,' 
 To let them indulge in the Nine ! 
 
 How pleasant if ask'd upon juries 
 By Muses, thus mild as the doves, 
 
 In the place of the Fates and the Furies 
 That call us from home and our 
 loves ! 
 
 Our warfare is deadly and horrid. 
 Its bald bulletins are in prose, 130 
 
 And with gore made revoltingly florid. 
 Nor tinted with couleur de rose. 
 
 How pleasant in army despatches 
 In reading of red battle-plains, 
 
 To alight on some pastoral snatches. 
 To sweeten the blood and the 
 brains ! 
 
 How sweet to be drawn for the Locals 
 By songs setting valour a-gog ! 
 
 Or be press'd to turn tar by sea-vocals 
 Inviting — with ' Nothing like Grog ! ' 
 
 To tenants but shortish at present, 141 
 When Michaelmas comes with its 
 day, 
 
 O ! a landlord's effusion were pleasant 
 That talk'd of the flowers in May ! 
 
 How sweet if the bill that rehearses 
 The debt we've incurr'd in the year, 
 
 But enrich'd, as a copy of verses. 
 The Gem, or a new Souvenir I 
 
 O ! would that we copied from Turkey 
 In this little Isle of our own ! 150 
 
 For the times are so moody and 
 murky. 
 We want a poetical tone ! 
 
 SONG FOR THE NINETEENTH 
 
 The morning sky is hung with mist, 
 The rolling drum the street alarms. 
 
 The host is paid, his daughter kiss'd. 
 So now to arms, so now to arms. 
 
 Our evening bowl was strong and 
 stiff. 
 And may we get such quarters 
 oft. 
 
 I ne'er was better lodged, for if 
 The straw was hard, the maid was 
 soft. 
 
 So now to arms, to arms, to arms, 
 And fare you well, my little dear, 10 
 
 And if they ask who won your charms, 
 Why say 'twas in your Nineteenth 
 Year. 
 
48o 
 
 A TOAST 
 
 Come ! a health >. and it 's not to be slighted with sips, 
 
 'A cold pulse, or a spirit supine — 
 All the blood in my heart seems to rush to my lips, 
 
 To commingle its flow with the wine. 
 
 Bring a cup of the purest and solidest ware, — 
 
 But a little antique in its shape ; 
 And the juice, — let it be the most racy and rare, 
 
 All the bloom, with the age, of the grape ! 
 
 Even such is the love I would celebrate now. 
 At once young, and mature, and in prime, — 
 
 Like the tree of the orange, that shows on its bough 
 The bud, blossom and fruit at one time ! 
 
 Then with three, as is due, let the honours be paid, 
 Whilst I give with my hand, heart, and head, 
 
 • Here 's to her, the fond mother, dear partner, kind maid. 
 Who first taught me to love, woo, and wed.' 
 
 DRINKING SONG 
 
 BY A MEMBER OF A TEMPERANCE SOCIETY, AS SUNG BY 
 MR. SPRING AT WATERMAN*S HALL 
 
 Come, pass round the pail, boys, and give it no quarter. 
 Drink deep, and drink oft, and replenish your jugs, 
 Fill up, and I'll give you a toast to your water — 
 The Turncock for ever ! that opens the plugs ! 
 
 Then hey for a bucket, a bucket, a bucket, 
 Then hey for a bucket, filled up to the brim ! 
 Or, best of all notions, let 's have it by oceans. 
 With plenty of room for a sink or a swim ! 
 
 Let topers of grape-juice exultingly vapour, 
 But let us just whisper a word to the elves, 
 We water roads, horses, silks, ribands, bank-paper. 
 Plants, poets, and muses, and why not ourselves ? 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
 The vintage they cry, think of Spain's and of France's, 
 The jigs, the boleros, fandangos, and jumps ; 
 But water 's the spring of all civilised dances. 
 We go to a ball not in bottles, but pumps ! 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
DRINKING SONG 481 
 
 Let others of Dorchester quaff at their pleasure, 
 Or honour old Meux with their thirsty regard — 
 We'll drink Adam's ale, and we get it pool measure, 
 Or quaff heavy wet from the butt in the yard I ao 
 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
 Some flatter gin, brandy, and rum, on their merits, 
 Grog, punch, and what not, that enliven a feast : 
 'Tis true that they stir up the animal spirits, 
 But may not the aniihal turn out a beast ? 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
 The Man of the Ark, who continued our species. 
 He saved ys by water, — but as for the wirie. 
 We air know the figure, more sad than facetious. 
 He made after tasting the juice of the vine. 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
 In wine let a lover remember his jewel 
 
 And pledge her in bumpers fiU'd brimming and oft ; 3» 
 
 But we can distinguish the kind from the cruel. 
 And toast them in water, the hard or the salt. 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
 Some cross'd in their passion can never o'erlook it, 
 But take to a pistol, a knife, or a beam ; 
 Whilst temperate swains are enabled to brook it 
 By help of a little meandering stream. 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
 Should fortune diminish our cash's sum-total. 
 Deranging our wits and our private affairs. 
 Though some in such cases would fly to the bottle. 
 There 's nothing like water for drowning our cares. 4» 
 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
 See drinkers of water, their wits never lacking, 
 Direct as a railroad and smooth in their gaits,; 
 But look at the bibbers of wine,, they go tacking,. 
 Like ships that have met a foul wind in the straights. 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
 A fig then for Burgundy, Claret, or Mountain, 
 A few scanty glasses must limit your wish. 
 But he 's the true toper that goes to the fountain, 
 The drinker that verily ' drinks like a fish ! ' 
 Then hey for a bucket, &c. 
 
482 
 
 DOMESTIC POEMS 
 
 'It'shame, hame, haine.'— ^. Cunninfthain. 
 'There's no place like home.' — Clari. 
 
 HYMENEAL RETROSPECTIONS 
 
 O Kate ! my dear Partner, through joy and through strife I 
 
 When I look back at Hymen's dear day, 
 Not a lovelier bride ever chang'd to a wife. 
 
 Though you're now so old, wizen'd, and grey 1 
 
 Those eyes, then, were stars, shining rulers of fate I 
 
 But as liquid as stars in a pool ; 
 Though now they're so dim, they appear, my dear Kate, 
 
 Just like gooseberries boil'd for a fool ! 
 
 That brow was like marble, so smooth and so fair ; 
 
 Though it 's wrinkled so crookedly now. 
 As if Time, when those furrows were made by the share, 
 
 Had been tipsy whilst driving his plough ! 
 
 Your nose, it was such as the sculptors all chose. 
 
 When a. Venus demanded their skill ; 
 Though now it can hardly be reckon'd a nose. 
 
 But a sort of PoU-Parroty bill ! 
 
 Your mouth, it was then quite a bait for the bees. 
 
 Such a nectar there hung on each lip ; 
 Though now it has taken that lemon-like squeeze. 
 
 Not a bhie-bottle comes for a sip ! 
 
 Your chin, it was one of Love's favourite haunts. 
 
 From its dimple he could not get loose ; 
 Though now the neat hand of a barber it wants. 
 
 Or a singe, like the breast of a goose ! 
 
 How rich were those locks, so abundant and full. 
 
 With their ringlets of auburn so deep ! 
 Though now they look only like frizzles of wool. 
 
 By a bramble torn off from a sheep ! 
 
 That neck, not a swan could excel it in grace, 
 While in whiteness it vied with your arms ; 
 
 Though now a grave 'kerchief you properly place. 
 To conceal that scrag-end of your charms ! 
 
 Your figure was tall, then, and perfectly straight. 
 Though it now has two twists from upright — 
 
 But bless you ! still bless you I my Partner ! my Kate ! 
 Though you be such a perfect old fright ! 
 
DOMESTIC POEMS 
 
 483 
 
 II 
 
 The sun was slumbering in the 
 West, 
 
 lly daily labours past ; 
 On Anna's soft and gentle breast 
 
 My head reclined at last ; — 
 The darkness cloS'd around, so dear 
 
 To fond congenial souls, 
 And thus she murmur'd at my ear, 
 
 ' My love, we're out of coals 1— 
 
 ' That Mister Bond has call'd again, 
 Insisting on his rent ; lo 
 
 And all the Todds are coming up 
 To see us, out of Kent.; — - 
 
 I quite forgot to tell you John 
 Has had a tipsy fall ; — 
 
 I'm sure there 's something going on 
 . With that vile Mary Hall !— 
 
 ' Miss Bell has bought the sweetest 
 silk. 
 
 And I have bought the rest — 
 Of course, if we go out of town, 
 
 Southend will be the best. — so 
 I really thiiik the Jones's house 
 
 Would be the thing for us ; — 
 I think I told you, Mrs. Pope 
 
 Has parted with her nus 
 
 • Cook, by the way, came up to-day 
 
 To bid me suit myself — 
 And what d'ye think ? the rats have 
 gnawed 
 
 The victuals on the shelf. — 
 And, lord ! there's such a letter come, 
 
 Inviting you to fight ! 30 
 
 Of course you don't intend to go — 
 
 God bless you, dear, good-night I ' 
 
 III 
 
 A PARENTAL ODE TO MY SON, AGED THREE YEARS 
 AND FIVE MONTHS 
 
 Thou happy; happy elf ! 
 (But stop, — first let me kiss away that tear) — 
 
 Thou tiny image of myself ! 
 (My love, he, 'a poking peas into his ear !) 
 
 Thou merry, laughing sprite ! 
 
 With spirits feather-light, 
 Untouch'd by sorrow and unspil'd by sin, — 
 (Good heavens ! the child is swallowing a pin !) 
 
 Thou little tricksy Puck ! ■ 
 With antic toys so funnily bestuck. 
 Light as the singing bird that wings the air — 
 (The door ! the door ! he'll tumble down the stair !) 
 
 Thou darling of thy sire ! 
 (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore a-fire !) 
 
 Thou imp of mirth and joy ! 
 In love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, 
 Thou idol of thy parents— (Drat the boy ! 
 
 There goes my ink!) 
 
 Thou cherub— but of earth ; 
 Fit playfeUow for Fays, by moonlight pale, 
 
 In hacmlessi sport and mirth, ,1 
 (That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail I) 
 
484 
 
 DOMESTIC POEMS 
 
 Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey 
 From ev'ry blossom in the world that blows, 
 
 Singing in Youth's Elysium ever sunny — 
 (Another tumble ! — that 's his precious nose !) 
 
 Thy father's pride and hope ! 
 (He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope I) 
 With pure heart newly stamp'd from Nature's mint — 
 (Where did he learn that squint ?) 
 
 Thou young domestic dove ! 
 (He'll have that jug off, with another shove I) 
 Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest I 
 (Are those torn clothes his best I) 
 . Little epitome of man ! 
 (He'll climb upon the table, that 's his plan I) 
 Touch'd with the beauteous tints of dawning life-^ 
 (He 's got a knife !) 
 
 Thou enviable being ! 
 No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing. 
 
 Play on, play on, 
 
 My elfin John ! 
 Toss the light ball — bestride the stick — 
 (I knew so many cakes would make him sick !) 
 With fancies buoyant as the thistledown, 
 Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, 
 
 With many a lamb-like frisk — 
 (He 's got the scissors, snipping at your gown !) 
 
 Thou pretty opening rose ! 
 (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !) 
 Balmy, and breathing music like the South, 
 (He really brings my heart into my mouth !) 
 Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star,^ 
 (I wish that window had an iron bar !) 
 Bold as the hawk; yet gentle as the dove — 
 
 (I'll tell you what, my love, 
 I cannot write, unless he 's sent above !) 
 
 30 
 
 IV 
 A SERENADE 
 
 ' Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! ' 
 Thus I heard a father cry, 
 
 ' Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! 
 The brat will never shut ah bye ; 
 Hither come, some power divine ! 
 Close his lids or open mine ! 
 
 ' Lullaby, oh, lullaby I 
 What the devil makes him cry ? 
 
 Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! 
 Still he stares — I wonder why ? 10 
 Why are not the sons of earth 
 Blind, like puppies, from the birth ? 
 
DOMESTIC POEMS 
 
 48s 
 
 ' Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! ' 
 Thus I. heard the father cry ; 
 
 ' Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! 
 Mary, you must come and try ! — 
 Hush, oh, hush, for mercy's sake — 
 The more I sing, the more yon wake ! 
 
 ' Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! 
 Fie, you little creature, fie ; so 
 
 Lullaby, oh, luUaby ! 
 Is no poppy-syrup nigh ? 
 Give him some, or give him all, 
 I am nodding to his fall 1 
 
 ' Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! 
 Two such nights, and I shall die ! 
 
 Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! 
 He'll be bruised, and so shall I, — 
 How can I from bedposts keep, 
 When I'm walking in my sleep ? 30 
 
 ' Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! 
 Sleep his very looks deny — 
 
 Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! 
 Nature soon will stupify — 
 My nerves relax, — my eyes grow 
 
 dim — 
 Who 's that fallen — me or him ? ' 
 
 JOHN JONES 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD 
 
 * 1 saw the iron enter into his sonV^Sieme. 
 
 John Jones he was a builder's clerk, 
 
 On ninety pounds a year. 
 Before his head was engine-turn.'d 
 
 To be an engineer ! 
 
 For, finding that the iron roads 
 Were quite the pubUc tale, 
 
 Like Robin Redbreast, all liis heart 
 Was set upon a rail. 
 
 But oh ! his schemes all ended ill. 
 As schemes must come to nought 10 
 
 With men who try to make short cuts 
 When cut with something short. 
 
 His altitudes he did not take 
 
 Like any other elf ; 
 But first a spirit-level took 
 
 That levell'd him himself. 
 
 Then getting up, from left to right 
 
 So many tacks he made, 
 The ground he meant to go upon 
 
 Got very well survey'd. 20 
 
 How crows may fly he did not care 
 
 A single fig to know ; — 
 He wish'd to make an iron road, 
 
 And not an iron crow : 
 
 So, going to the Rose and Crown 
 
 To cut his studies short. 
 The nearest way from pint to pin^ 
 
 He found was through a quart. 
 
 According to this rule he plann'd 
 His railway o'er a cup ; 30 
 
 But when he came to lay it down, 
 No soul would take it up ! 
 
 Alas ! not his the wily arts 
 Of men as shrewd as rats, 
 
 Who out of one sole level make 
 A precious lot of flats ! 
 
 In vain from Z to crooked S 
 His devious line he show'd ; 
 
 Directors even seemed to wish 
 
 For some directer road. 40 
 
 The writers of the public press 
 All sneered at his design ; 
 
 And penny-a-liners wouldn't give 
 A penny for his line ! 
 
 Yet still he urged his darling scheme 
 
 In spite of all the fates ; 
 Until at last his zigzag ways 
 
 Quite brought him into straits. 
 
486 
 
 JOHN JONES 
 
 His money gone, of course he^ sank 
 In debt from day to day — > so 
 
 His way would not pay him, and so 
 He could not pay his way. 
 
 Said he, ' All pa,rties run me down,— :- 
 
 How bitter is my cup ! 
 My landlord is the only man 
 
 That ever runs me up ! 
 
 ' And he begins to talk of scores, 
 And will not draw a cork ' ; — 
 
 And then he raii'd at Fortune, since 
 He could not rail at York ! 60 
 
 The morrow, in a, fatal noose 
 They found him, hanging fast ; 
 
 This sentence scribbled on the wall, — 
 ' I've got my line at last ! ' 
 
 Twelve men upon the body sate. 
 And thus, on oath, did say, 
 
 ' We find he got his gruel 'cause 
 He couldn't have his way I ' 
 
 ODE TO MESSRS. GREEN, HOLLOND, AND 
 MONCK MASON 
 
 ON THEIR LATE BALLOON EXPEDITION 
 'Here we go up, up, up,— and there we go down, down, down.' — Old Ballad. 
 
 O Lofty-minded men ! 
 Almost beyond the pitch of my goose pen I 
 
 And most- inflated words ! 
 Delicate Ariels ! ethereals ! — birds 
 Of passage ! filers ! angels without wings ! 
 Fortunate rivals of Icarian darings ! 
 Male-witches, without broomsticks; — taking airings ! 
 
 Kites — ^^without strings ! 
 Volatile spirits ! light mercurial humours ! 
 O give us soon your sky adventures truly. 
 With full particulars, correcting duly 
 
 All flying rumours ! 
 
 Two-legg'd high-fliers ! 
 What upper-stories you must have to tell ! 
 And nobody can contradict you well, 
 
 Or call you liars ! 
 Your Region of Romance will many covet ; 
 Besides that, you may scribble what you will, 
 Aiid this great luck will wait upon you, still 
 All criticism, you will be above it ! , 
 
 Write, then, Messrs. Monck Mason, HoUond, Green ! 
 .And tell us all you have, or haven't seen ! — 
 ('Twas land, when tl^e balloon went out of town. 
 To take Monck Mason up and set him down, 
 For when a gentleman is at a shift — 
 For carriage— -talk of carts and gigs, and coaches ! 
 Nothing to a balloon approaches. 
 For giving one a lijt I) 
 
ODE TO MESSRS. GREEN, HOLLOND, AND MONCK MASON 487 
 
 O say, when Mr. Frederick Gye 
 
 Seem'd but a speck^a mote — -in friendship's eye, 30 
 
 Did any tongue confess a sort of dryness 
 Seeming the soaring rashness to rebuke ; 
 Or did each feel himself, like Brunswick's Duke, 
 '' A most serene Highness ! 
 
 Say, as you cross'd the Channel, 
 Well clothed in well air'd linen and warm flannel. 
 How did your company, perceived afar. 
 
 Affect the tar ? 
 Methinks I see him cock his weather eye 
 
 Against the sky, A° 
 
 Turning his ruminating quid full oft. 
 With wonder sudden taken all aback — 
 
 ' My eyes ! ' says he, 
 ' I'm blow'd if there arn't three ! 
 Three little Cherubs smiling up aloft, 
 
 A-watching for poor Jack ! ' 
 
 Of course, at such a height, the ocean 
 Affected no one by its motion — 
 But did internal comfort dwell with each, 
 
 Quiet and ease each comfortable skin in ? 50 
 
 Or did brown HoUond of a sudden bleach 
 
 As white as Irish linen ? 
 
 Changing his native hue. 
 
 Did Green look blue ? — 
 In short was any air-sick ? P'rhaps Monck Mason 
 Was forc'd to have an air-pump in a bason ? 
 
 Say, with what sport, or pleasure. 
 Might you fill up your lofty leisure ? * 
 
 Like Scotchman, at High jinks ? 
 (High-spy was an appropriate game methinks) 60 
 
 Or cards — but playing very high ; — 
 Or skying coppers, almost to the sky ; — 
 Or did you listen, the first mortal ears 
 That ever drank the music of the spheres ? — 
 Or might you into vooal music get, 
 
 A trio — highly set ? 
 Or, as the altitude so well allow'd. 
 Perchance, you ' blew a cloud.' 
 
 Say, did you find the air 
 Give you an appetite up there ? 7° 
 
 Your cold provisions — were you glad to meet 'em ! 
 Or did you find your victuals all so high, — 
 
 Or blown so by your fly — 
 
 You couldn't eat 'em ? 
 
488 ODE TO MESSRS. GREEN, HOLLOND, AND MONCK MASON 
 
 Of course you took some wine to sup, 
 Although the circumstance has not been stated ; 
 I envy you the effervescing cup ! 
 
 Wasn't your champagne well up 1 
 Nay, you, yourselves, a little elevated ? 
 
 Then, for your tea and breakfast, say, 80 
 
 Was it not something delicately new. 
 
 To get sky-bluei 
 Right genuine from the real milky way ? 
 
 Of course, you all agreed, 
 Whate'er your conversation was about, 
 
 Like friends indeed, — 
 
 And faith ! not without need, 
 'Twas such an awkward place for falling-out I 
 
 Say, after your gastronomy. 
 Kept you a watch all night, 90 
 
 Marking the planets bright. 
 Like three more Airys, studying astronomy ; 
 
 Or near the midnight chime,' 
 Did someone haul his nightcap on his head. 
 Hold out his mounted watch, and say ' high time 
 To go to bed ? ' 
 
 Didn't your coming scare 
 The sober Germans, until every cap 
 Rose lifted by a frighten'd fell of hair ; 
 
 Meanwhile the very pipe, mayhap, 100 
 
 Extinguish'd, like the vital spark in death, 
 From wonder locking up the smoker's breath I 
 Didn't they crouch like chickens, when the kite 
 
 Hovers in sight. 
 To see your vehicles of high dimension 
 Aloft, like Gulliver's Laputa — nay, 
 I'd better say. 
 The Island of Ascension ? 
 
 Well was it plann'd 
 To come down thus into the German land, no 
 
 Where Honours you may score by such event, — 
 For, if I read the prophecy aright. 
 You'll have the Eagle-Order for your flight. 
 And all be Von'd, because of your descent I 
 
489 
 
 THE BLUE BOAR 
 
 'Tis known to man, 'tis known to 
 
 woman, 
 'Tis known to all the world in common, 
 How politics and party strife 
 Vex public, even private, life ; 
 But, till some days ago, at least 
 They never worried brutal beast. 
 
 I wish you could have seen the 
 
 creature; 
 A tame domestic boar by nature. 
 Gone wild as boar that ever grunted, 
 By Baron Hoggerhausen hunted. lo 
 His back was up, and on its ledge 
 The bristles rose like quickset hedge 
 His eye was fierce and red as coal. 
 Like furnace, shining through a hole. 
 And restless turn'd for mischief seek- 
 ing ; 
 His very hide with rage was reeking ; 
 And oft he gnash'd his crooked tusks. 
 Chewing his tongue instead of husks. 
 Till all his jaw was white and yesty. 
 Showing him savage, fierce and resty. 
 
 And what had caused this mighty 
 vapour ? zi 
 
 A dirty fragment of a paper, 
 That in his rambles he had found. 
 Lying neglected on the ground ; 
 A relic of the Morning Post, 
 Two tattered columns at the most. 
 But which our irritated swine 
 (Derived from learned Toby's line) 
 Digested easy as his meals. 
 Like any quidnunc Cit at Peel's. 30 
 
 He read, and mused, and pored and 
 
 read, 
 His shoulders shrugg'd, and shook his 
 
 head ; 
 Now at a line he gave a grunt, 
 Now at a phrase took sudden stunt, 
 And snorting turn'd his back upon it, 
 But always came again to con it ; 
 In short he petted up his passion. 
 After a very human fashion. 
 
 JVhen Temper 's worried with a bone. 
 She'll neither like nor let alone, 40 
 At last his fury reach'd the pitch 
 Of that most irritating itch. 
 When mind and will,infever'd faction. 
 Prompt blood and body into action ; 
 No matter what, so bone and muscle 
 May vent the frenzy in a bustle ; 
 But whether by a fight or dance 
 Is left to impulse and to chance. 
 So stood the Boar, in furious mood 
 Made up for any thing but good ; 50 
 He gave his tail a tighter twist, 
 As men in anger clench the ftst. 
 And threw fresh sparkles in his eye 
 From the volcano in his fry — 
 Ready to raze the parish pound, 
 To pull the pigsty to the ground, 
 To lay Squire Giles, his master, level, 
 Ready, indeed, to play the devil. 
 
 So, stirr'd by raving demagogues, 
 I've seen men rush, like rabid dogs, 60 
 Stark staring froni the Pig and 
 
 , Whistle, 
 And like his Boarship, in a bristle, 
 Resolved unanimous on rumpus 
 From any quarter of the compass ; 
 But whether to duck Aldgate Pump, 
 (For wits in madness never jump) 
 To liberate the beasts from Cross's ; 
 Or hiss at all the Wigs in Ross's ; 
 On Waithman's column hang a 
 
 weeper ; 
 Or tar and feather the old sweeper ; 70 
 Or break the panes of landlord scurvy, 
 And turn the King's Head topsy- 
 turvy. 
 Rebuild, or pull down, London Wall. 
 Or take his cross from old Saint Paul. 
 Or burn those wooden Highland 
 
 fellows, 
 The snuff-men's idols, 'neath the 
 
 gallows ! 
 None fix'd or cared — but all were loyal 
 To one design — a battle royal. 
 
 « 3 
 
490 
 
 IME BLUE BOAR 
 
 Thus stood the Boar, athirst for blood, 
 Trampling the Morning Post to mud. 
 With tusks prepared to run a muck ; — 
 And sorrow for the mortal's luck 82 
 That came across him Whig or Tory^ 
 It would have been a tragic story — 
 But fortune interposing now. 
 Brought Bessy into play — a Sow ; — 
 A fat, sleek, philosophic beast, 
 That never fretted in the least. 
 Whether her grains were sour or 
 
 sweet, 
 For grains are grains, and she could 
 
 eat. 90 
 
 Absorb'd in two great schemes ca- 
 pacious. 
 The farrow, and the farinaceous. 
 If cares she had, they could not 
 
 stay, 
 She drank, and wash'd them all away. 
 In fact this philo-sophic sow 
 Was very like a German frow ; 
 In brief — as wit should be and fun — 
 If sows turn Quakers, she was one ; 
 Clad from the duckpond, thick and 
 
 slab. 
 In bran-new muddy suit of drab. 100 
 To still the storm of such a lubber, 
 She came like oil — at least like 
 
 blubber^— 
 Her pigtail of as passive shape 
 As ever droop'd o'er powder'd nape ; 
 Her snout, scarce turning up — her 
 
 deep 
 Small eyes half settled into sleep ; 
 Her ample ears, dependent, meek. 
 Like figJeaves shading either cheek ; 
 Whilst, from the corner of her jaw, 109 
 A sprout of cabbage, green and raw. 
 Protruded, — as the Dove, so stanch 
 For Peace, supports an olive branch, — 
 Her v6ry grunt, so low and mild, 
 Like the soft snoring of a child, 
 Inquiring into his disquiets. 
 Served' like the Riot Act, at riots,— 
 He laid his restive bristles flatter, 
 And took to arguefy the matter. 
 
 ' O Bess, O Bess, here 's heavy news 1 
 They mean to 'raancipate the Jews 1 
 
 Just as they turn'd the blacks to 
 whites, «zi 
 
 They want to give them equal rights, 
 And, in the twinkling of a steeple, 
 Make Hebrews quite Uke other people. 
 Here, read — but I forget your fetters, 
 You've studied litters more than 
 letters.' 
 
 ' Well,' quoth the Sow, ' and no great 
 
 miss, 
 I'm sure my ignorance is bliss ; 
 Contentedly I bite and sup. 
 And never let my flare flare-up ; 130 
 Whilst you get wild and fuming hot — 
 What matters Jews be Jews or not ? 
 Whether they go with beards like 
 
 Moses, 
 Or barbers take them by the noses, 
 Whether they live, permitted dwellers, 
 In Gheapside shops, or Rag Fair cel- 
 lars. 
 Or climb their way to civic Jierches, 
 Or go to synagogues or churches ? ' 
 
 ' Churches ! — ay, there the question 
 grapples. 
 
 No, Bess, the Jews will go to Chap- 
 pell's ! ' 140 
 
 ' To chapel — well — what 's that to 
 
 you ? • .- 
 
 A Berkshire Boar, and not 1 Jew ? 
 We pigs, — remember the remark 
 Of our old drover Samuel Slark, 
 When trying, but he tried in vain. 
 To coax me into Sermon Lane, 
 Or Paternoster's pious Row,— ^ 
 But still I stood and grunted No ! 
 Of Lane of Creed an equal scorner, 
 Till bolting oflf, at Amen Corner, 150 
 He cried, provoked at my evasion 
 " Pigs, blow 'em ! ar'n't of no per- 
 suasion ! " ' 
 
 ' The more 's the pity, Bess, — the 
 
 more — ' 
 Said, with sardonic grin, the Boar ; 
 ' If Pigs were Methodists and Bun- 
 
 yans. 
 They'd make a sin of sage and onions ; 
 
THE BLUE BOAR 
 
 491. 
 
 The curse 6£ endless flames endorse 
 On every boat of apple-sauce ; 
 Give brine to Satan, and assess 159 
 Black puddings with bloodguiltiuess ; 
 Yea, call down heavenly fire and 
 
 smoke — 
 To burn all Epping into coke ! ' 
 
 ' Ay,' cried the sow, extremely placid. 
 In utter contrast to his acid, 
 ' Ay, that would be a Sect indeed ! 
 And every swine would like the creed. 
 The sausage-making curse and all ; 
 And should some brother have a call, 
 To thump a cushion to that measure, 
 I would sit under him with plea- 
 sure : 170 
 Nay, put down half my private for- 
 tune 
 T' endow a chapel at Hog's Norton. — 
 But what has this to do, my deary, 
 With theirnew Hebrewwhigmaleery ? ' 
 
 ' Sow that you are ! this Bill, if current, 
 Would be as good as our death- 
 warrant ;— 
 And, with its legislative friskings, 
 Loose twelve new tribes upon our 
 griskins ! 178 
 
 Unjew the Jews, what follows then ? 
 Why, they'll eat pork like other men, 
 And you shall see a Rabbi dish up 
 A chine as freely as a Bishop ! 
 Thousands of years have pass'd, and 
 
 pork 
 Was never stuck on Hebrew fork ; 
 But now, suppose that relish rare 
 Fresh added to their bill of fare. 
 Fry, harslet, pettitoes, and chine, 
 Leg, choppers, bacon, ham, and loin. 
 And then, beyond all goose or duck- 
 ling ' — 189 
 ' Yes, yes — a little tender suckling ! 
 It must be held the aptest savour 
 To make the eager mouth to slaver ! 
 Merely to look on such a gruntling, 
 A plump, white, sleek arfd sappy 
 
 runtling, 
 It makes one — ah;! remembrance 
 
 bitter ! 
 It made me eat my own dear Utter ! ' 
 
 ' Think, then, with this new waken'd 
 
 fury. 
 How we should fare if tried by Jewry I 
 A pest upon the meddUng Whigs ! 
 There'll be a pretty run on pigs ! 200 
 This very morn a Hebrew brother. 
 With three hats stuck on one another, 
 And o'er his arm a bag, or poke, 
 A thing pigs never find a joke, 
 Stopp'd, — rip the fellow ! — though he 
 
 knew 
 I've neither coat to sell nor shoe. 
 And cock'd his nose — ^right at me, 
 
 lovey ! 
 Just like a pointer at a covey I 
 
 To set our only friends agin ns ! 209 
 That neither care to fat rior thin us ! 
 To boil, to broil, to roast, to fry us, 
 But act like real Christians by us ! — 
 A murrain on all legislators ! 
 Thin wash, sour grains, and rotten 
 
 'taters ! 
 A bull dog at their ears and tails ! 
 The curse of empty troughs and pails 
 Famish their flanks as thin asweasels! 
 May all their children have the 
 
 measles ; 
 Or in the straw untiinely smother, 
 Or make a dinner for the mother I 220 
 A cartwhip for all law inventors ! 
 And rubbing-posts stuck full of ten- 
 ters !, 
 Yokes, rusty rings, and gates, to 
 
 bitch in, 
 And parish pounds to pine the flitch 
 
 in. 
 Cold, and high winds, the Devil send 
 
 'eni — 
 And then may Sam the Sticker end 
 
 'em ! ' 
 
 'Twas strange to hear him how he 
 
 swore ! 
 A Boar will curse, though like a boar. 
 While Bess, like Pity, at his side 229 
 Her swine-subduing voice supplied ! 
 She bade him such a rage discard ; 
 That anger is a foe to lard ; 
 ' Tis bad for sugar to ^et wet. 
 And quite as bad for fat to fret j 
 
492 
 
 THE BLUE BOAR 
 
 • Besides,' — she argued thus at last — 
 ' The Bill you fume at has not pass'd, 
 For why, the Cbnimons and the Peers 
 I lave come together by the ears ; 
 Or rather, as we pigs repose, 
 One 's tail beside the other's nose, 240 
 And thus, of course, take adverse views 
 Whether of Gentiles or of Jews. 
 Who knows ? They say the Lords' 
 
 ill-will 
 Has thrown out many a wholesome 
 
 Bill, 
 And p'rhaps some Peer to Pigs pro- 
 pitious 
 Jlay swamp a measure so Jcw-dish- 
 tis ; ' 
 
 The Boar was conquer'd : at a glance, 
 He saw there really was a chance — 
 
 That as the Hebrew nose is hooked. 
 The Bill was equally as crooked ; 250 
 And might outlast, thank party 
 
 embers, 
 A dozen tribes of Christian mem- 
 bers ; — 
 So down he settled in the mud. 
 With , smoother back, and cooler 
 
 blood, 
 As mild, as quiet, a Blue Boar, 
 As any over tavern door. 
 
 Moral. 
 
 The chance is small that any measure 
 Will give all classes equal pleasure ; 
 Since Tory ministers or Whigs, 
 Sometimes can't even ' please, the 
 Pigs.' • 260 
 
 ODE TO DOCTOR HAHNEMANN 
 
 THE HOMCEOPATHIST 
 
 Well, Doctor, 
 Great concoctor 
 Of medicines to help in man's distress ; 
 Diluting down the strong to meek. 
 And making ev'n the weak more weak, 
 ' Fine by degrees, and beautifully less ' — 
 Founder of a new system ■ economic. 
 To druggists anything but comic ; 
 Fram'd the whole race of OUapods to fret, 
 At profits, like thy doses, very small ; 
 To put all Doctors' Boys in evil case, 
 Thrown out of bread, of physic, and of place,— 
 And show us old Apothecaries' Hall 
 ' To Let.' 
 
 How fare thy Patients ? are they dead or living. 
 Or, well as can expected be, with such 
 A style of practice, liberally giving 
 
 ' A sum of more to that which had too much ? ' 
 
 Dost thou" preserve the human frame, or turf it ? 
 
 Do thorough draughts cure thorough colds or not ? 
 Do fevers yield to any thing that 's hot ? 
 
 Or hearty dinners neutralise a surfeit ? 
 
 Is 't good advice for gastronomic ills. 
 
 When Indigestion's face*with pain is crumpling, 
 
 To cry ' Discard those Peristaltic Pills, 
 Take a hard dumpling 1 * 
 
ODE TO DOCTOR HAHNEMANN 493 
 
 Tell me, thou German Cousin, 
 And tell me honestly without a diddle, 
 Does an attenuated dose of rosin 
 
 Act as a tonic on the old Scotch fiddle ? 3" 
 
 Tell me, when Anhalt-Coethen babies wriggle, 
 
 Like eels just caught by sniggle. 
 Martyrs to some acidity internal, 
 
 That gives them pangs infernal, 
 Meanwhile the lip grows black, the eye enlarges. 
 Say, comes there all at once a cherub-calm. 
 Thanks to that soothing homoeopathic balm, 
 The half of half, of half, a drop of ' varges ' ? 
 
 Suppose, for instance, upon Leipzig's plain, 
 
 A soldier pillow'd on a heap of slain, ^a 
 
 In urgent want both of a priest and proctor ; 
 
 When lo ! there comes a man in green and red, 
 
 A featherless cock'd-hat adorns his head, 
 
 In short a. Saxon military doctor — 
 
 Would he, indeed, on the right treatment fix. 
 
 To cure a horrid gaping wound. 
 
 Made by a ball that weigh'd a pound, 
 If he well pepper'd it with number six ? 
 
 Suppose a felon doomed to swing 
 
 Within a rope, ' S«> 
 
 Might friends not hope 
 To cure hini with a string ? 
 Suppose his breath arriv'd at a full stop. 
 The shades of death in a black cloud before him. 
 Would a quintillionth dose of the New Drop 
 Restore him ? 
 
 Fancy a. man gone rabid from a bite, 
 
 Snapping to left and right. 
 And giving tongue like one of Sebright's hounds. 
 
 Terrific sounds, *" 
 
 The pallid neighbourhood with horror cowing. 
 To hit the proper homoeopathic mark ; 
 Now, might not ' the laste taste in life ' of barh. 
 
 Stop his bow-wow-ing ? ■ 
 Nay, with a, well-known remedy to fit him, 
 Would he not mend, if with all proper care, 
 
 He took ' a hair 
 Of the dog that bit him ' ? 
 
 Picture a man — we'll say a Dutch Meinheer — 
 
 In evident emotion, 7» 
 
 Bent o'er the bulwark of the Batavier, 
 
 Owning those symptoms queer — 
 Some feel in a Sick Transit o'er the ocean. 
 
494 ODE TO DOCTOR HAHNEMANN 
 
 Can any thing in life be more pathetic 
 Than when he turns to us his wretched face ? — 
 But would it mend his case 
 To be decillionth-dos'd 
 With something like the ghost 
 Of an emetic ? 
 
 Lo 1 now a darken'd room ! S" 
 
 Look through the dreary gloom, 
 And see that coverlet of wildest form, 
 Tost like the billows in a storm. 
 Where ever and anon, with groans, emerges 
 
 A ghastly head ! — 
 While two impatient arms still beat the bed, 
 Like a- strong swimmer's struggling with the surges ; 
 There Life and Death are on their battle-plain, 
 With many a mortal ecstasy of pain — 
 
 What shall support the body in its trial, 9» 
 
 Cool the hot blood, wild dream, and parching skin, 
 And tame the raging Malady within — 
 A sniff of Next-to-Nothing in a phial ? 
 
 Oh ! Doctor Hahnemann, if here I laugh. 
 
 And cry together, half and half. 
 Excuse me, 'tis a mood the subject brings. 
 To think, whilst I have crow'd like chanticleer. 
 Perchance, from some dull eye the hopeless tear 
 Hath gush'd, .with my light levity at schism, 
 
 To mourn some Martyr of Empiricism ! loo 
 
 Perchance, on thy own system, I have giv'n 
 A pang, superfluous to the pains of Sorrow, 
 Who weeps with Memory from morn till even ; 
 Where comfort there is none to lend or borrow, 
 
 Sighing to one sad strain, 
 
 ' She will not come again, 
 To-moi;row, nor to-morrow, nor to-morrow ! ' 
 
 Docior, forgive me, if I. dare prescribe 
 
 A rule for thee thyself, and all thy tribe, 
 
 Inserting a few serious words by stealth ; no 
 
 Above all price of wealth 
 The Body's Jewel, — not for minds profane. 
 Or hands, to tamper with in practice vain — 
 Like to a Woman's Virtue is Man's Health. 
 A heavenly gift within a holy shrine ! 
 To he approach'd and touch'd with serious fear, 
 By hands made pure, and hearts -of faith severe, 
 Ev'n as the Priesthood of the ONE divine ! 
 
ODE TO DOCTOR HAHNEMANN 
 
 495 
 
 But, zounds ! each fellow with a suit of black, 
 
 And, strange to fame, 
 
 With a diploma'd name. 
 That carries two more letters pick-a-back, 
 With cane, and snuff-box, powder'd wig, and block. 
 Invents Ms dose, as if it were a chrism. 
 And dares to treat our wondrous mechanism. 
 Familiar as the works of old Dutch clock ; 
 Yet, how would common sense esteem the man, 
 Oh how, my unrelated German cousin. 
 Who having some such time-keeper, on trial, 
 And finding it too fast, enforc'd the dial,' 
 To strike upon the Homoeopathic plan 
 
 Of fourteen to the dozen ? 
 
 Take my advice, 'tis given without a. fee. 
 
 Drown, drown your book ten thousand fathoms deep, 
 
 Like Prospero's beneath the briny sea. 
 
 For spells of magic have all gone to sleep [ 
 
 Leave no decillionth fragment of your works. 
 
 To help the interests of quacking Burkes ; 
 
 Aid not in murdering ev'n widows' mites, — 
 
 And now forgive me for my candid zeal, 
 
 I had not said so much, but that I feel 
 
 Should you take ill what here my Muse indites. 
 
 An Ode-ling more will set you all to rights. 
 
 130 
 
 Z40 
 
 THE DEAD ROBBERY 
 
 'Here's that will sack a city.'— Henry the IVth. 
 
 Of all the causes that induce man- 
 kind 
 To strike against themselves a mortal 
 
 docket. 
 Two eminent above the rest we find — 
 To be in love, or to be out of pocket : 
 Both have made many melancholy 
 
 martyrs, 
 But p'rhaps, of all the felonies de se. 
 By ponds, and pistols, razors, ropes 
 
 and garters, 
 Two thirds have been through want 
 of £. s. d. I 
 
 Thus happen'd it with Peter 
 Bunce ; 
 Both in the dumps and out of them 
 at once, 10 
 
 From always drawing blanks in. For- 
 tune's lottery. 
 
 At last, impatient of the light of day, 
 
 He made his mind up to return his clay 
 Back to the pottery. 
 
 Feigning a raging tooth that drove 
 him mad. 
 From twenty divers druggists' 
 shops 
 
 He begg'd enough of laudanum by 
 drops 
 
 T' effect the fatal purpose that he had; 
 
 He drank them, died, and while old 
 Charon ferried him, 
 
 The Coroner convened a dozen men, ao 
 
 Who found his death was phial-ent—r 
 and then 
 The Parish buried him ! 
 
496 
 
 THE DEAD ROBBERY 
 
 Unwatch'd, unwept, 
 
 As commonly a Pauper sleeps, he 
 slept ; 
 
 There could not be a better oppor- 
 tunity 
 
 For bodies to steal a body so ill kept. 
 With all impunity : 
 
 In fact, when Night o'er human vice 
 and folly 
 
 Had drawn her very necessary cur- 
 tains, 
 
 Down came a fellow with a sack and 
 spade, 3" 
 
 Accustom'd many years to drive a 
 trade. 
 
 With that Anatomy more Melancholy 
 Than Burton's ! 
 
 The Watchman in his box was 
 dozing ; 
 The Sexton drinking at the Cheshire 
 
 Cheese ; 
 No fear of any creature interposing, 
 The human Jackal work'd away at 
 ease : 
 He toss'd the mould to left and 
 
 right, 
 The shabby coffin came in sight, 
 And soon it open'd to his double- 
 knocks, — 40 
 When lo ! the stiff'un that he 
 thought to meet 
 Starts sudden up, like Jacky-in-a-box, 
 Upon his seat ! 
 
 Awaken'd from his trance. 
 For so the laudanum had wrought 
 
 by chance, 
 Bunce stares up at the moon, next 
 
 looking level, 
 He spies a shady Figure, tall and 
 
 bony, 
 Then shudders out these words ' Are 
 
 — you — the — Devil ? ' 
 ' The Devil a bit of him,' says Mike 
 
 Mahoney, 
 ' I'm only com'd here, hoping no 
 
 affront, jo 
 
 To pick up honestly a little blunt — ' 
 ' Blunt ! ' echoes Bunce, with a hoarse 
 
 croak of laughter,- 
 
 ' Why, man, I turn'd life's candle in 
 
 the socket, 
 Without a rap in either pocket. 
 For want of that same blunt you're 
 
 looking after ! ' 
 ' That 's true,' says Mike, ■ and 
 
 many a pretty man 
 Has cut his stick upon your very 
 
 plan, 
 Not worth a copper, him and all his 
 
 trumps, 
 And yet he 's fetch'd a dacent lot of 
 
 stuff. 
 Provided he was sound and fresh 
 
 enough, 60 
 
 And dead as dumps.' 
 
 ' I take,' quoth Bunce, with a hard 
 
 wink, ' the fact is, 
 You mean a subject for a surgeon's 
 
 practice,; — 
 I hope the question is not out of 
 
 reason, 
 But just suppose a lot of flesh and 
 
 bone, 
 For instance, like my own. 
 What might it chance to fetch now, 
 
 at this season ? ' 
 ' Fetch is it ? ' answers Mike, ' why 
 
 prices differ, — 
 But taking this same small bad job of 
 
 ours, 
 I reckon, by the pow'rs ! 70 
 
 I've lost ten pound by your not being 
 
 stiffer ! ' 
 
 ' Ten pounds ! ' Bunce echoes in a 
 sort of flurry, 
 ' Odd zounds ! 
 Ten pounds, 
 How sweet it sounds, 
 Ten pounds 1 ' 
 And on his feet upspringing in a 
 
 hurry-^ 
 It seem'd the operation of a minute — 
 
 A little scuffle — then a whack — 
 And then he took the Body Snatcher's 
 sack 8a 
 
 And poked him in it 1 
 
THE DEAD ROBBERY 
 
 49; 
 
 Such is this life ! 
 A very pantomime for tricks and 
 strife ! 
 See Bunce, so lately in Death's passive 
 
 stock, 
 Invested, now as active as a griffin, 
 Walking — no ghost — in velveteens 
 and smock, 
 To sell a stiii'un ! 
 
 A flash of red, then one of blue, 
 At last, like lighthouse, came in view ; 
 Bunce rang the nightbell ; wiped bis 
 highlows muddy ; 90 
 
 His errand told ; sack produced ; 
 And by a sleepy boy was introduced 
 To Dr. Oddy, writing in his study. 
 The bargain did not long take time to 
 settle, 
 ' Ten pounds. 
 Odd zounds ! 
 How well it sounds. 
 Ten pounds," 
 Chink'd into Bunce's palm in solid 
 metal. 
 
 With joy half-crazed, 100 
 
 It seem'd some trick of sense, some 
 airy gammon. 
 He gazed and gazed. 
 At last, possess'd with the old lust of 
 
 Mammon, 
 Thought he, ' With what a very little 
 
 trouble. 
 This little capital I now might 
 
 double ' 
 
 Another -scuffle of its usual brevity, — 
 And Doctor Oddy, in his suit of black, 
 Was finishing, within the sack. 
 His 'Thoughts upon Longevity ! ' 
 
 The trick was done. Without a 
 doubt, "o 
 
 The sleepy boy let Bunce and burthen 
 ■ out ; 
 
 Who coming to a lone convenient 
 place. 
 
 The body stripp'd ; hid all the clothes, 
 and then. 
 
 Still favoured by the luck of evil men, 
 
 Found a new customer in Dr. Case. 
 
 All more minute particulars to smo- 
 ther. 
 Let it suffice. 
 Nine guineas was the price 
 For which one doctor bought the 
 other ; 
 As once I heard a Preacher say in 
 Guinea, 12a 
 
 ' You see how one black sin bring on 
 anudder. 
 Like little nigger pickaninny, 
 A-riding pick-a-back upon him mud- 
 
 derl ' 
 ' Humph ! ' said the Doctor, with a 
 smile sarcastic. 
 Seeming to trace 
 Some likeness in the face, 
 ' So death at last has taken old Bom- 
 bastic ! ' 
 But in the very middle o£ his 
 
 joking,— 
 The subject, still unconscious of the 
 
 scoff — 
 Seized all at once with a bad fit of 
 choking, 1 30 
 
 He too was taken off 1 
 Leaving a fragment ' On the Hooping 
 Cough.' 
 
 Satan still sending luck, 
 Another body found another buyer : 
 For ten pounds ten the bargain next 
 
 was struck, 
 Dead doctors going higher. 
 ' Here,' .said the purchaser, with smile 
 
 quite pleasant 
 Taking a glimpse at his departed 
 
 brother, 
 ' Here 's half a guinea in the way of 
 
 present — 
 Subjects are scarce, and when you 
 
 get another, 140 
 
 Let me be first.' — Bunce took him at 
 
 his word. 
 And suddenly his old atrocious trick 
 
 did, 
 Sacking M.D. the third. 
 Ere he could furnish ' Hints to the 
 
 Afflicted.' 
 
498 
 
 THE DEAD ROBBERY 
 
 Flush'd with success, 
 Beyond all hope or guess, 
 His new dead robbery upon his 
 
 back, 
 Bunce plotted — such high flights am- 
 bition' takes, — 
 To treat the Faculty like ducks and 
 
 drakes, 
 And sell them all ere they could utter 
 ' Quack ! ' ISO 
 
 But Fate opposed. — According to the 
 
 schools, 
 When men become insufferably 
 bad, 
 The gods confer to drive them 
 mad ; 
 March hairs upon the heads of April 
 fools ! 
 Tempted by the old demon 
 avaricious, 
 Bunce traded on too far into the 
 
 morning ; 
 Till nods, and winks, and looks," and 
 • signs suspicious, 
 Ev'n words malicious. 
 Forced on him rather an unpleasant 
 
 warning. 
 Glad was he to perceive, beside a 
 wicket, 160 
 
 A porter, ornamented with a 
 
 ticket. 
 Who did not seem to be at all too 
 busy — 
 ' Here, my good man, 
 Just show me, if you can, 
 A doctor's — if you want to earn a 
 tizzy I ' 
 
 Away the porter marches, 
 
 And with grave face, obsequious pre- 
 cedes him, 
 
 Down crooked lanes, round corners, 
 under arches ; 
 
 At last, up an old-fashion'd staircase 
 leads him. 
 
 Almost impervious to the morning 
 ray, 170 
 
 Then shows a door — ' There, that 's 
 a doctor's reckon 'd, 
 
 A rare Top-Sawyer, let who will come 
 second — 
 Good day.' 
 
 'I'm right,' thought Bunce, "as 
 any trivet ; 
 Another venture — and then up I give 
 
 ■ it! ' 
 He rings — the door, just like a fairy 
 
 portal. 
 Opens untouch'd by mortal 
 He gropes his way into a dingy room. 
 And hears a voice come growling 
 
 through the gloom, 
 'Well— eh?— Who? What?— Speak 
 out at once ! ' 180 
 
 ' I will,' says Bunce. 
 ' I've got a sort of article to sell ; 
 Medical gemmen knows me very 
 
 well — ' 
 But think Imagination how it shock'd 
 
 her 
 To hear the voice roar out, ' Death 1 
 Devil ! d— n ! 
 Confound the vagabond, he 
 thinks I am 
 A rhubarb-and-magnesia Doctor ! ' 
 ' No Doctor ! ' exclaim'd Bunce, and 
 
 dropp'd his jaw. 
 But louder still the voice began to 
 
 bellow, 
 ' Yes, — yes, — odd zounds ! — I atn a 
 Doctor, fellow, 190 
 
 At law ! ' 
 The word sufific'd. — Of things Bunce 
 feared the most 
 (Next to a ghost) 
 Was law, — or any of the legal corps, — 
 He dropp'd at once his load of 
 
 flesh and bone, 
 And, caring for no body, save his 
 own, 
 Bolted, — and lived securely tilt four- 
 score. 
 From never troubling Doctors any 
 more 1 
 
499 
 THE DESERT-BORN 
 
 'Fly to the desert, fly with me:— Lady HesUr Stanhopt. 
 
 'TWAS in the wilds o£ Lebanon, amongst its barren hills, 
 
 To think upon it, even now, my very blood it chills I — 
 
 My sketch-book spread before me, and my pencil in my hand, 
 
 I gazed upon the mountain range, the red tumultuous sand, 
 
 The plumy palms, the sombre firs, the cedars tall and proud, 
 
 When lo ! a shadow pass'd across the paper like a cloud, 
 And looking up I saw a form, apt figure for the scene, 
 Methought I stood in presence of some oriental queen ! 
 
 The turban on her head was white as any driven snow ; 
 
 A purple bandalette pass'd o'er the lofty brow below, la 
 
 And thence upon her shoulders fell, by either jewell'd ear ; 
 
 In yellow folds voluminous she wore her long cachemere ; 
 
 Whilst underneath, with ample sleeves, a Turkish robe of silk 
 
 Enveloped her in drapery the colour of new milk ; 
 
 Yet oft it floated wide in front, disclosing underneath 
 
 A gorgeous Persian tunic, rich with many a broider'd wreath. 
 
 Compelled by clasps of costly pearl around her neck to meet — 
 
 And yellow as the amber were the buskins on her feet ! 
 
 Of course I bowed my lowest bow — of all the things on earth. 
 
 The reverence due to loveliness, to rank, or ancient birth, 30 
 
 To pow'r, to wealth, to genius, or to anything uncommon, 
 
 A man should bend the lowest in a Desert to a Woman ! 
 
 Yet some strange influence stronger still, though vague and undefin'd, 
 
 Compell'd me, AnA with magic might subdued my soul and mind ; 
 
 There was a something in her air that drew the spirit nigh, 
 
 Beyond the common witchery that dwells in woman's eye ! 
 
 With reverence deep, like any slave of that peculiar land, 
 
 I bowed my forehead to the earth, and kissed the arid sand ; 
 
 And then I touch'd her garment's hem, devoutly as a Dervise, 
 
 Predestinated (so I felt) for ever to her service. 30 
 
 Nor was I wrong in auguring thus my fortune from her face. 
 
 She knew me, seemingly, as well as any of her race ; 
 
 ' Welcome ! ' she cried, as I uprose submissive to my feet ; 
 
 ' It was ordain'd that you and I should in this desert meet ! 
 
 Aye, ages since, before thy soul had burst its prison bars. 
 
 This interview was promis'd in the language of the stars ! ' 
 
 Then clapping, as the Easterns wont, her all-commanding hands, 
 
 A score of mounted Arabs -came fast spurring o'er the sands. 
 
 Nor rein'd they up their foaming steeds till in my very face 
 
 They blew the breath impetuous, and panting from the race. 4a 
 
500 THE DESERT-BORN 
 
 ' Fear nought,' exclaimed the radiant one, as I sprang off aloof, 
 
 ' Thy precious frame need never fear a blow from horse's hoof ! 
 
 Thy natal star was fortunate as any orb of birth, 
 
 And fate hath held in store for tiiee the rarest gift of earth.' 
 
 Then turning to the dusky men, that humbly waited near, 
 
 She cried, ' Go bring the Beautiful — for lo ! the Man is here ! ' 
 
 Off went th' obsequious train as swift as Arab hoofs could fiee, 
 But Fancy fond outraced them all, with bridle loose and free. 
 And brought me back, for love's attack, some fair Circassian bride. 
 Or Georgian girl, the Harem's boast, and fit for sultan's side ; 50 
 
 Methought I lifted up her veil, and saw dark eyes beneath, 
 Mild as gazelle's, a snowy brow, ripe lips, and pearly teeth, 
 A swanlike neck, a shoulder round, full bosom, and a waist 
 Not too compact, and rounded limbs, to oriental taste. 
 Methought — but here, alas ! alas ! the airy dream to blight, 
 Behold the Arabs leading up a mare of milky White ! 
 To tell the truth, without reserve, evasion, or remorse, 
 ■ The last of creatures in my love or liking is a horse : 
 Whether in early youth some kick untimely laid me flat. 
 Whether from born antipathy, as some dislike a cat, 6a 
 
 I never yet could bear the kind, from Meux's giant steeds 
 Down to those little bearish cubs of Shetland's shaggy breeds ; — 
 As for a warhorse, he that can bestride one is a hero. 
 Merely to look at such a sight my courage sinks to zero. 
 With lightning eyes, and thunder mane, and hurricanes of legs. 
 Tempestuous tail — to picture him description vainly begs ! 
 His fiery nostrils sent forth clouds of smoke instead of breath — 
 Nay, was it not a Horse that bore the grisly Shape of Death ? 
 Judge then how cold an ague-fit of agony was mine 
 
 To see the mistress of my fate, , imperious, make a sign 70 
 
 To which my own foreboding soul the cruel sense supplied : 
 ' Mount, happy man, and run away with your Arabian bride ! ' 
 Grim was the smile, and tremulous the voice with which I spoke, 
 Like any one's when jesting with a subject not a joke, 
 So men have trifled with the axe before the fatal stroke. 
 
 ' Lady, if mine had been the luck in Yorkshire to be born. 
 
 Or any of its ridings, this would be a blessed morn : 
 
 But, hapless one ! I cannot ride — there 's something in a horse 
 
 That I can always honour, but I never could endorse. 
 
 To speak still more commercially, in riding I am quite 8a 
 
 Averse to running long, and apt to be paid off at sight : 
 
 In legal phrase, for every class to understand me still, 
 
 I never was in stirrups yet a tenant but at will ; 
 
 Or, if you please, in artist terms, I never went a-straddle 
 
 On any horse without ' a want of keeping ' in the saddle. 
 
 In short,' and here I blush'd, abash'd, and held my head full low, 
 
 ' I'm one of those whose infant ears have heard the chimes of Bow ! ' 
 
THE DESERT-BORN 501 
 
 The lady smiled, as houris smile, adown from Turkish skies, 
 
 And beams of cruel kindness shone within her hazel eyes ; 
 
 ' Stranger,' she said, ' or rather say, my nearest, dearest friend, 90 
 
 There 's something in your eyes, your air, and that high instep's bend. 
 
 That tells me you're of Arab race, — whatever spot of earth, 
 
 Cheapside, or Bow, or Stepney, had the honour of your birth, 
 
 The East it is your country ! Like an infant changed at nurse 
 
 By fairies, you have undergone a nuftureship perverse ; 
 
 But this — these desert sands — these palms, and cedars waving wild. 
 
 All, all, adopt thee as their own — an oriental child — 
 
 The cloud may hide the sun awhile — but soon or late, no doubt. 
 
 The spirit of your ancestry will burst and sparkle out ! 
 
 I read the starry characters — and lo ! 'tis written there, 100 
 
 Thou wert foredoom 'd of sons of men to ride upon this Mare, 
 
 A Mare till now was never back'd by one of mortal mould, 
 
 Mark, how she neighs, as if for thee she knew that she was foal'd ! ' 
 
 And truly — I devoutly wish'd a blast of the simoom 
 
 Had stifled her ! — the Mare herself appear'd to mock my doom ; 
 
 With many a bound she caper'd round and round me like a dance, 
 
 I feared indeed some wild caress would end the fearful prance. 
 
 And felt myself, and saw myself — the phantasy was horrid ! — 
 
 Like old Redgauntlet, with a shoe imprinted on my forehead ! 
 
 On bended knees, with bowing head, and hands uprais'd in pray'r, no 
 
 I begg'd the turban'd Sultaness the issue to forbear ; 
 
 I painted weeping orphan babes, around a widpw'd wile. 
 
 And drew my death as vividly as others draw from life. 
 
 ' Behold,' I said, ' a simple man, for such high feats unfit, 
 
 ^Vho never yet has learn'd to know the crupper from the bit. 
 
 Whereas the boldest horsemanship, and first equestrian skill. 
 
 Would well be task'd to bend so wild a creature to the will." 
 
 Alas ! alas ! 'twas all in vain, to supplicate and kneel, 
 
 The quadruped could not have been more cold to my appeal ! 
 
 'Fear nothing,' said the smiling Fate, 'when human help is vain, 120 
 
 Spirits shall by thy stirrups fly, and fairies guide the rein ; 
 
 Just glance at yonder animal, her perfect shape remark. 
 
 And in thy breast at once shall glow the oriental spark ! 
 
 As for thy spouse and tender babes, no Arab roams the wild 
 
 But for a mare of such descent, would barter wife and child.' 
 
 'Nay then,' cried I— (heav'n shrive the lie !) ' to tell the secret truth, 
 
 'Twas my unhappy fortune once to over-ride a youth ! 
 
 A playful child, — so full of life !— a little fair-haired boy, 
 
 His sister's pet, his father's hope, his mother's darling joy ! 
 
 Ah me ! the frantic shriek she gave ! I hear it ringing now ! 130 
 
 That hour, upon the bloody spot, I made a holy vow ; 
 
 A solemn compact, deeply sworn, to witness my remorse, 
 
 That never more these limbs of mine should mount on living horse ! ' 
 
S02 THE DESERT-BORN 
 
 Good heav'n ! to see the angry glance that flashed upon me now ! 
 
 A chill ran all my marrow through — the drops were on my brow ! 
 
 I knew my doom, and stole a glance at that accursed Mare, 
 
 And there she stood, with nostrils wide, that snuff'd the sultry air. 
 
 How lion-like she lash'd her flanks with her abundant tail ; 
 
 While on her neck the stormy mane kept tossing to the gale ! 
 
 How fearfully she roll'd her eyes between the earth and sky, 140 
 
 As if in wild uncertainty to gallop or to fly ! 
 
 While with her hoof she scoop'd the sand as if before she gave 
 
 My plunge into eternity she meant to dig my grave ! 
 
 And I, that ne'er could calmly bear a horse's ears at play. 
 
 Or hear without a yard of jump his shrill and sudden neigh — 
 
 Whose foot within a stable door had never stood an inch — 
 
 Whose hand to pat a living steed would feel an awful flinch, — 
 
 I that had never thrown a leg across a pony small. 
 
 To scour the pathless desert on the tallest of the tall ! 
 
 For oh 1 it is no fable, but at ev'ry look I cast ijo 
 
 Her restless legs seem'd twice as long as when I saw them last J 
 
 In agony I shook, — and yet, although congealed by fears, 
 
 My blood was boiling fast; to judge from noises in my ears ; 
 
 I gasp'd as if in vacuo, and thrilling with despair, 
 
 Some secret Demon seem'd to pass his fingers through my hair. 
 
 I could not stir — I could not speak — I could not even see — 
 
 A sudden mist rose up between that awful Mare and me,-7- 
 
 I tried to pray, but found no words — tho' ready ripe to weep, 
 
 No tear would flow, — o'er ev'ry sense a swoon began to creep, — 
 
 When lo I to bring my horrid fate at once unto the brunt, i«o 
 
 Two Arabs seized me from behind, two others in the front, 
 
 And ere a muscle could be strung to try the strife forlorn, 
 
 I found myself, Mazeppa-like, upon the Desert- Born ! 
 
 Terrific was the neigh she gave, the moment that my weight 
 
 Was felt upon her back, as if exulting in her freight ; 
 
 Whilst dolefully I heard a voice that set each nerve ajar, — 
 
 ' Off with the bridle — quick ! — and leave his guidance to his star I ' 
 
 ' Allah ! il Allah ! ' rose the shout, — and starting with a bound. 
 
 The dreadful Creature cleared at once a dozen yards of ground ; 
 
 And grasping at her mane with both my cold convulsive hands, 170 
 
 Away we flew — away ! away ! across the shifting sands ! 
 
 My eyes were closed in utter dread of such a fearful race. 
 
 But yet by certain signs I knew we went no earthly pace, 
 
 For turn whichever way we might, the wind with equal force 
 
 Rush'd like a torrid hurricane still adverse to our course — 
 
 One moment close at hand I heard the roaring Syrian Sea, 
 
 The next it only murniur'd like the humming of a bee ! 
 
 And when I dared at last to glance across the wild immense, 
 
 Oh ne'er shall I forget the whirl that met the dizzy sense 1 
 
THE DESERT-BORN 503 
 
 What seem'd a little sprig of fern, ere lips could reckon twain, igo 
 
 A palm of forty cubits high, we passed it on the plain I 
 
 What tongue could tell, — what pencil paint.^what pen describe the ride ? 
 
 Now off — now on — now up — now down, — and flung from side to side ! 
 
 I tried to speak, but had no voice, to soothe her with its tone — 
 
 My scanty breath was jolted out with many a sudden groan — 
 
 My joints were racked — my back was strained, so firmly I had clung — 
 
 My nostrils gush'd, and thrice my teeth had bitten through my tongue — 
 
 When lo ! — farewell all hope of life! — she turn'd and faced the rocks, 
 
 None but a flying horse could clear those monstrous granite blocks ! 
 
 So thought I, — but I little knew the desert pride and fire, 190 
 
 Deriv'd from a most deer-like dam, and lion-hearted sire ; 
 
 Little I guess'd the energy of muscle, blood, and bone. 
 
 Bound after bound, with eager springs, she clear'd each massive stone ; — 
 
 Nine mortal leaps were pass'd before a huge grey rock at length 
 
 Stood planted there as if to dare her utmost pitch of strength — 
 
 My time was come ! that granite heap my monument of death ! 
 
 She paused, she snorted loud and long, and drew a fuller breath ; 
 
 Nine strides and then a louder beat that warn'd me of her spring, 
 
 I felt her rising in the air like eagle on the wing — 
 
 But oh ! the crash ! — the hideous shock ! — the million sparks around ! aoo 
 
 Her hindmost hoofs had struck the crest of that prodigious mound I 
 
 Wild shriek'd the headlong Desert-Born — or else 'twas demon's mirth. 
 
 One second more, and Man and Mare roU'd breathless on the earth I 
 
 How long it was I cannot tell ere I revived to sense. 
 
 And then but to endure the pangs of agony intense ; 
 
 For over me lay powerless, and still as any stone. 
 
 The Corse that erst had so much fire, strength, spirit, of its own. 
 
 My heart was still-^my pulses stopp'd — midway 'twixt life and death, 
 
 With pain unspeakable I fetch'd, the fragment of a breath, 
 
 Not vital air enough to frame one short and feeble sigh. 
 
 Yet even that I loath'd because it would not let me die. 
 
 Oh ! slowly, slowly, slowly on, from starry night" till morn. 
 
 Time flapp'd along, with leaden wings, across that waste forlorn ! 
 
 I cursed the hour that brought me first within this world of strife — 
 
 A sore and heavy sin it is to scorn the gift of life — 
 
 But who hath felt a horse's weight oppress his labouring breast ? 
 
 Why any who has had, like me, the NIGHT MARE on his chest. 
 
504 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS 
 
 A PASTORAL REPORT 
 
 One Sunday morning — servicedone — 
 'Mongst tombstones shining in the 
 
 sun, 
 A knot of bumpkins stood to chat 
 Of that and this, and this and that ; 
 What people said of Polly Hatch — 
 Which side had won the cricket 
 
 match ; 
 And who was cotch'd, and who was 
 
 bowl'd ; — 
 How barley, beans, and 'tatefs sold — 
 What men could swallow at a meal — 
 When Bumpstead Youths would ring 
 
 a peal — xo 
 
 And who was taken off to jail — 
 And where they brew'd the strongest 
 
 ale — 
 At last this question they address, 
 ' What 's Agricultural Distress ? ' 
 
 Hodge. 
 
 ' For my peart, it 's a thought o' mine. 
 It be the fancy farming line, 
 Like yonder gemman, — him I mean. 
 As took the Willa nigh the Green, — 
 And turn'd his cattle in the wheat ; 
 And gave his porkers hay to eat ; zo 
 And sent his footman up to town. 
 To ax the LoiinOn gentry down, 
 To be so kind as make his hay. 
 Exactly on St. Swithin's day ; — 
 With consequences you may guess — 
 That 's Hagricultural Distress.' 
 
 Dickon. 
 
 ' Last Monday morning, Master Blogg 
 Com'd for to stick our bacon-hog ; 
 But th' hog he cock'd a knowing eye. 
 As if he twigg'd the reason why, 30 
 And dodg'd and dodg'd 'un such a 
 
 dance, 
 lie didn't give the noose a chance ; 
 
 So Master Blogg at last lays, off. 
 And shams a rattle at the trough, ', . 
 When swish ! in bolts our bacon-hog 
 Atwixt the legs o' Master Blogg, 
 And flops him down in all the muck. 
 As hadn't been swept up by luck — 
 Now that, accordin' to my guess, 
 Be Hagricultural Distress.' 40 
 
 Giles. 
 
 ' No, that am 't it, I tell 'ee flat ; 
 I'ze bring a worser case nor that ! 
 Last Friday week, I takes a start 
 To Reading, with our horse and cart ; 
 Well, when I'ze set the 'taters down; 
 I meets a crony at the Crown ; 
 And what betwixt the ale and Tom, 
 It 's dark afore I starts for home ; 
 So whipping hard, by long and late,: 
 At last we reaches nigh the gate, so 
 And, sure enough, there Master stand, 
 A lantern flaring in his hand, — 
 " Why, Giles," says he, " what 's that 
 
 'un thear ? 
 Yond' chestnut horse bean't my bay 
 
 mear ! 
 He bean't not wortli a leg o' Bess ! " 
 There 's Hagricultural Distress ! ' 
 
 HoB. 
 
 'That 's nothin' yet, to Tom's mishap ! 
 A-gooing through the yard, poor chap, 
 Only to fetch his milking-pails. 
 When up he shies like head or tails ; 60 
 Nor would the Bull let Tom a-be. 
 Till he had toss'd the best o' three ; — 
 And there lies Tom with broken bones, 
 A surgeon's job for Doctor Jones ; 
 Well, Doctor Jones lays down the law, 
 " There 's two crackt ribs, besides a 
 jaw,— 
 
AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS 
 
 50s 
 
 Eat well," says he, " stuff out your 
 
 case, 
 For that will keep the ribs in place ; " 
 But how was Tom, poor chap, to chaw. 
 Seeing as how he'd broke his jaw ? 70 
 That 's summut to the pint — yes, yes, 
 That 's Hagricultural Distress ! ' 
 
 Simon. 
 
 ' Well, turn and turn about is fair : 
 Tom 's bad anough, and so 's the 
 
 mare ; 
 But nothing to my load of hay — 
 You see, 'twas hard on quarter-day. 
 And cash was wanted for the rent ; 
 So up to Lonnon I was sent, 
 To sell as prime a load of hay 
 As ever dried on summer's day. 80 
 Well, standing in Whitechapel Road, 
 A chap comes up to buy my load. 
 And looks, and looks about the cart. 
 Pretending to be 'cute and smart ; 
 But no great judge, as people say, 
 'Cause why ? he never smelt the hay. 
 Thinks I, as he 's a simple chap. 
 He'll give a simple price mayhap, 
 Such buyers comes but now and then, 
 So slap I axes nine pun' ten. 90 
 
 " That 's dear," says he, and pretty 
 
 quick 
 He taps his leathers with his stick. 
 " Suppose," says he, " we wet our 
 
 clay, 
 Just while we bargin 'bout the hay.'' 
 So in we goes, my chap and me ; 
 He drinks to I, and I to he ; 
 At last, says I, a little gay, 
 " Its time to talk about that hay." 
 " Nine pund," says he, " and I'm 
 
 your man, 
 Live, and let live — for that 's my 
 
 plan." 100 
 
 " That 's true," says I, " but still I 
 
 say. 
 It's nine pun' ten for that 'ere hay." 
 And so we chaffers for a bit. 
 At long and last the odds we split ; 
 And off he sets to show the way. 
 Where up a yard I leaves the hay. 
 
 Then, from the pocket of his coat. 
 He pulls a book, and picks a ndte. 
 " That 's Ten," says he»— " I hope to 
 
 pay 
 Tens upon tens for loads of hay.'' 1x6 
 "With all my heart, and soon," says I, 
 And feeling for the change thereby ; 
 But all my shillings com'd to five — 
 Says he, " No matter, man alive I 
 There 's something in your honest 
 
 phiz 
 I'd trust, if twice the sum it is ; — 
 You'll pay next time you come to 
 
 . town." 
 " As sure," says I, " as corn is 
 
 brown." 
 " All right," says he. — Thinks I, 
 
 " huzza I 
 He 's got no bargain of the hay 1 " lao 
 
 ' Well, home I goes, with empty cart. 
 Whipping the horses pretty smart, 
 And whistling ev'ry yard o' way. 
 To think how well I'd sold the hay — 
 And just cotch'd Master at his greens 
 And bacon, or it might be beans, 
 Which didn't taste the worse surely, 
 To hear his hay had gone so high. 
 But lord ! when I laid down the 
 
 note. 
 It stuck the victuals in his throat, 130 
 And chok'd him till his face all grew 
 Like pickling-cabbage, red and blue ; 
 With such big goggle eyes, Ods nails I 
 They seem'd a-comiiig out like snails 1 
 " A note," says he, half mad with 
 
 passion, 
 " Why, thou dom'd fool ! thou'sttook 
 
 a flash 'un ! " 
 Now, wasn't that a pretty mess ? 
 That 's Hagricultural Distress.' 
 
 Colin. 
 
 ' Phoo ! phoo ! You're nothing near 
 
 the thing ! 
 You only argy in a ring ; 140 
 
 'Cause why ? You never cares to 
 
 look. 
 Like me, in any larried book ; 
 
So6 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS 
 
 But schollards know the wrong and 
 
 right 
 Of every thing in black and white. 
 
 ' Well, Farmiiig, tliat 's its common 
 
 name, 
 And Agriculture be the same : 
 So put your Farming first, and next 
 Distress, and there you have your 
 
 text. 
 But here the question comes to press. 
 What farming be, and what 's dis- 
 tress ? 150 
 Why, farming is to plough and sow. 
 Weed, harrow, harvest, reap and 
 
 mow, 
 Thrash, winnow, sell, — and buy and 
 
 breed 
 The proper stock to fat and feed. 
 Distress is want, and pain, and grief. 
 And sickness, — things as wants relief ; 
 
 Thirst, hunger, age, and cold severe ; 
 In short, ax any overseer, — 
 Well, now, the logic for to chop, 159 
 Where 's the distress about a crop ? 
 There 's no distress in keeping sheep, 
 I likes to see 'em frisk and leap ; 
 There 's no distress in seeing swine ' 
 Grow up to pork and bacon fine ; 
 There 's no distress in growing wheat 
 And grass for men or beasts to eat ; 
 And making of lean cattle fat. 
 There 's no distress, of course, in that. 
 Then what remains ? — But one thing 
 more, 169 
 
 And that 's the Farming of the Poor I ' 
 
 Hodge, Dickon, Giles, Hob, and 
 
 Simon. 
 ' Yea ! — aye ! — sure/y ! — for sartin ! 
 
 — yes ! — 
 That 's Hagricultural Distress ! ' 
 
 LOVE LANE 
 
 If I should love a maiden more. 
 And woo her ev'ry hope to crown, 
 I'd love her all the country o'er. 
 But not declare it out of town. 
 
 One even by a mossy bank, 
 That held a hornet's nest within, 
 • To EUen on my knees I sank — 
 How snakes will twine around the shin! 
 
 A bashful fear my soul unnerv'd, 9 
 And gave my heart a backward tug ; 
 Nor was I cheer'd when she observ'd, 
 Whilst I was silent, — ' What a slug ! ' 
 
 At length my offer I preferr'd. 
 And Hope a kind reply forebode — 
 Alas the only sound I heard 
 Was, ' What a horrid ugly toad ! ' 
 
 I vow'd to give her all my heart. 
 To love her till my life took leave. 
 And painted all a lover's smart — 
 Except a wasp gone up his sleeve ! 20 
 
 But when I ventur'd to abide 
 Her father's and her mother's grants — 
 Sudden, she started up, and cried, 
 ' O dear ! I am all over ants ! ' 
 
 Nay, when beginning to beseech 
 The cause that led to my rebuff. 
 The answer was as strange a speech,' 
 ' A Daddy-Longlegs surejenough ! ' - 
 
 Ispokeof fortune— house, — and lands. 
 And still renew'd the warm attack,- — 
 'Tis vain to offer ladies hands 31 
 
 That have a spider on the back ! 
 
 'Tis vain to talk of hopes and fears 
 And hope the least reply to win, . 
 From any maid that stops her ears 
 In dread of earwigs creeping in ! 
 
 'Tis vain to call the dearest names 
 Whilst stoats and weazels startle by — 
 As \ain to talk of mutual flames, 39 
 To one with glow-worms in her eye ! 
 
LOVE LANE 
 
 507 
 
 What check'd me in my fond address, 
 And knock'd each prettyimage down ? 
 What stopp'd my Ellen's faltering 
 
 Yes? 
 A caterpillar on her gown ! 
 
 To list to Philomel is sweet — 
 To see the Moon rise silver-pale, — 
 But not to kneel at Lady's feet 
 And crush a rival in a snail ! 
 
 Sweet is the eventide, and kind 
 Its zephyr, balmy as the south ; 50 
 But sweeter still to speak your mind 
 Without a chafer in your mouth. 
 
 At last embolden 'd by my bliss, 
 Still fickle Fortune play'd me foul, 
 For when I strove to snatch a kiss 
 She scream'd — by proxy through an 
 owl ! 
 
 Then, Lovers, doom'd to life or 
 
 death 
 Shun moonlight, twilight, lanes, and 
 
 bats. 
 Lest you should have in selfsame 
 
 breath 
 To bless your fate — and curse the 
 
 gnats ! 60 
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE Al'HEN^UM 
 
 My dear Sir — The following Ode was written anticipating the tone of some 
 strictures on my writings, by the gentleman to whom it is addressed. I have not seen 
 his book; but I know by hearsay that some of my verses are characterized as 
 ' profaneness and ribaldry ' — citing, in proof, the description of a certain sow, from 
 whose jaw a cabbage spront — 
 
 * Protruded, as the dove so staunch 
 For peace supports an olive branch.' 
 
 If the printed works of my Censor had not prepared me for any misapplication of 
 tfpes, I should have been surprised by this misapprehension of one of the commonest 
 emblems. In some cases the dove unquestionably stands for the Divine Spirit ; but 
 the same bird is also a lay representative of the peace of this world, and, as such, has 
 figured time out of mind in allegorical pictures. The sense in which it was used by 
 me is plain from the context ; at least, it would be plain to any one but a lisher for 
 faults, pre-disposed to carp at some things, to dab at others, and to flounder in all. 
 But I am possibly in error. It is the female swine, perhaps, that is profaned in the 
 eyes of the Oriental tourist. Men find strange ways of marking their intolerance ; and 
 the spirit is certainly strong enough, in Mr. W.'s works, to set up a creature as sacred, 
 in sheer opposition to the Mussulman, with whom she is a beast of abomination. It 
 would only be going the whole sow. — I am, dear Sir, yours very truly. 
 
 Thus. Hood. 
 
 Close, close your eyes with holy dread, 
 
 And weave a circle round him thrice; 
 
 For he on Iioney-dew hath fed, 
 
 And drunk the milk of Paradise!' — Coleridge. 
 
 'It's very hard 'them kind of men 
 Woii't let a body \k: —Old Ballad. 
 
 A WANDERER, Wilson, from my native land. 
 Remote, O Rae, from godliness and thee. 
 Where rolls between us the eternal sea, 
 Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand, — 
 
5o8 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 
 
 Beyond the broadest Scbtch of London Wall ; 
 
 Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call ; 
 
 Across the wavy waste between us stretch'd, 
 
 A friendly missive warns me of a stricture, 
 
 Wherein my likeness you have darkly etch'd, 
 
 And tho' I have not seen the shadow sketch'd, lo 
 
 Thus I remark prophetic on the picture. 
 
 I guess the features : — in a Une to paint 
 
 Their moral ugliness, I'm not a saint. 
 
 Not one of those self-constituted saints, 
 
 Quacks — not physicians — in the cure of souls. 
 
 Censors who sniff out mortal taints, 
 
 And call the devil over his own coals — 
 
 Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God, 
 
 Who write down judgments with a pen hard-nibb'd ; 
 
 Ushers of Beelzebub's Black Rod, «• 
 
 Commending sinners, not to ice thick-ribb'd. 
 But endless flames, to scorch them up like flax, — 
 Yet sure of heav'n themselves, as if they'd cribb'd 
 Th' impression of St. Peter's keys in wax ! 
 
 Of such a character no single trace 
 
 Exists, I know, in my fictitious face; 
 
 There wants a certain cast about the eye ; 
 
 A certain lifting of the nose's tip ; 
 
 A certain curling of the neither lip. 
 
 In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky ; 3» 
 
 In brief it is an aspect deleterious, 
 
 A face decidedly not serious, 
 
 A face profane, that would not do at all 
 
 To make a face at Exeter Hall, — 
 
 That Hall where bigots rant, and cant, and pray, 
 
 And laud each other face to face. 
 
 Till ev'ry farthing-candle ray 
 
 Conceives itself a great gas-ltght of grace 1 
 
 Well ! — ^be the graceless lineaments contest ! 
 
 I do enjoy this bounteous beauteous earth ; 40 
 
 And dote upon a jest 
 ' Within the limits of becoming mirth ' ; — 
 No solemn sanctimonious face I pull, 
 Nor think I'm pious when I'm only bilious — 
 Nor study in my sanctum supercilious 
 To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull. 
 I pray for grace — ^repent each sinful act — 
 Peruse, but underneath the rose, my Bible ; 
 And love my neighbour, far too well, in fact. 
 To call and twit him with a godly tract I' 
 
 That 's turn-'d by application to a libel. 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 509 
 
 My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven, 
 All creeds I view with toleration thorough, 
 And have a horror of regarding heaven 
 As anybody's rotten borough. 
 
 What else ? no part I take in party fray, 
 
 With tropes from Billingsgate's slang-whanging tartars, 
 
 I fear no Pope — and let great Ernest play 
 
 At Fox and Goose with Fox's Martyrs ! 
 
 I own I laugh at over-righteous men, to 
 
 X own I shake my sides at ranters. 
 
 And treat sham-Abr'am saints with wicked banters, 
 
 I even own, that there are times — but then 
 
 It 's when I've got my wine — I say d canters t 
 
 I've~no ambition to enact tbe spy 
 
 On fellow souls, a. Spiritual Pry — 
 
 'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses 
 
 Who thrust them into matters none of theirs ; 
 
 And tho' no delicacy discomposes 
 
 Your Saint, yet I consider faith and pray'rs 70 
 
 Amongst the privatest of men's affairs. 
 
 I do not hash the Gospel in my books. 
 And thus upon the public mind intrude it. 
 As if I thought, like Otaheitan cooks, 
 No food was fit to eat till I had chew'd it. 
 On Bible stilts I don't affect to stalk ; 
 Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk, — 
 
 For man may pious texts repeat. 
 And yet religion have no inward seat ; 
 
 'Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth, So 
 
 A man has got his bellyfuU of meat ^ 
 
 Because he talks with victuals in his mouth I 
 
 Mere verbiage, — it is not worth a carrot ! 
 Why, Socrates or Plato — where 's the odds ? — 
 Once taught a jay to supplicate the Gods, 
 And made a PoUy-theist of a Parrot ! 
 
 A mere professor, spite of all his cant, is 
 Not a whit better than a Mantis, — 
 An insect, of what clime I can't determine. 
 That lifts its paws most parson-like, and thence, ?» 
 
 By simple savages^thro' sheer pretence — 
 Is reckon'd quite a saint amongst the vermin. 
 
 But where 's the reverence, or where the nous, 
 To ride on one's religion thro' the lobby. 
 Whether as stalking-horse or hobby. 
 To show its pious paces to ' the. House ' ? 
 
510 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 
 
 I honestly confess that I would hinder 
 The Scottish member's legislative rigs, 
 
 That spiritual Pinder, 
 Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs, loo 
 
 That must be lash'd by law, wherever found. 
 And driv'n to church, as to the parish pound. 
 - 1 do confess, without reserve or wheedle, 
 I view that grovelling idea as one 
 Worthy some parish clerk's ambitious son, 
 
 A charity-boy who longs to be a beadle. 
 
 t 
 
 On such a vital topic sure 'tis odd 
 
 How much a man can differ from his neighbour : 
 
 One wishes worship freely giv'n to God, ' 
 
 Another wants to make it statute-labour — no 
 
 The broad distinction in a line to draw, 
 
 As means to lead us to the skies above. 
 
 You say — Sir Andrew and his love of law. 
 
 And I — the Saviour with his law of love. 
 
 Spontaneously to God should tend the soul. 
 
 Like the magnetic needle to the Pole ; 
 
 But what were that intrinsic virtue worth. 
 
 Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge. 
 
 Fresh from St. Andrew's College, 
 Should nail the conscious needle to the north ? iso 
 
 I do confess that I abhor and shrink 
 From schemes, with a religious willy-nilly. 
 That frown upon St. Giles's sins, but blink 
 The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly — 
 My soul revolts at such a bare hypocrisy, 
 And will not, dare not, fancy in accord 
 The Lord of Hosts with an Exclusive Lord 
 
 Of this world's aristocracy. 
 It will not own a notion so unholy, 
 
 As thinking that the rich by easy trips 130 
 
 May go to heav'n, whereas the poor and lowly 
 Must work their passage, as they, do in ships. 
 
 One place there is — beneath the burial sod 
 
 Where all mankind are equalized by death ; 
 
 Another place there is — the Fane of God, 
 
 Where all are equal, who draw living breath ; — 
 
 Juggle who wUl elsewhere with his own soul, 
 
 Playing the Judas with a temporal dole — 
 
 He who can come beneath that awful cope. 
 
 In the dread presence of a Maker just, 14a 
 
 Who metes to ev'ry pinch of human dust 
 
 One even measure of immortal hope — 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 511 
 
 He who can stand within that holy door, 
 With soul unbow'd by that pure spirit-level, 
 And frame unequal laws for rich and poor,<— 
 Might sit for Hell and represent the Devil ! 
 
 Such are the solemn sentiments, O Rae, 
 
 In your last Journey- Work, perchance, you ravage, 
 
 Seeming, but in more courtly terms, to say 
 
 I'm but a heedless, creedless, godless savage; 150 
 
 A very Guy, deserving fire and faggots, — 
 
 A Scoffer, always on the grin, 
 And sadly given to the mortal sin 
 Of liking Mawworms less than merry maggots I 
 
 The humble records of my life to search, 
 
 I have not herded with mere pagan beasts ; 
 
 But sometimes I have ' sat at good men's feasts,' 
 
 And I have been ' where bells have knoll'd to churcli.' 
 
 Dear bells ! how sweet the sounds of village bells 
 
 When on the undulating air they swim ! 160 
 
 Now loud as welcomes ! faint, now, as farewells I 
 
 And trembling all about the breezy dells 
 
 As flutter'd by the wings of Cherubim. 
 
 Meanwhile the bees are chaunting a low hymn ; 
 
 And lost to sight th' ecstatic lark above 
 
 Sings, like a soul beatified, of love, — : . 
 
 With, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon •— 
 
 O Pagans, Heathens, Infidels and Doubters ! 
 
 If such sweet sounds can't woo you to religion, 
 
 Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters ? 170 
 
 A man may cry ' Church ! Church ! ' at ev'ry word, 
 With no more piety than other people— 
 A daw 's not reckon'd a religious bird 
 Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple. 
 The Temple is a good, a holy place, 
 But quacking only gives it an ill savour ; 
 While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace. 
 And bring religion's self into disfavour ! 
 
 Behold yon servitor of God and Mammon, 
 
 Who, binding up his Bible with his Ledger, xso 
 
 Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon, 
 A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger, 
 Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak, 
 Against the wicked remnant of the week, 
 A saving bet against, his . sinful bias — 
 ' Rogue that I am,' he whispers to himself, 
 ' I lie — I cheat — do anything for pelf. 
 But who on earth can say I am not pious ? ' 
 
SI2 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 
 
 In proof how over-righteousness re-acts, 
 
 Accept an anecdote well bas'd on facts. 190 
 
 One Sunday morning — (at the day don't fret) — 
 
 In riding with a friend to Ponder's End 
 
 Outside the stage, we happen'd to commend 
 
 A certain mansion that we saw To Let. 
 
 ' Aye,' cried our coachman, with our talk to grapple, 
 
 ' You 're, right ! no house along the road comes nigh it 1 
 
 'Twas built by the same man as built yon chapel. 
 
 And master wanted once to buy it, — 
 But t'other driv the bargain much too hard — 
 
 He ax'd sure-Zy a sum purdigious ! aoo 
 
 But being so particular religious, 
 Why, that, you see, put master on his guard I ' 
 
 , Church is ■ a little heav'n below, 
 , . I have been there and still would go,' — 
 Yet I am none of those, who think it odd 
 A man can pray unbidden from the cassock. 
 And, passing by the customary hassock. 
 Kneel down remote upon the simple sod, 
 And sue in formS pauperis to God. 
 
 As for the rest, — intolerant to none, mo 
 
 Whatever shape the pious rite may bear, 
 
 Ev'n the poor Pagan's homage to the Sun 
 
 I would not harshly scorn, lest even there 
 
 I spurn'd some elements of Christian pray'r — 
 
 An aim, tho' erring, at a ' world ayont ' — 
 
 Acknowledgment of good — of man's futility, 
 A sense of need, and weakness, and indeed 
 That very thing so many Christians want — 
 Humility. 
 
 Such, unto Papists, Jews or turban'd Turks, 2»o 
 
 Such is my spirit — (I don't mean my wraith!) 
 Such, may it please you, is my humble faith ; 
 I know, full well, you do not like my works ! 
 
 I have not sought, 'tis true, the Holy Land, 
 As full of texts as Cuddie Headrigg's mother. 
 
 The Bible in one hand. 
 And my own common-place-book in the other — 
 But you have been to Palestine — alas ! 
 Some minds improve by travel, others, rather. 
 
 Resemble copper wire, or brass, ajo 
 
 Which gets the narrower by going farther ! 
 Worthless are all such Pilgrimages — -very ! 
 If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive 
 The human heats and rancour to revive 
 That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury; 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 513 
 
 A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, 
 
 To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, 
 
 Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full. 
 
 Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, 
 
 At crippled Papistry to butt and poke,' 240 
 
 Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull 
 
 Hunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak ! 
 
 Why leave a serious, moral, pious home, 
 Scotland, renown'd for sanctity of old. 
 Far distant Catholics to rate and scold 
 For — doing as the Romans do at Rome ? 
 With such a bristling spirit wherefore quit 
 The Land of Ca-kes for any land of wafers, 
 About the graceless images to flit, 
 
 And buzz and chafe importunate as chafers, 25a 
 
 Longing to carve the carvers to Scotch collops ? — 
 People who hold such absolute opinions 
 Should stay at home, in Protestant dominions, 
 Not- travel like male Mrs. TroUopes. 
 
 Gifted vnth noble tendency to climb, 
 
 Yet weak at the same time, 
 Faith is a kind of parasitic plant. 
 That grasps the nearest stem with tendril-rings ; 
 And as the climate and the soil may grant, 
 
 So is the sort of tree to which it clings. 260 
 
 Consider then, before, like Hurlothrumbo, 
 You aim your club at any creed on earth, 
 That, by the simple accident of birth. 
 You might have been High Priest to Mumbo Jumbo. 
 
 For me — thro' heathen ignorance perchance, 
 
 Not having knelt in Palestine, — I feel 
 
 None of that griffinish excess of zeal. 
 
 Some travellers would blaze with here in France. 
 
 Dolls I can see in Virgin-like array. 
 
 Nor for a scuffle with the idols hanker 270 
 
 Like crazy Quixote at the puppet's play. 
 
 If their ' offence be rank,' should mine be rancour ? 
 
 Mild light, and by degrees, should be the plan 
 
 To cure the dark and erring mind ; 
 
 But who would rush at a benighted man. 
 
 And give him two black eyes for being blind ? 
 
 Suppose the tender but luxuriant hop 
 Around a canker'd stem should twine. 
 What Kentish boor would tear away the prop 
 So roughly as to wound, nay, kill the bine ? 280 
 
 s 
 
514 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 
 
 The images, 'tis true, are strangely dress'd, 
 With gauds and toys extremely out of season ; 
 The carving nothing of the very best, 
 The whole repugnant to the eye of reason, 
 Shocking to Taste, and to Fine Arts a treason- 
 Yet ne'er o'erlook in bigotry of sect 
 One truly Catholic, one common form. 
 At which uncheck'd 
 All Christian hearts may kindle or keep warm. 
 
 Say, was it to my spirit's gain ot loss, ajo 
 
 One bright and balmy morning, as I went 
 
 From Liege's lovely environs to Ghent, 
 
 If hard by the wayside I found a cross, 
 
 That made me breathe a pray'r upon the spot — 
 
 While Nature of herself, as if to trace 
 
 The emblem's use, had trail'd around its base 
 
 The blue significant Forget-Me-Not ? 
 
 Methought, the claims of Charity to urge 
 
 More forcibly, along with Faith and Hope; 
 
 The pious choice had pitch'd upon the verge 300 
 
 Of a delicious slope, 
 Giving the eye much variegated scope ; — 
 ' Look round,' it whispered, ' on that prospect rare, 
 Those vales so verdaiit, and those hills so blue; 
 Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh, and fair. 
 But ' — (how the simple legend pierc'd me thro' !) 
 
 ' Priez pour les Mai-heueeux.' 
 
 With sweet kind natures, as in honey'd cells, 
 
 Religion lives, and feels herself at home ; 
 
 But only on a formal visit dwells 310 
 
 Where wasps instead of bees have form'd the comb. 
 
 Shun pride, O Rae ! — whatever sort beside 
 You take in lieu, shun spiritual pride ! 
 A pride there is of rank — a pride of birth, 
 A pride of learning, and a pride of purse, 
 A London pride — in short, there be on earth 
 A host of prides, some better and some worse ; 
 But of all prides, since Lucifer's attaint. 
 The proudest swells a self-elected Saint. 
 
 To picture that cold pride so harsh and hard, 320 
 
 Fancy a peacock in a poultry yard. 
 Behold hiin in conceited circles sail. 
 Strutting and dancing, and now planted stiff, 
 In all his pomp of pageantry, as if 
 He felt ' the eyes of Europe ' on his tail ! 
 As for the humble breed retain'd by man. 
 He scorns the whole domestic clan — 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 515 
 
 He bows, he bridles. 
 
 He wheels, he sidles, 
 At last, with stately dodgings, in a corner 330 
 
 He pens a simple russet hen, to scorn her 
 Full in the blaze of his resplendent fan ! 
 
 ' Look here,' he cries (to give him words), 
 
 ' Thou feather'd clay — ^thou scum of birds I ' 
 Flirting the rustling plumage in her eyes, — 
 ' Look here, thou vile predestin'd sinner, 
 
 Doom'd to be roasted for a dinner. 
 Behold these lovely variegated dyes ! 
 These are the rainbow colours of the skies. 
 
 That heav'n has shed upon me con amore — 340 
 
 A Bird of Paradise ? — a pretty story ! 
 / am that Saintly Fowl, thou paltry chick ! 
 
 Look at my crown of glory ! 
 Thou dingy, dirty, drabbled, draggled jill ! ' 
 And off goes Partlet, wriggling from a kick, 
 With bleeding scalp laid open by his bill ! 
 
 That little simile exactly paints 
 How sinners are despis'd by saints. 
 By saints ! — the Hypocrites that ope heav'n's door 
 Obsequious to the sinful man of riches — 350 
 
 But put the wicked, naked, barelegg'd poor 
 In parish stocks instead of breeches. 
 
 The Saints !— the Bigots that in public spout, 
 Spread phosphorus of zeal on scraps of fustian, 
 And go like walking ' Lucifers ' about 
 Mere living bundles of combustion. 
 
 The Saints ! — the aping Fanatics that talk 
 
 All cant and rant, and rhapsodies high-flown — 
 
 That bid you baulk 
 
 A Sunday walk, 360 
 
 And shun God's work as you should shun your own. 
 
 The Saints ! — the Formalists, the extra pious, 
 Who think the mortal husk can save the soul, 
 By trundling with a mere mechanic bias. 
 To church, just like a lignum-vitae bowl ! 
 
 The Saints ! — the Pharisees, whose beadle stands 
 
 Beside a stern coercive kirk. 
 
 A piece of human mason-work. 
 Calling all sermons contrabands. 
 In that great Temple that 's not made with hands ! 370 
 
 Thrice blessed, rather, is the man, with whom 
 The gracious prodigality of nature. 
 The balm, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom. 
 The bounteous providence in evr'ry feature. 
 
5i6 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 
 
 Recall the good Creator to his creature, 
 Making all earth a fane, all heav'n its dome ! 
 To his tun'd spirit the wild heather-bells 
 
 Ring Sabbath knells ; 
 The jubilate of the soaring lark 
 
 Is chaunt of clerk ; 380 
 
 For choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet ; 
 The sod 's a cushion for his pious want ; 
 And, consecrated by the heav'n within it, 
 
 The sky-blue pool, a font. 
 Each cloud-capp'd mountain is a holy altar ; 
 
 An organ breathes in every grove ; 
 
 And the full heart 's a Psalter, 
 Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love ! 
 
 Sufificiently by stern necessitarians 
 
 Poor Nature, with her face begrim'd by dust, 390 
 
 Is stok'd, cok'd, smok'd, and almost choked ; but must 
 
 Religion have its own Utilitarians, 
 
 Labell'd with evangelical phylacteries, 
 
 To make the road to heav'n a railway trust, 
 
 And churches — that 's the naked fact — mere factories ? 
 
 Oh ! simply open wide the Temple door, 
 And let the solemn, swelling, organ greet, 
 
 With Voluntaries rrieet, 
 The willing advent of the rich and poor ! 
 
 And while to God the loud Hosannas soar, 400 
 
 With rich vibrations from the vocal throng — 
 From quiet shades that to the woods belong, , 
 
 And brooks with music of their own. 
 Voices may come to swell the choral song 
 With notes of praise they learn'd in musings lone. 
 
 How strange it is while on all vital questions, 
 
 That occupy the Hoiise a:nd public mind, 
 
 We always meet with some humane suggestions 
 
 Of gentle measures of a healing kind, 
 
 Instead of harsh severity and vigour, 410 
 
 The Saint alone his, preference retains 
 
 For bills of penalties and pains. 
 And marks his narrow code with legal rigour ! 
 Why shun, as worthless of afifiliation, 
 What men of all political persuasion 
 Extol — and even use upon occasion — 
 That Christian principle, conciliation ? 
 But possibly the men who make such fuss 
 With Sunday pippins and old Trots infirm, 
 Attach some other meaning to the term, 420 
 
 As thus ; 
 
ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 517 
 
 One market morning, in my usual rambles, 
 Passing along Whitechapel's ancient shambles, 
 Where meat was hung in many a joint and quarter, 
 I had to halt awhile, like other folks. 
 
 To let a killing butcher coax 
 A score of lambs and fatted sheep to slaughter. 
 A sturdy man he look'd to fell an ox. 
 Bull-fronted, ruddy, with a formal streak 
 
 Of well-greas'd hair down either cheek, 430 
 
 As if he dee-dash-dee'd some other flocks 
 Beside those woolly-headed stubborn blocks 
 That stood before him, in vexatious huddle — • 
 Poor little lambs, with bleating wethers group'd. 
 While, now and then, a thirsty creature stoop'd 
 And meekly snuff'd, but did hot taste the, puddle. 
 
 Fierce bark'd the dog, and many a blow was dealt, 
 That loin, and chump, and scrag and saddle felt. 
 Yet still, that fatal step they all decUu'd it, — 
 And shunn'd the tainted door as if they smelt 440 
 
 Oniofls, mint sauce, and lemon juice behind it. 
 At last there came a pause of brutal force, 
 The cur was silent, for his jaws were full 
 Of tangled locks of tarry wool, 
 The man had whoop'd and bellpw'd till dead hoarse. 
 The time was ripe for mild expostulation. 
 And thus it stammer'd from a stander-by — 
 ' Zounds ! — my good fellow, — it quite makes me — why, 
 It really — my dear fellow — do just try 
 
 Conciliation ! ' 45" 
 
 Stringing his nerves like flint, 
 The sturdy butcher seiz'd upon the hint,— 
 At least he seiz'd upon the foremost wether, — 
 And hugg'd and lugg'd and tugg'd him neck and crop 
 Just nolens volens thro' the open shop — 
 If tails come ofiE he didn't care a feather, — 
 Then walking to the door and smiling grim. 
 He rubb'd his forehead and his sleeve together — 
 ' There ! — I have conciliated him ! ' 
 
 Again — good-humouredly to end our, quarrel^ — 460 
 
 (Good humour should prevail !) 
 I'll fit you with a tale. 
 Whereto is tied a moral. 
 
 Once on a time a certain English lass 
 Was seiz'd with symptoms of such deep decline, 
 ■ Cough, hectic flushes, ev'ry evil sign, 
 That, as their wont is at such desperate pass, 
 The Doctors gave her over — to an ass. 
 
5i8 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ. 
 
 Accordingly, the grisly Shade to bilk, 
 
 Each morn the patient quafi'd a frothy bowl 
 
 Of asinine new milk. 
 Robbing a shaggy suckling of a foal 
 Which got proportionately spare and skinny — 
 Meanwhile the neighbours cried ' poor Mary Ann ! 
 She can't get over it ! she never can ! ' 
 When lo ! to prove each prophet was a ninny 
 The one that died was the poor wet-nurse Jenny. 
 
 To aggravate the case, 
 Thqre were but two grown donkeys in the place ; 
 And most unluckily for Eve's sick daughter, 
 The other long-ear'd creature was a male, 
 Who never in his life had given a pail 
 
 Of milk, or even chalk and water. 
 No matter : at the usual hour of eight 
 Down trots a donkey to the wicket-gate. 
 With Mister Simon Gubbins on its back, — 
 ' Your sarvant, Miss, — a werry spring-like day, — 
 Bad time for hasses tho' ! good lack ! good lack ! 
 Jenny be dead, Miss,^but I'ze brought ye Jack, 
 He doesn't give no milk — but he can bray.' 
 
 So runs the story, 
 
 And, in vain self-glory. 
 Some Saints would sneer at Gubbins for his blindness- 
 Bnt what the better are their pious saws 
 To ailing souls, than dry hee-haws, 
 
 Without the milk of human kindness ? 
 
 470 
 
 480 
 
 'NAPOLEON'S MIDNIGHT REVIEW 
 
 A NEW VERSION 
 
 In his bed, bolt upright. 
 In the dead of the night, 
 
 The French Emperor starts like a 
 ghost ! 
 By a dream held in charm, 
 He uplifts his right arm, 
 
 For he dreams of reviewing his host. 
 
 To the stable he glides. 
 For the charger he rides ; 
 
 And he mounts him, still under the 
 spell ; 
 Then, with echoing tramp, 10 
 They proceed through the camp, 
 
 All intent on a task he loves well. 
 
 Such a sight soon alarms. 
 And the guards present arms. 
 As he glides to the posts that they 
 keep ; 
 Then he gives the brief word. 
 And the bugle is heard. 
 Like a hound giving tongue in its 
 sleep. 
 
 Next the drums they arouse. 
 
 But with dull row-de-do ws, 20 
 And they give but a somnolent sound ; 
 
 Whilst the foot and horse, both, 
 
 Very slowly and loth, 
 Begin drowsily mustering round. 
 
'NAPOLEON'S MIDNIGHT REVIEW 
 
 519 
 
 To the right and left hand, 
 They fall in, by command, 
 
 In a line that might be better dress'd ; 
 Whilst the steeds blink and nod, 
 And the lancers think odd 
 
 To be rous'd like the spears from their 
 rest. 30 
 
 With their mouths of wide shape. 
 Mortars seem all agape, 
 
 Heavy guns look more heavy with 
 sleep ; 
 And, whatever their bore, 
 Seem to think it one more 
 
 In the night such a field day to keep. 
 
 Then the arms, christened small, 
 . Fire no volley at all. 
 But go off, like the rest, in a doze ; 
 
 And the eagles, poor things, 40 
 Tuck their heads 'neath their 
 wings. 
 And the band ends in tunes through 
 the nose. 
 
 Till each pupil of Mars 
 Takes a wink like the stars — 
 
 Open order no eye can obey : 
 If the plumes in their heads 
 Were the feathers of beds. 
 
 Never top could be sounder than they ! 
 
 So, just wishing good night. 
 
 Bows Napoleon, polite ; 50 
 
 But instead of a loyal endeavour 
 
 To reply with a cheer ; 
 
 Not a sound met his ear, 
 Though each face seem'd to say 'Nap 
 for ever I ' 
 
 HIT -OR MISS 
 
 Twa dogs, that were na thran^ at haine^ 
 Forgather'd ance upon a time.' — Burns. 
 
 One morn — it was the very morn 
 September's sportive month was 
 
 born — 
 The hour, about the sunrise, early ; 
 The gky grey, sober, still, and pearly, 
 With sundry orange streaks and tinges 
 Through daylight's door, at cracks 
 
 and hinges ; 
 The air, calm, bracing, freshly cool. 
 As if just skimm'd from off a pool ; . 
 The scene, red, russet, yellow, leaden, 
 From stubble, fern, and leaves that 
 
 deaden, lo 
 
 Save here and there a turnip patch. 
 Too verdant with the rest to match ; 
 And far a-field a hazy figure. 
 Some roaming lover of the trigger. 
 Meanwhile the level light perchance 
 Pick'd out his barrel with a glance ; 
 For all around a distant popping 
 Told birds were flying off or dropping. 
 Such was the morn — a morn right fair 
 To seek for covey or for hare — 20 
 
 When, lo ! too far from human 
 
 feet 
 For even Ranger's boldest beat, 
 A Dog, as in some doggish trouble, 
 Came cant'ring through the crispy 
 
 stubble. 
 With dappled head in lowly droop. 
 But not the scientific stoop ; 
 And flagging, dull, desponding ears, 
 As if they had. been soak'd in tears. 
 And not the beaded dew that hung 
 The filmy stalks and weeds among. 30 
 His pace, indeed, seem'd not to know 
 An errand, why, or where to go. 
 To trot, to walk, or scamper swift — 
 In short, he seem'd a dog adrift ; 
 His very tail, a listless thing. 
 With just an accidental swing. 
 Like rudder to the ripple veering. 
 When nobody on board is steering. 
 
 So, dull and moody, canter'd on 39 
 Our vagrant pointer, christen'd Don ; 
 
S20 
 
 HIT OR MISS 
 
 When, rising o'er a gentle slope, 
 That gave his view a better scope, 
 He spied, some dozen furrows distant. 
 But in a spot as inconsistent, 
 A second dog across his track. 
 Without a master to his back ; 
 As if for wages, workman-like. 
 The sporting breed had made a strike, 
 Resolv'd nor birds nor puss to seek. 
 Without another paunch a week ! s" 
 
 This other was a truant curly. 
 But, for a spaniel, wondrous surly ; 
 Instead of curvets gay and brisk. 
 He slouch'd along without a frisk. 
 With dogged air, as if he had 
 A good half mind to running mad ; 
 Mayhap the shaking at his ear 
 Had been a quaver too severe ; 
 Mayhap the whip's ' exclusive deal- 
 ing ' 
 Had too much hurt e'en spaniel feel- 
 - ing, «o 
 
 Nor if he had been cut, 'twas plain 
 He did not mean to come again. 
 
 Of course the pair soon spied each 
 
 other ; 
 But neither seem'd to own a brother ; 
 The course on both sides took a curve, 
 As dogs when shy are apt to swerve ; 
 But each o'er back and shoulder 
 
 throwing 
 A look to watch the other's going. 
 Till, having clear'd sufficient ground. 
 With one accord they turn'd them 
 
 round, 70 
 
 And squatting down, for forms not 
 
 caring. 
 At one another fell to staring ; 
 As if not proof against a touch 
 Of what plagues humankind so much, 
 A prying itch to get at notions 
 Of all their neighbour's looks and 
 
 motions. 
 Sir Don at length was first to rise — 
 The better dog in point of size, 
 And, snuffing all the ground between. 
 Set off, with easy jaunty mien ; 80 
 
 While Dash, the stranger, rose to greet 
 
 him. 
 And made a dozen steps to meet him— 
 Their noses touch'd, and rubb'd 
 
 awhile 
 (Some savage nations use the style)^ 
 And then their tails a wag began. 
 Though on a very cautious plan. 
 But in their signals quantum sufi. 
 To say, ' A civil dog enough.' 
 
 Thus having held out olive branches. 
 They sank again, though not on 
 
 haunches, 90 
 
 But couchant, with their under jaws 
 Resting between the two forepaws, ■ 
 The prelude, on a luckier day. 
 Or sequel, to a game of play : 
 But now they were in dumps, and thus 
 Began their worries to discuss, 
 The Pointer, coming to the point 
 The first, on times so out of joint. 
 ' Well, Friend, — so here 's a new 
 
 September, 
 As fine a first as I remember ; 100 
 And, thanks to such an early Spring, 
 Plenty of birds, and strong on wing.' 
 
 ' Birds 1 ' cried the little crusty chap; 
 As sharp and sudden as a snap, 
 ' A weasel suck them in the shell ! 
 What matter birds, or flying well. 
 Or fly at all, or sporting weather. 
 If fools with guns can't hit a feather ! ' 
 
 ' Ay, there 's the rub, indeed,' said 
 
 Don, 
 Putting his gravest visage on ; no 
 ' In vain we beat our beaten way. 
 And bring our organs into play. 
 Unless the proper killing kind 
 Of barrel tunes are play'd behind : 
 But when we shoot, — that 's me and 
 
 Squire — 
 We hit as often as we fire.' 
 
 ' More luck for you ! ' cried little 
 
 Woolly, 
 Who felt the cruel contrast fully ; 
 ' More luck for you, and Squire to 
 
 boot ! 
 We miss as often as we shoot ! ' iso 
 
HIT OR MISS 
 
 521 
 
 ' Indeed ! — No wonder you're un- 
 happy ! 
 I thought you looking rather snappy ; 
 But fancied, when I saw you jogging, 
 You'd had an overdose of flogging ; i 
 Or p'rhaps the gun its range had tried 
 While you were ranging rather wide.' 
 
 ' Me I running — running wide-^and 
 
 hit I 
 Me shot I what, pepper'd ? — Ceuce a 
 
 bit! 
 I almost wish I had I That Dunce, 
 My master, then would hit for once ! 
 Hit me ! Lord, how you talk I why, 
 
 zounds ! 131 
 
 He couldn't hit a pack of hounds I ' 
 
 ' Well, that must be a case provoking. 
 ^yhat, never — but, you dog, you're 
 
 joking I 
 I see a sort of wipked grin 
 About your jaw you're keeping in.' 
 
 ' A joke ! an old tin kettle's clatter 
 Would be as much a joking matter. 
 To tell the truth, that dog-disaster 
 Is just the type of me and master, 140 
 When fagging over hill and dale. 
 With his vain rattle at my tail. 
 Bang, bapg, and bang, the whole day's 
 
 run, 
 But leading nothing but his gun — 
 The very shot I fancy hisses, 
 It 's sent upon puch awful misses ! ' 
 
 ' Of course it does ! But p'rhaps the 
 
 fact is 
 Your master's hand is out of practice!' 
 
 ' Practice ?— No doctor, where you 
 
 will, 
 Has finer — but he cannot kill ! is» 
 These three years past, thro' furze 
 
 and furrow, 
 All covers I have hunted thorough ; 
 Flush'd cocks and snipes about the 
 
 moors ; 
 And put up hares by scores and 
 
 scores ; 
 
 Coveys of birds, and lots of phea- 
 sants ; — 
 Yes, game enough to send in presents 
 To ev'ry friend he has in town. 
 Provided he had knock'd it down : 
 But no — the whole three years 
 together, 159 
 
 He has not giv'n me flick or feather— 7 
 For all that I have had to do 
 I wish I had been missing too I ' 
 
 ' Well, — such a hand would drive me 
 
 mad ; 
 But is he truly quite so bad ? ' 
 
 ' Bad ! — worse I — you cannot under- 
 score him ; 
 If I could put up, just before him, 
 The great Balloon that paid the visit 
 Across the water, he would miss it ! 
 Bite him ! I do believe, indeed. 
 It 's in his very blood and breed ! 170 
 It marks his Ufe, and runs all through 
 
 it; 
 
 What can be miss'd, he 's sure to do it. 
 
 Last Monday he came home to Toot- 
 ing, 
 
 Dog-tir'd, as if he'd been a-shootipg, 
 
 And kicks at me to vent his rage — 
 
 " Get out ! " says he — " I've miss'd 
 the stage ! " 
 
 Of course, thought I — what chance of 
 hitting ? 
 
 You'd miss the Norwich waggon, 
 sitting ! ' 
 
 ' Why, he must be the county's scoff ! 
 He ought to leave, and not let, off ! 180 
 As fate denies his shooting wishes, 
 Why don't he take to catching fishes ? 
 Or any other sporting game. 
 That don't require a bit of aim ? ' 
 
 ' Not he !— Some dogs of human kind 
 Will hunt by sight, because they're 
 
 blind. 
 My master angle ! — no such luckj 
 There he might strike, who never 
 
 struck ! 
 My master shoots because he can't, 
 And has an eye that aims aslant ; iio 
 
 s i 
 
522 
 
 HIT OR MISS 
 
 Nay, just by way of making trouble, 
 He 's changed his single gun for 
 
 double ; 
 And now, as girls a-walking do, 
 His misses go by two and two ! 
 I wish he had the mange, or reason 
 As good, to miss the shooting season !' 
 
 ' Why yes, it must be main unpleasant 
 To point to covey, or to, pheasant, ; 
 For snobs, who, when the point is 
 mooting, 199 
 
 Think letting fly as good as shooting I ' 
 
 ' Snobs !— if he'd wear his ruffled 
 
 shirts, 
 Or coats with water-wagtail skirts. 
 Or tro^ysers in the place of smalls. 
 Or those tight fits he wears at balls. 
 Or pumps, and boots with tops, may- 
 hap, 
 Why we might pass for Snip and Snap, 
 And shoot like blazes ! fly or sit, 
 And none would stare, unless we hit. 
 But no^j-to make the more combus- 
 tion. 
 He goes in gaiters and in fustian, 210 
 Like Captain Ross, or Topping Sparks, 
 And deuce a miss but some one marks! 
 For Keepers, shy of such encroachers, 
 Dog ns' about like common poachers ! 
 Many 's the covey I've gone by. 
 When underneath a sporting eye ; 
 Many a puss I've twigg'd, and pass'd 
 
 her — 
 I miss 'em to prevent my master ! ' 
 
 ' And so should I, in such a case ! 219 
 There 's nothing feels so like disgrace. 
 Or gives you such a scurvy look — 
 A kick and pail of slush from Cook, 
 Cleftsticks, or Kettle, all in one. 
 As standing to a missing gun ! 
 It 's whirr ! and bang ! and off you 
 
 bound. 
 To catch your bird before the ground : 
 But no — a pump and ginger pop 
 As soon would get a bird to drop ! 
 So there you stand, quite struck a- 
 
 heap. 
 Till all your tail is gone to sleep ; 230 
 
 A sort of stiffness in your nape. 
 Holding your head well up to gape ; 
 While off go birds across the ridges. 
 First small as flies, and then as midges. 
 Cocksure, as they are living chicks. 
 Death's Door is not at Number Six ! ' 
 
 ' Yes ! yes ! and then you look at 
 
 master. 
 The cause of all the late disaster, 
 Who gives a stamp, and raps an oath 
 At gun, or birds, or maybe both ; 240 
 P'rhaps curses you, and all your kin. 
 To raise the hair upon your skin ! 
 Then loads, rams down, and fits new 
 
 caps. 
 To go and hunt for more miss-haps ! ' 
 
 ' Yes I yes ! but, sick and sad, you 
 
 feel 
 But one long wish to go to heel ; 
 You cannot scent for cutting mugs — 
 Your nose is turning up, like Pug's ; 
 You can't hold up, but plod and mope ; 
 Your tail like sodden end of rope, 230 
 That o'er a wind-bound vessel's side 
 Has soak'd in harbour, tide and tide. 
 On thorns and scratches, till that 
 
 moment 
 Unnoticed, you begin to comment ; 
 You never felt such bitter brambles. 
 Such heavy soil, in all your rambles ! 
 You never felt your fleas so vicious !, 
 Till, sick of life so unpropitious, 
 You wish at last, to end the pa.ssage. 
 That you were dead, and in your 
 
 sassage ! ' 260 
 
 ' Yes I that 's a miss from end to end ! 
 But, zounds ! you draw so well; my 
 
 friend, 
 You've made me shiver, skin and 
 
 gristle. 
 As if I heard my master's whistle ! 
 Though how you came to learn the 
 
 knack — 
 I thought your Squire was quite a 
 
 crack ! ' 
 
 ' And so he is ! — He always hits — 
 And sometimes hard, and all to bits. 
 
HIT OK MISS 
 
 523 
 
 But ere with him our tongues we task, 
 I've still one little thing to ask ; 270 
 Namely, with such a random master, 
 Of course you sometimes want a 
 
 plaster ? 
 Such missing hands, make game of 
 
 more 
 Than ever pass'd for game before — 
 A pounded pig — a widow's cat — 
 A patent ventilating hat-^ 
 For shot, like mud, when throwo so 
 
 thick, 
 Will find a coat whereon to stick ! ' 
 
 'What! accidentals, asthey 're terin'd? 
 No never — none — since I was 
 
 worm'd — 2S0 
 
 Not e'en the Keeper's fatted calves,— 
 My master does not miss by halves ! 
 His shot are like poor orphans, hurl'd 
 Abroad upon the whole wide world, — 
 But whether they be blown to dust, 
 As often-times I think they must. 
 Or melted down too near the sun, 
 What comes of them is known to 
 
 none — 
 I never found, since I could bark, 289 
 A Barn that bore my master's mark !' 
 
 Is that the case ? — Why then, my 
 brother. 
 
 Would we could swap with one 
 another ! 
 
 Or take the Squire, with all my heart, 
 
 Nay, all my liver, so we part ! 
 
 He'll hit you hares — (he uses cart- 
 ridge) 
 
 He'll hit you cocks — he'll hit a part- 
 ridge ; 
 
 He'll hit a snipe ; he'll hit a phea- 
 sant ; 
 
 He'll hit — he'll hit whatever 's pre- 
 sent ; 
 
 He'll always hit, — as that 's your 
 wish — 
 
 His pepper never lacks a dish ! ' 300 
 
 ' Come, come, you banter^ — let 's be 
 
 serious ; 
 I'm sure that I am half delirious. 
 
 Your picture set me so a-sighing — 
 But does he shoot so well — shoot 
 flying ? ' 
 
 ' Shoot flying ? Yes — and running, 
 
 walking — , 
 I've seen him shoot two farmers talk- 
 ing— 
 He'U hit the game, whene'er he can. 
 But failing that he'll hit a man, — • 
 ,A boy — a horse's tail or head — ■ 
 Or make a pig a pig of lead, — 310 
 Oh, friend ! they say no dog as yet. 
 However hot. Was known to sweat. 
 But sure I am that I plerspire 
 Sometimes before my master's fire I 
 Misses ! no, no, he always hits, 
 But so as puts me into fits ! 
 He shot my fellow dbg this morn- 
 ing, 
 Which seemed to me sufficient warn- 
 ing ! ' 
 
 ' Quite, quite, enough ! — So that 's a 
 
 hitter ! 
 Why, my own fate I thought was 
 
 bitter, , 320 
 
 And full excuse for cut and run ; 
 But give me still the missing gun ! 
 Or rather, Sirius ! send me this. 
 No gun at all, to hit or miss, 
 Since sporting seems to shoot thus 
 
 double, 
 That right or left it brings us trouble!' 
 
 So ended Dash ; — and Pointer Don 
 Prepared to urge the moral on ; 
 But here a whistle long and shrill 329 
 Came sounding o'er the council hill. 
 And starting up, as if their tails 
 Had felt, the touch of shoes and nails. 
 Away they scamper'd down the slope, 
 As fast, as other, pairs elope, — 
 Resolv'd, instead "of sporting rackets, 
 To beg, or dance in fancy jackets ; 
 At butchers' shops to try their luck ; 
 To help to draw a cart or truck ; 
 Or lead Stone Blind poor men, at 
 
 most 
 Who would but hit or miss a post. 340 
 
524 
 
 THE OLD POLER'S WARNING 
 
 Come, messmates, attend to a warning. 
 
 From one who has gone through the whole ; 
 
 And you'll never set sail, some fine morning, 
 
 To seek any sort of a Pole. 
 
 It 's not for the icebergs and freezing. 
 
 Or dangers you'll have for to court. 
 
 It 's the shocks very hard and unpleasing 
 
 You'll meet on returning to Port. 
 
 It 's joyful to ; sail , up the Channel, 
 
 And think of your girls and your wives, lo 
 
 Of the warming-pans, Wallsend and flannel, 
 
 To comfort the rest of your, lives, ! 
 
 But Lord ! you will look like a ninny 
 
 To find, when to shore you have got. 
 
 That Old England is turned into Guinea, 
 
 It feels so confoundedly hot ! 
 
 The next thing is coming, in Wapping, 
 
 To houses you lived at before, 
 
 And you find there is no kind of stopping 
 
 Without open windows and door ! zo 
 
 Then Poll, if dispos'd to be cruel. 
 
 Or got someone else in her grace, 
 
 She just chucks on a shovel of fuel, 
 
 And drives you spack out of the place 1 
 
 There 's Tomkins, that took for to grapple 
 
 With Methody Tracks at the Pole, 
 
 Is h^lf crazy he can't go to chapel. 
 
 It 's so like Calcutta's Black Hole ! 
 
 And Block, tho' he 's, not a deceiver. 
 
 But know? what to marriage belongs, 30 
 
 His own wife he 's oblig'd for to leave her. 
 
 Because of her pokers and tongs. 
 
 Myself, tho' I'm able at present 
 
 To bear with one friend at a time, 
 
 And my wife, if she makes herself pleasant, 
 
 'At first I was plagued with the cUme. 
 
 Like powder I flew from hot cinders, 
 
 And whistled for winds fore and aft. 
 
 While I set between two open winders 
 
 A-courting a cold thorough-draught ! 40 
 
 The first time in bed I was shoveh, 
 The moment 1 pillow'd my head, 
 O ! I thought 1 had crept in an oven, 
 A-baking with all of the bread ! 
 
THE OLD POLER'S WARNING 
 
 I soon left tlie blankets behind me, 
 And ran for a cooler retreat ; — 
 But next morning the Justices fin'd me 
 For taking a snooze in the street I 
 
 Now, there was a chance for a feller ! 
 
 No roof I could sleep under twice ; 
 
 Till a Fishmonger let me his cellar, 
 
 Of course with the use of the ice. 
 
 But still, like old hermits in stories, 
 
 I found it a dullish concarn ; 
 
 With no creature but maids and John Dories, 
 
 To listen to spinning a yarn ! 
 
 Then wanting to see Black-Ey'd Susan, , 
 
 I went to the Surrey with Sal ; . 
 
 And what next ? — in the part most amusin', 
 
 I fainted away like a gal ! 
 
 Well, there I was, stretch'd without motion. 
 
 No smells and no fans would suffice, 
 
 Till my natur at last gave a notion 
 
 To grab at a gentleman's ice ! 
 
 Then, Messmates, attend to a warning 
 
 From one who has gone through the whole, 
 
 And you'll never set sail, some fine morning. 
 
 To seek any sort of a Pole. 
 
 It 's not for the ice-bergs and freezing, 
 
 Or dangers you'll have for to court. 
 
 It 's the shocks, very hard and uupleasing, 
 
 You'll meet on returning to port ! 
 
 52s 
 
 50 
 
 «a 
 
 70 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 COMPOSED IN A SHOWER-BATH 
 
 * Drip^ drip^ drip — there 'snothtifg here but dripping.' — Remorse^ by Cohridge. 
 
 Trembling, as Father Adam stood 
 To pull the stalk, before the Fall, 
 So I stand here, before the Flood, 
 On my own head the shock to 
 
 call : 
 How like our predecessoir's luck ! 
 'Tis but to pluck — but needs some 
 
 pluck ! 
 
 Still thoughts of gasping like a pup 
 Will paralyse the nervous pow'r ; 
 
 Now hoping it will yet hold up, 9 
 Invoking now the tumbling show'r ; — 
 But, ah ! the shrinking body loathes, 
 Without a parapluie or clothes ! 
 
 ' Expect some rain about this time ! ' 
 My eyes are seal'd, my teeth are set — 
 But where 's the Stoic so sublime 
 Can ring unmov'd, for wringing wet ? 
 Of going hogs some folks talk big — 
 Just let them try the whale cold pig I 
 
526 
 
 CLUBS 
 
 TURNED UP BY A FEMALE HAND 
 
 'Clubs! Clubs! part 'em! parti'era! Clubs! Q.\\i\i%\'-^AncieniCrien>f London. 
 
 Of all the modern schemes of Man, 
 
 That time has brought to bear, 
 A plague upon the wicked plan 
 
 That parts the wedded pair ! 
 My female friends they all agree 
 
 They hardly know their hubs ; 
 And heart and voice unite with me, 
 
 ' We hate the name of Clubs ! ' 
 
 One selfish course the Wretches keep ; 
 They come at morning chimes, lo 
 
 To snatch a few short hours of sleep- 
 Rise — breakfast — read the Times — 
 
 Then take their hats, and post away. 
 Like Clerks or City scrubs. 
 
 And no one sees them all the day, — 
 They live, eat, drink, at Clubs ! 
 
 On what they say, and what they do, 
 
 They close the Club-House gates ; 
 But one may guess a speech or two. 
 
 Though shut from their debates : 20 
 ' The Cook 's a hasher — nothing more 
 
 The Children noisy grubs — 
 A Wife 's a quiz, and home 's a bore ' — 
 
 Yes, — that 's the style at Clubs ! 
 
 With Rundle, Dr. K., or Glasse, 
 
 And such Domestic Books, 
 They once put up — but now, alis I 
 
 It 's hey ! for foreign cooks ! 
 ' When will you dine at home, my 
 Dove ? ' , . , 
 
 I say to Mister Stubbs,— 30 
 
 ' When Cook can make ah omelette, 
 love, — 
 
 An omelette like the Club's ! ' 
 
 Titjie was, their hearts were only 
 placed I . 
 
 On snug domestic schemes. 
 The book for two— runited taste, — 
 
 And such connubial dreams, — 
 
 Friends dropping in at close of day 
 To singles> doubles, rubs, — 
 
 A little music — then the tray — 
 And not a word of Clubs ! 40 
 
 But former comforts they condemn ; 
 
 French kickshaws they discuss, 
 Tliey take their wine, the wine takes 
 them, 
 
 AiiH then they favour us : — 
 From some offence they can't digest. 
 
 As cross as bears with cubs, 
 Or sleepy, dull, and queer, at best — 
 
 That 's how they come from Clubs I 
 
 It 's very fine to say ' Subscribe 
 
 To Andrews'^can't you read ? ' 50 
 When Wives,! the poor neglected tribe. 
 
 Complain how they proceed I 
 They'd better recommend at once 
 
 Philosophy and tubs^ — 
 A Woman need not be, a dunce 
 
 To feel the wrong of Clubs. 
 
 A set of savage Goths and Picts, 
 
 Would seek us now and then — 
 They're pretty pattern-Benedicts 
 
 To giiide lour single men ! 60 
 
 Indeed my daughters both declare 
 
 ' Their Beaux shall not be subs. 
 To White's, or Black's, or anywhere, — 
 
 They've seen enough of Clubs! ' 
 
 They say, ' without the marriage ties, 
 
 They can devote their hours 
 To catechize, or botanize — 
 
 Shells, S.unday Schools, and flow'rs— 
 Or teach a' Pretty Poll new Words, 
 
 Tend Covent-Garden shrubs, 70 
 Nurse dogs and chirp to little birds — 
 
 As Wives do since the Clubs," 
 
CLUBS 527 
 
 Alas I for those departed days 
 
 Of social wedded life, 
 When married folks had married ways, 
 
 And lived like Man and Wife ! 
 Oh I Wedlock then was picked by 
 none — 
 
 As safe a lock as Chubb's ! 
 But couples, that should be as one, 
 
 Are now the Two of Clubs ! 8a 
 
 Of all themodern schemes of man 
 
 That time has brought to bear, 
 A plague upon the wicked plan 
 
 That parts the wedded pair ! 
 My female friends they all a,llow 
 
 They meet with slights, and snubs. 
 And say, ' They have no husbands 
 now, — 
 
 They're married to their .Clubs ! ' 
 
 A RISE AT THE FATHER OF ANGLING 
 
 TO MR. IZAAC WALTON, AT MR. MAJOR'S THE BOOKSELLER'S 
 IN FLEET STREET 
 
 Mr. Walton, it 's harsh to say it, but as a Parent I can't help wishing 
 You'd been hung before you publish'd your book, to set all the young people 
 
 a fishing ! 
 There 's my Robert, the trouble I've had with him it surpasses a mortal's 
 
 bearing. 
 And all thro' those devilish aQgling works — the Lord forgive me for swearing ! 
 I thought he were took with the Morbus one day, I did with his nasty angle ! 
 For \ oh dear,' says he, and burst out in a cry, ' oh my gut is all got. of a 
 
 tangle ! ' 
 It 's a shame to teach a young boy such words — whose, blood wouldn't chill 
 
 in their veins 
 To hear him, as I overheard him one day, a-talking of blowing out brains ? ' 
 And didn't I quarrel with Sally the cook, and a precious scoldj.ng I, give her, 
 'How dare you,' says I, 'for to stench the whole house by keeping that 
 
 stinking liver ? ' .10 
 
 Twas enough to breed a fever, it was ! they smelt it next door at the Bagots',^- 
 But it wasn't breeding no fever — not it ! 'twas my son a-breeding of maggots ! 
 I declare that I couldn't. touch meat for a week, for it all seemed tainting 
 
 and going. 
 And after turning my stomach so, they turned to blueflies, all buzzing and 
 
 blowing ; - . ' , 
 
 Boys are nasty enough, goodness knows, of themselves, without putting live 
 
 things in their craniums ; 
 Well, what next ? but he pots a whole cargo of worms along with my choice 
 
 geraniums. 
 And anpther fine trick, tho' it wasn't found out, till the housemaid had given 
 
 us warning. 
 He fished at the golden fish in the bowl, before we were up and down in the 
 
 morning. 
 I'm sure it was lucky for Ellen, poor thing, that she'd got so attentive a lover, 
 As brings her fresh fish when the others deceas'd, which they did a dozen 
 
 times over ! 20 
 
 * Chewing and spitting out(bullocks') brains into the water for ground bait is called blffwingof 
 iraitis.— Sailer' s Angler's Giiiile. 
 
528 A RISE AT THE FATHER OF ANGLING 
 
 Then a whole new loai was short ! for I know, of course, when our bread 
 
 goes faster, — 
 And I made a stir with the bill in my hand, and the man was sent off by his 
 
 master ; 
 But,' oh dear, I thought I should sink thro' the earth, with the weight of my 
 
 own reproaches, 
 For my own pretty son had made away with the loaf, to make pastry to feed 
 
 the roaches ! 
 I vow I've suffered a martyrdom — with all sorts of frights and terrors sur- 
 rounded ! 
 For I never saw him go out of the doors but I thought he'd come home to 
 
 me drownded. 
 And, sure enough, I set out one fine Monday to visit my married daughter, 
 And there he was standing at Sadler's Wells, a-performing with real water. 
 It 's well he was off on the further side, for I'd have brain'd him else with 
 
 my patten. 
 For I thought he. was safe at school, the young wretch ! a studying Greek 
 
 and Latin. 30 
 
 And my ridicule basket he'd got on his' back, to carry his fishes and gentles ; 
 ■With a belt I knew he'd made from the belt of his father's regimentals — 
 Well, I poked his rods and lines in the fire, and his father gave him a birching. 
 But he'd gone too far to be easy cured of his love for chubbing and perching. 
 One night he never came home to tea, and altho' it was dark and dripping. 
 His father set off to Wapping, poor man ! for the boy had a turn for shipping'; 
 As for me I set up, and I sobbed and I cried for all the world like a babby, 
 Till at twelve o'clock he rewards my fears with two gudging from Waltham 
 
 Abbey ! 
 And a pretty sore throat and fever he caught, that brought me a fortnight's 
 
 hard nussing. 
 Till I thought I should go to my grey-hair'd grave, worn out with the fretting 
 
 and fussing ; 40 
 
 But at last he was cur'd, and we did have hopes that the fishing was cured 
 
 as well. 
 But no such luck ! not a week went by before we'd another such spell. 
 Tho' he never had got a penny to spend, for such was our strict intentions, 
 ■yet he was soon set up in tackle again, for aU boys have such quick inventions : 
 And I lost my Lady's Own Pocket Book, in spite of all my hunting and 
 
 poking, 
 Till I found, it chuck-full of tackles and hooks, and besides it had had a good 
 
 soaking. 
 Then one Friday morning, I gets a summoning note from a sort of a law 
 
 attorney. 
 For the boy had been trespassing people's grounds while his father was gone 
 
 a journey, 
 And I had to go and hush it all up by myself, in an ofiace at Hatton Garden ; 
 And to pay for the damage he'd done, to boot, and to beg some strange gentle- 
 man's pardon. 50 
 And wasn't he once iish'd out himself, and a man had to dive to find him. 
 And I saw him brought home with my motherly eyes and a mob of people 
 
 behind him ? 
 
A RISE AT THE FATHER OF ANGLING 529 
 
 Yes, it took a full hour to rub him to life — whilst I was a-screaming and 
 
 raving, 
 And a couple of guineas it cost us besides, to reward the humane man for 
 
 his saving. 
 And didn't Miss Crump leave us out of her will, all along of her taking dud- 
 geon 
 At her favourite cat being chok'd, poor Puss, with a hook seow'd up in a 
 
 gudgeon ? 
 And old Brown complain'd that he pluck'd his live fowls, avid not without 
 
 show of reason, 
 For the cocks looked naked about necks and tails, and it wasn't their moult- 
 ing season ; 
 And sure and surely, when we came to enquire, there was cause for their 
 
 screeching and cackles, 
 For the mischief confess'd he had picked them a bit, for I think he call'd 
 
 them the hackles. 60 
 
 A pretty tussle we had about that ! but as if it warn't picking enough. 
 When the winter comes on, to the muff-box I goes, just to shake out my 
 
 sable muff — 
 ' O mercy ! ' thinks I, ' there 's the moth in the house ! ' for the fur was all 
 
 gone in patches ; 
 And then at Ellen's chinchilly I look, and its state of destruction just matches — 
 But it wasn't no moth, Mr. Walton, but flies — sham flies to go trolling and 
 
 trouting. 
 For his father's great coat was all safe and sound, and that first set me a- 
 
 doubting. 
 A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old watery danglers ! 
 And after all that you'll talk of such stuff as no harm in the world about 
 
 anglers ! 
 And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we've never had nothing 
 
 worth dishing ; 
 So you see, Mister Walton, no good comes at last of your famous book about 
 
 fishing. 70 
 
 As for Robert's, I burnt it a twelvemonth ago ; but it turned up too late to 
 
 be lucky. 
 For he'd got it by heart, as I found to the cost of 
 
 Your servant, 
 
 Jane Elizabeth Stuckey. 
 
 THE FORLORN SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT 
 
 AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, FROM SYDNEY 
 
 ' Vell ! Here I am — no Matter how it suits 
 A-keeping Company with them dumb Brutes, 
 Old Park vos no bad Judge — confound his vig ! 
 Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig ! 
 
530 THE FORLORN SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT 
 
 ' The like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales 
 To go a-tagging arter Vethers' Tails 
 And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock, 
 But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock ! 
 
 ' To go to set this solitary Job 
 
 To Von whose Vork,vos alvay in a Mob ! lo 
 
 It 's out of all our Lines, for sure I am 
 
 Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb 1 
 
 ' I arn't ashamed to say I sit and veep 
 To think of Seven Year of keepin Sheep, 
 The spooniest Beasts in Nater, all to Sticks, 
 And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks ! 
 
 ' If I'd fore-seed how Transports vood turn out 
 
 To only Baa ! and Botanize about, 
 
 I'd quite as leaf have had the t'other Pull, 
 
 And come to Cotton as to all this Vool ! ao 
 
 ' Von only happy moment I have had 
 Since here I come to be a Farmer's Cad, 
 And then I cotch'd a vild Beast in a Snooze, 
 And pick'd her Pouch of three young Kangaroos ! 
 
 ' Vot chance have I to go to Race or Mill ? 
 Or show a sneaking Kindness for a Till ; 
 And as for Vashings, on a hedge to dry, 
 I'd put the Natives' Linen in my Eye ! 
 
 ' If this whole Lot of Mutton I could scrag. 
 
 And find a fence to turn it into Swag, 30 
 
 I'd give it all in Lonnon Streets to stand. 
 
 And if I had my pick, I'd say the Strand ! 
 
 ' But ven I goes, as maybe vonce I shall, 
 To my old Crib to meet with Jack, and Sal, 
 I've been so gallows honest in this Place, 
 I shan't not like to show my sheepish Face. 
 
 ' It 's wery hard for nothing but a Box 
 
 Of Irish Blackguard to be keepin' Flocks, 
 
 'Mong naked Blacks, sich Savages to hus. 
 
 They've nayther got a Pocket nor a Pus. 40 
 
 ' But Folks may tell their Troubles till they're sick 
 To dumb brute Beasts, — and so I'll cut my Stick ! 
 And vot 's the Use a Feller's Eyes to pipe 
 Vere von can't borrow any Gemman's Vipe ? ' 
 
531 
 
 MORNING MEDITATIONS 
 
 Let Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy, 
 How well to rise while night and larks are flying — 
 For my part, getting up seems not so easy 
 By half as lying. 
 
 What i£ the lark does carol in the sky, 
 Soaring beyond the sight to find him out — 
 Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly ? 
 I'm not a, trout ! 
 
 Talk not to me of bees and such like hums. 
 The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime — lo 
 
 Only lie long enough, and bed becomes 
 A bed of time. 
 
 To me Dan Phoebus and his care are nought. 
 His steeds that paw impatiently about, — 
 Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought, 
 The first turn-out ! 
 
 Right beautiful the dewy meads appear, 
 Besprinkled by the rosy-fingered girl ; 
 What then, — if I prefer niy pillow beer 
 
 To early pearl? ' 20 
 
 My stomach is not ruled by other men's. 
 And, grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs 
 Wherefore should master rise before the hens 
 .Have laid the eggs ? 
 
 Why from a comfortable pillow start. 
 To see faint flushes in the east awaken, 
 A fig, say I, for any streaky part, 
 Excepting bacon ! 
 
 An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn. 
 
 Who used to haste, the dewy grass among, 30 
 
 To meet the sun upon the upland lawn — 
 Well — he died young ! 
 
 With charwomen such early hours agree. 
 And sweeps that earn betimes their bite and sup, 
 But I'm no, climbing boy, and need not be 
 All up — all up ! 
 
 So here I'll lie, my morning calls deferring. 
 Till something nearer to the stroke of noon ; — 
 \ man that 's fond precociously of stirring, 
 
 Must be a spoon ! 40 
 
532 
 
 THE BEADLE'S ANNUAL ADDRESS 
 
 The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
 The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, 
 
 The ploughman homeward plods his weary way — 
 And this is Christmas Eve, and here I be ! 
 
 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
 And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
 
 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
 Save Queen Vidtoria, who the sceptre holds ! 
 
 Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower 
 
 The moping owl does to the moon complain — 
 
 Save all the ministers that be in power, 
 Save all the Royal Sovereigns that reign ! 
 
 Let not ambition mock their useful toil. 
 Their homely joys and destiny obscure ; 
 
 Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile. 
 The Parish Beadle calling at the door ! 
 
 Far from the mSidding crowd's ignoble strife. 
 Their sober wishes never learn'ii to stray ; 
 
 Along the cool sequester'd vale of life. 
 They kept the apple-woman's stalls away t 
 
 Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect. 
 Some frail memorial still erected nigh ; 
 
 With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd 
 He never lets the children play thereby. 
 
 Haply some hoary-headed swain may say. 
 
 Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn^ 
 Brushing with hasty steps the dews away. 
 
 To meet the Reverend Vicar all in lawn I 
 
 One morn I miss'd him on the 'custom'd hill, 
 
 Along the heath, and near his favourite tree ; 30 
 
 Another came, nor yet beside the rill. 
 
 Nor at the Magpie and the Stump was he ! 
 
 The next with hat and staff, and new array, 
 
 Along all sorts of streets we saw him borne ; 
 Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 
 
 He always brings upon a Christmas morn- ! 
 
THE BEADLE'S ANNUAL ADDRESS 
 
 Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, 
 Heaven did a recompense as largely send ; 
 
 He gave to misery (all he had) a tear. 
 And never failed on Sundays to attend ! 
 
 No further seek his merits to disclose, 
 
 Or draw his frailties from their dread abode ; 
 
 Where they alike in trembling hope repose, 
 John Bugsby, Number Thirteen, Tibbald's Road. 
 
 S33 
 
 40 
 
 A tABLE OF ERRATA 
 
 {Hostess loquitur) 
 
 Well ! thanks be to Heaven, 
 The summons is given ; 
 It 's only gone seven 
 
 And should have been six ; 
 There 's fine overdoing 
 In roasting and stewing 
 And victuals past chewing 
 
 To rags and to sticks ! 
 
 How dreadfully chilly ! 
 I shake, willy-nilly 
 That John is so silly 
 
 And never will learn ! 
 This plate is a cold one, 
 That cloth is an old one, 
 I wish they had told one 
 
 The lamp wouldn't burn. 
 
 Now- then for some blunder. 
 For nerves to sink under ; 
 I never shall wonder 
 
 Whatever goes ill, 
 That fish is a riddle ! 
 It 's broke in the middle. 
 A Turbot ! a fiddle ! 
 
 It 's only a Brill ! 
 
 It 's quite over-boil'd too. 
 The butter is oil'd too, 
 The soup is all spoil'd too. 
 
 It 's nothing but slop. 
 The smelts looking flabby, 
 The soles are as dabby. 
 It all is so shabby 
 
 That Cook shall not stop ! 
 
 As sure as the morning. 
 She gets a month's warning, 
 My orders for scorning — 
 
 There 's nothing to eat ! 
 I hear such a rushing, 
 I feel such a flushing, 
 I know I am blushing 
 
 As red as a beet ! 
 
 Friends flatter and flatter, 
 I wish they would chatter ; 
 What can be the matter 
 
 That nothing comes next ? 
 How very unpleasant ! 
 Lord ! there is the pheasant ! 
 Not wanted at present, 
 
 I'm born to be vext ! 
 
 The pudding brought on too ! 
 And aiming at ton too ! 
 And where is that John too. 
 
 The plague that he is ? 
 He 's ofi on some ramble : 
 And there is Miss Campbell, 
 Enjoying the scramble 
 
 Detestable Quiz ! 
 
 The veal they all eye it. 
 But no one will try it. 
 An Ogre would shy it 
 
 So ruddy as that. 
 And as for the mutton, 
 The cold dish it 's put on, 
 Converts to a button, 
 
 Each drop of the fat. 
 
 so 
 
 «a 
 
534 
 
 A TABLE OF ERRATA 
 
 The beef, without mustard ! 
 My fate 's to be fluster'd 
 And there comes the custard 
 
 To eat with the hare ! 
 Such flesh, fowl, and fishing, 
 Such waiting and dishing, 70 
 
 I cannot help wishing 
 
 A woman might swear ! 
 
 Oh dear ! did I ever — 
 But no, I did never — 
 Well, come, that is clever, 
 
 To send up the brawn. 
 That cook, I could scold her, 
 Gets worse as she 's older ; 
 I wonder who told her 
 
 That woodcocks are drawn ! 80 
 
 It 's really audacious ! 
 I cannot look gracious. 
 Lord help the voracious 
 
 That came for a cram ! 
 There 's Alderman Fuller 
 Gets duller and duller. 
 Those fowls, by the colour, 
 
 Were boil'd with the ham ! 
 
 Well where is the curry ? 
 I'm all in a flurry. 90 
 
 No, cook 's in no hurry — 
 A stoppage again ! 
 
 And John makes it wider, 
 A pretty provider ! ' 
 By bringing up cider 
 
 Instead of champagne ! 
 
 My troubles come faster ! 
 There 's my lord and master 
 Detects each disaster, 
 
 And hardly can sit : 
 He cannot help seeing, 
 All things disagreeing ; 
 If fie_ begins d — ^ing 
 
 I'm off in a fit ! 
 
 This cooking ? — ^it 's messing, 
 The spinach wants pressing, 
 And salads in dressing 
 
 Are best with good eggs. 
 And John — yes, already-^ 
 Has had something heady^' 
 That makes him unsteady 
 
 In keeping his legs. 
 
 How shall I get. through it ! 
 
 I never can do it, 
 
 I'm quite looking to it, 
 
 To sink by and by. 
 Oh ! would I were dead now, 
 Or up in my bed now. 
 To cover my head now 
 
 And have a good cry ! 
 
 ALL ROUND MY HAT 
 
 A NEW VERSION 
 
 ' Meditate — meditate, I beseech you, upon Trim's liat.' — Tristram Shandy. 
 
 Come, my old hat, my steps attend ! 
 However wags may sneer and scoff. 
 My castor still shall be my friend, 
 For I'll not be a caster off. 
 So take again your olden place. 
 That always found you fit and pat. 
 Whatever mode might please the race. 
 All round my hat, all round my hat ! 
 
 All round the world while I've a head, 
 However I may chance to be 10 
 
 Without a home — ^without a shed. 
 My tile shall be a roof for me. 
 Black, rusty grey, devoid of pelt, ' 
 A shocking shape or beaten flat, 
 Still there are joys that may be' felt 
 All round my hat, all round my hat. 
 
ALL ROUND MY HAT 
 
 535 
 
 The Quaker loves an ample brim, 
 A hat that bows to no salam — 
 And dear the beaver is to him 
 As if it never made a dam. 20 
 
 All men in drab he calleth friends. 
 But there 's a broader brim than 
 
 that— 
 Give me the love that comprehends 
 All round my hat, all round my hat ! 
 
 The Monarch binds his brows in gold, 
 With gems and pearls to sparkle tl^ere; : 
 But still a hat, a hat that 's old. 
 They say is much more easy wear. 
 At regal state I'll not repine 
 For Kaiser, King, or Autocrat, 30 
 Whilst there 's a golden sun to shine 
 All round my hat, all round my hat ! 
 
 The Soldier seeks the field of death. 
 He fights, he fires, he faints, he falls, — 
 To gain an airy laurel wreath. 
 With berries made of musket balls. 
 No love have I for shot or shell. 
 With hissings sharp that end in flat — 
 Chafers and gnats sing just as well 39 
 All round my hat, all round my hat ! 
 
 As yet, my hat, you've got a crown ; 
 A little nap the brush can find ; 
 You are not very, very brown, 
 Nor very much scrubb'd up behind. 
 
 As yet your rim is broad and brave, 
 I took some little care of that, 
 By not saluting ev'ry knave 
 All round my hat, all round my hat ! 
 
 As yet, my hat, I've got a house. 
 And dine as other people do, 50 
 
 And fate propitious still allows 
 A home for me — a peg for you. 
 But say my bread were but a crumb. 
 Myself as poor as any rat — 
 Why, I could cry, ' Good people, come 
 All round my hat, all round my hat ! ' 
 
 As yet the best of womankind 
 Continues all that wife should be. 
 And in the selfsame room I find. 
 Her bonnet and my hat agree. 60 
 But say the bliss should not endure, 
 That she should turn a perfect cat, 
 I'd trust to time to bring a cure, 
 All round_^my hat, all round my hat I 
 
 No acres broad pertain to me 
 To furnish cattle. Coal, or corn ; 
 Like people that are born at sea. 
 There was no land where I was born : — 
 Yet when my flag of life is furl'd — 69 
 What landlord can-do more than that ? 
 I'll leave my heir the whole wide 
 
 world 
 All round my hat, all round my hat ! 
 
 BEN BLUFF 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD 
 
 * Pshaw, you are not on a whaling voyage, where everything that offers is gamc'^TV/c Pt7o/. 
 
 Ben Bluff was a whaler, and many a day 
 Had chased the huge fish about Baffin's old Bay ; 
 But time brought a change his division to spoil. 
 And that was when Gas took the shine out of Oil. 
 
 He turn'd up his nose at the fumes of the coke. 
 And swore the whole scheme was a bottle of sinoke : 
 As to London he briefly deliver'd his mind, 
 ' Sparm-city,' said he — but the City declined. 
 
536 BEN BLUFF 
 
 So Ben. cut his line in a sort of a huff, 
 
 As soon as his Whales had brought profits enough, to 
 
 And hard by the Docks settled down for his life, 
 
 But, true to his text, went to Wales for a wife. 
 
 A big one she was, without figure or waist. 
 More bulky than lovely, but that was his taste ; 
 In fat she was lapp'd from her sole to her crown, 
 And, turn'd into oil would have lighted a town. 
 
 But Ben like a Whaler was charm'd with the match, 
 
 And thought, very truly, his spouse a great catch ; 
 
 A flesh-arid-blood emblem of Plenty and Peace, 
 
 And would not have changed her for Helen of Greece. 20 
 
 For Greenland was green in his memory still ; 
 He'd quitted his trade, but retain'd the good-will ; 
 And often when softeSi'd by bumbo and flip. 
 Would cry — till he blubber'd — about his old ship. 
 
 No craft like the Grampus could work through a floe. 
 What knots she could run, and what tons she could stow, 
 And then that rich smell he preferr'd to the rose. 
 By just nosing the whole without holding ,j}is nose 1 
 
 Now Ben hp resolved one fine Saturday night, 
 
 A snug Arctic Circle of friends to invite, 30 
 
 Old Tars in the trade, who related old tales,' 
 
 And drank, and blew clouds that were ' very like whales.' 
 
 Of course with their grog there was 'plenty of chat 
 Of canting, and flinching; and cutfing up fat ; 
 And how Gun Harpoons into fashion had got, 
 And if they were meant for the Gun-whale or not ? 
 
 At last they retired, and left Ben to his rest. 
 
 By fancies cetaceous, and drink, well possess'd. 
 
 When, lo ! as he lay by his partner in bed, 
 
 He heard something blow through two holes in its head. 40 
 
 ' A start ! ' muttered Ben, in the Grampus afloat, 
 And made but one jump from the deck to the boat ! 
 ' Huzza ! pull away for the blubber and bone — 
 I look on that whale as already my own ! ' 
 
 Then groping about by the light of the moon. 
 He soon laid his hand on his trusty harpoon ; 
 A moment he poised it, to send it more pat. 
 And then made a plunge to imbed it in fat ! 
 
 ' Starn all ! ' he sang out, ' as you care for your lives— ^ 
 Starn all, as you hope to return to your wives — 50 
 
 Stand by for the flurry ! she throws up the foam ! 
 Well done, my old iron, I've sent you right home I ' 
 
BEN BLUFF 
 
 537 
 
 And scarce had be spoken when lo I bolt upright 
 The Leviathan rose in a great sheet of white, 
 And swiftly advanced for a fathom or two, 
 As only a fish out of water could do. 
 
 ' Starn all ! ' echoed Ben, with a movement aback. 
 But too slow to escape from the creature's attack ; 
 If flippers it had, they were furnish'd with nails, — 
 ' You willin, I'll teach you that Women an't Whales I ' 
 
 ' Avast 1 ' shouted Ben, with a sort of a screech, 
 
 ' I've heard a Whale spouting, but here is a speech ! ' 
 
 ' A-spouting, indeed ! — very pretty,' said she ; 
 
 ' But it 's you I'll blow up, not the froth of the sea I 
 
 ' To go to pretend to take me for a fish ! 
 You great Polar Bear — but I know what you wish— ^ 
 You're sick of a wife, that your hankering baulks — 
 You want to go back to some young Esquimaux ! ' 
 
 ' O dearest,' cried Ben, frighten'd out of his life, 
 
 ' Don't think I would go for to murder a wife 
 
 I must long have bewail'd ' — But she only cried ' Stuff ! 
 
 Don't name it, you brute, you've be-whaled me enough ! ' 
 
 ' Lord, Polly,' said Ben, ' such a deed could I do ? 
 
 I'd rather have murder 'd all Wapping than you ! 
 
 Come, forgive what is passed,' ' O you monster ! ' she cried, 
 
 ' It was none of your fault that it passed of one side ! ' - 
 
 However, at last she inclined to forgive : 
 ' But, Ben, take this warning as long as you live — 
 If the love of harpooning so strong must prevail. 
 Take a whale for a wife, not a wife for a whale.' 
 
 6a 
 
 70 
 
 A PLAIN DIRECTION 
 
 'Do you never deviate? ' — yoAn Bull. 
 
 In London once I lost my way 
 
 In faring to and fro. 
 
 And ask'd a little ragged boy 
 
 The way that I should go ; 
 
 He gave a nod, and then a wink, 
 
 And told me to get there 
 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
 I box'd his little saucy ears. 
 
 And then away I strode ; lo 
 
 But since I've found that weary path 
 
 Is quite a common road. 
 
 Utopia is a pleasant place, 
 
 But how shall I get there ? 
 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
538 
 
 A PLAIN DIRECTION 
 
 I've read about a famous town 
 
 That drove a famous trade, 
 
 Where Whittington walk'd up and 
 
 found 
 A fortune ready made. 20 
 
 The very streets are paved with gold ; 
 But how shall I get there ? 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 And all round the Square." 
 
 I've read about a Fairy Land, 
 
 In some romantic tale. 
 
 Where Dwarfs if good are sure tb 
 
 thrive 
 And wicked Giants fail. 
 My wish is great, my shoes are strong, 
 But how shall I get there ? 30 
 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
 I've heard about some happy Isle, 
 
 Where ev'ry man is free, 
 
 And none can lie in bonds for life 
 
 For want of L. S. D. 
 
 Oh that 's the land of Liberty ! 
 
 But how shall I get there ? 
 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 
 And all round the Square.' 40 
 
 I've dreamt about some blessed spot, 
 
 Beneath the blessed sky. 
 
 Where Bread and Justice never rise 
 
 Too dear for folks to buy. 
 
 It 's cheaper than the Ward of Cheap, 
 
 But how shall I get there ? 
 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
 They say there is an ancient House, 
 As pure as it is old, 50 
 
 Where Members always speak their 
 
 minds. 
 And votes are never sold. 
 I'm fond of all antiquities, 
 But how shall I get .there ? 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Laine, 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
 They say there is a Royal Court 
 Maintain'd in noble state. 
 Where ev'ry able man, and good. 
 Is certain to be great ! 60 
 
 I'm very fond of seeing sights. 
 But how shall I get there ? 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
 They say there is a Temple too, 
 Where Christians come to pray ; 
 But canting knaves and hypocrites. 
 And bigots keep away. 
 O ! that 's the parish church for me ! 
 But how shall I get there ? 70 
 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
 They say there is a Garden fair. 
 That 's haunted by the dove. 
 Where love of gold doth ne'er eclipse 
 The golden light of love — 
 The place must be a Paradise, 
 But how shall I get there ? 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 And all round the Square/ 80 
 
 I've heard there is a famous Land 
 For public spirit known — 
 Whose Patriots love its interests 
 Much better than their own. 
 The Land of Promise sure it is ! 
 But how shall I get there ? 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
 I've read about a fine Estate, 
 
 A mansion large and strong ; 9" 
 
 A view all over Kent and back, 
 
 And going for a song. 
 
 George Robins knows the very spot. 
 
 But how shall I get there ? 
 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
 I've heard there is a Company 
 
 All formal and enroU'd, 
 
 Will take your smallest silver coin 
 
 And give it back in gold. 100 
 
 Of course the office door is mobb'd. 
 
 But how shall I get there ? 
 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane 
 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
A PLAIN DIRECTION 
 
 I've heard about a pleasant land, 
 Where omelettes grow on trees, 
 And roasted pigs run crying oat, 
 ' Come eat me, if you please." 
 
 539 
 
 My appetite is rather keen, 
 But how shall I get there ? ii 
 
 ' Straight down the Crooked Lane, 
 And all round the Square.' 
 
 THE BACHELOR'S DREAM 
 
 My pipe is lit, my grog is mix'd, 
 My curtains drawn and all is snug ; 
 Old Puss is in her elbow-chair. 
 And Tray is sitting on the rug. 
 Last night I had a curious dream, 
 Miss Susan Bates was MistressMogg — 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat ? 
 What d'ye think of that, ray Dog ? 
 
 She look'd so fair, she sang so well, 
 I could but woo and she was won, lo 
 Myself in blue, the bride in white, 
 The ring was placed, the deed was 
 
 done ! 
 Away we went in chaise-and-four. 
 As fast as grinning boys could flog — 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat ? 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
 What loving tete-a-tetes to come ! 
 But tete-a,Ttetes must still defer ! 
 When Susan came to live with me, 
 Her mother came to live with her ! 20 
 With sister Belle she couldn't part. 
 But all my ties had leave to jog — 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat ? 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
 The mother brought a pretty Poll — 
 A monkey too, — what work he made ! 
 The sister introduced a Beau — 
 My Susan brought a favourite maid. 
 She had a tabby of her own, — 29 
 A snappish mongrel christen'd Gog — 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat ? 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
 TheMonkey bit — the Parrot scream'd, 
 All day the sister strumm'd and sung ; 
 The petted maid was such a scold ! 
 My Susan learn'd to use her tongue : 
 
 Her mother had such wretched health. 
 She sate and croak'd like any frog — 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat? 39 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
 No longer Deary, Duck, and Love, 
 I soon came down to simple ' M ! ' 
 The very servants cross'd my wish, 
 My Susan let me down to them. 
 The poker hardly seem'd my own, 
 I might as well have been a log — 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat ? 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
 My clothes they were the queerest 
 
 shape ! 
 Such coats and hats she never met ! 50 
 My ways they were the' oddest ways ! 
 My friends were such a vulgar set ! 
 Poor Tomkinson was snubb'd and 
 
 huff'd— 
 She could not bearthatMister Blogg — 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat ? 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
 At times we had a spar, and then 
 Mamma must mingle in the song — 
 The sister took a sister's part— 59 
 The Maid declared her Master wrong — 
 The Parrot learn'd to call me ' Fool ! ' 
 My life was like a London fog— 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat? 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
 My Susan's taste was superfine. 
 
 As proved by bills that had no end— ^ 
 
 / never had a decent coat — 
 
 I never had a coin to spend ! 
 
 She forced me to resign my Club, 69 
 
 Lay down my pipe, retrench my grog 
 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat ? 
 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
S40 THE BACHELOR'S,. DREAM 
 
 Each Sunday night we gaVe a rout 
 To fops and flirts, a pretty list ; 
 And when I tried to steal away, 
 I found my study full of whist ! 
 Then, first to come and last to go, 
 There always was a Captain Hogg — 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat? ^9 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
 Now was not that an awful dream 
 For one who single is and snug — 
 With Pussy in the elbow-chair 
 And Tray reposing on the rug ?-^ 
 If I must totter down the hill, 
 'Tis safest done without a clog — 
 What d'ye think of that, my Cat ? 
 What d'ye think of that, my Dog ? 
 
 RURAL FELICITY 
 
 Well, the country 's a pleasant place, sure enough, for people that 's country 
 
 born, 
 And useful, no doubt, in a natural way, for growing our grass and our corn. 
 It was kindly meant of my cousin Giles, to write and invite me down, 
 Tho' as yet all I've seen of a pastoral life only makes one more partial to 
 
 town. 
 
 At first I thought I was really come down into all sorts of rural bliss. 
 For Porkington Place, with its cows and its pigs, and its poultry, looks not 
 
 much amiss ; 
 There 's something about a dairy farm, with its different kinds of live stock. 
 That puts one in mind of Paradise, and Adam and his innocent flock ; 
 But somehow the good old Elysium fields have not been well handed down. 
 And as yet I have found no fields to prefer to dear Leicester Fields up in 
 
 town. 10 
 
 To be sure it is pleasant to walk in the meads, and so I should like for miles. 
 If it wasn't for clodpoles of carpenters that put up such crooked stiles ; 
 For the bars jut out, and you must jut out, till you're almost broken in two, 
 If you clamber you're certain sure of a fall, and you stick if you try to creep 
 
 through. 
 Of course, in the end, one learns how to climb without constant tumbles 
 
 down. 
 But still as to walking so styUshly, it 's pleasanter done about town. 
 There 's a way, I know, to avoid the stiles, and that 's by a walk in a lane, 
 Aiid I did find a very nice shady one, but I never dared go again ; 
 For who should I meet but a rampaging bull, that wouldn't be kept in the 
 
 pound, 19 
 
 A trying to toss the whole world at once, by sticking his horns in the ground. 
 And that, by-the-by, is another thing, that pulls rural pleasures down, 
 Ev'ry day in the country is cattle-day, and there 's only two up in town. 
 Then I've rose with the sun, to go brushing away at the first early pearly 
 
 dew. 
 And to meet Aurory, or whatever 's her name, and I always got wetted 
 
 through ; 
 My shoes are like sops, and I caught a bad cold, and a nice draggle-tail to 
 
 my gown. 
 That 's not the way that we bathe our feet, or wear our pearls, up in town ! 
 
RURAL FELICITY 541 
 
 As for picking flow'rs, I have tried at a hedge, sweet eglantine roses to snatch, 
 But, mercy on us ! how nettles will sting, and how the long brambles do 
 
 scratch ; 
 Besides hitching my hat on a nasty thorn that tore all the bows from, the 
 
 crown. 
 One may walk long enough without hats branching off, or losing one's bows 
 
 about town. 30 
 
 But worse than that, in a long rural walk, suppose that it blows up for rain. 
 And all at once you discover yourself in a real St. Swithin's Lane ; 
 And while you're running all ducked and drown'd, and pelted with sixpenny 
 
 drops, 
 ' Fine weather,' you hear the farmers say ; ' a nice growing show'r for the 
 
 crops ! ' 
 But who 's to crop me another new hat, or grow me another new gown ? 
 For you can't take a shilling fare with a plough as you do with the hackneys 
 
 in town. 
 
 Then my nevys too, they must drag me off to go with them gathering nuts. 
 And we always set out by the longest way and return by the shortest cuts. 
 Short cuts, indeed I But it 's nuts to them, to get a poor lustyish aunt 
 To scramble through gaps or jump over a ditch, when they're morally certain 
 
 she can't, — 4a 
 
 For whenever I get in some awkward scrape, and it 's almost daily the case, 
 Tho' they don't laugh out, the mischievous brats, I see the hooray ! in their 
 
 face. 
 
 There 's the other day, for my sight is short, and I saw what was green 
 
 beyond. 
 And thought it was all terry firmer and grass till I walked in the duckweed 
 
 pond : 
 Or perhaps when I've puUy-hauled up a bank they see me come launching 
 
 down. 
 As none but a stout London female can. do as is come a first time out of 
 
 town. 
 Then how sweet, some say, on a mossy bank a verdurous seat to find. 
 But for my part I always found it a joy that brought a repentance behind ; 
 For the juicy grass with its nasty green has stained a whole breadth of my 
 
 gown — 49 
 
 And when gowns are dyed, I needn't say, it 's much better done up in town. 
 As for country fare, the first morning I came I heard such a shrill piece of 
 
 work ! • . 
 
 And ever since — and it 's ten days ago — we've lived upon nothing but pork ; 
 One Sunday except, and then I turn'd sick, a plague take all countrified 
 
 cooks I 
 Why didn't they tell me, before I had dined, they made pigeon pies of the 
 
 rooks ? 
 Then the gooseberry wine, tho' it: 's pleasant, when up,' it doesn't agree when 
 
 it !s down, . j 
 
 But it served me right like a gooseberry fool to look for champagne out of 
 
 town ! 
 
542 RURAL FELICITY 
 
 To be sure cousin G. meant it all for the best when he started this pastoral 
 
 plan, 
 And his wife is a worthy domestical .soul and she teaches me all that she can, 
 Such as making of cheese, and curing of hams, but I'm sure that I never 
 
 shall learn, 
 And I've fetch'd more back-ache than butter as yet by chumping away at 
 
 the churn ; 60 
 
 But in making hay, tho' it 's tanning work, I found it more easy to make. 
 But it tries one's legs, and no great relief when you're tired to sit down on 
 
 the rake. 
 I'd a country dance too at a harvest home, with a regular country clown. 
 But, Lord ! they don't hug one round the waist and give one such smacks 
 
 in town ! 
 Then I've tried to make friends with the birds and the beasts, but they take 
 
 to such curious rigs, 
 I'm always at odds with the turkey-cock, and I can't even please the pigs. 
 The very hens pick holes in my hands when I grope for the new-laid eggs, 
 And the gander comes hissing out of the pond on purpose to flap at my legs, 
 I've been bump'd in a ditch by the cow without horns, and the old sow 
 
 trampled me down. 
 The "beasts are as vicious as any wild beasts — but they're kept in cages in 
 
 town ! 70 
 
 Another thing is the nasty dogs — thro' the village I hardly can stir 
 Since giving a bumpkin a pint of beer just to call off a barking cur ; 
 And now you would swear all the dogs in the place were set on to hunt me 
 
 down, 
 But neither the brutes nor the people I think are as civilly bred as in town. 
 Last night about twelve I was scared broad awake, and all in a tremble of 
 
 fright, ' 
 
 But instead of a family murder it proved an owl that flies screeching at night. 
 Then there 's plenty of ricks and stacks all about, and I can't help dreaming 
 
 of Swing- 
 In .short, I think that a pastbrallife is not the most happiest thing ; 
 For besides all the troubles I've mentioned before as endur'd for rurality's 
 
 sake, 
 I've been stung by the bees, and I've set among ants, and once — ugh ! I trod 
 
 on a snake ! 80 
 
 And as to moskitoes they tortured me so, for I've got a particular skin, 
 I do think it 's the gnats coming out of the ponds that drives the poor suicides 
 
 in ! 
 And after all an't there new-laid eggs to be had upon-Holborn Hill ? 
 And dairy-fed pork in Broad St. Giles's, and fresh butter wherever you will ? 
 And a covered cart that brings Cottage Bread quite rustical-like and brown ? 
 So one isn't so very uncountrified in the very heart of the town. 
 Howsomever my mind's made up, and although I'm sure cousin Giles will 
 
 be vext, 
 I mean to book me an inside place up to town upon Saturday next, 
 And if nothing happens, soon after ten, I shall be at the Old Bell and Crown, 
 And perhaps I may come to the country again, when London is all burnt 
 
 down ! .„ 
 
543 
 
 A FLYING VISIT 
 
 * A Calendar] a Calendar! look in the Almanac, find out moonshine— 'find out moonshine!^ — 
 Midsummer Night^s Dream. 
 
 The by-gone September, 
 As folks may remember, 
 At least if their memory saves but an 
 ember. 
 One fine afternoon, . 
 There went up a Balloon, 
 Which did not return to the Earth 
 very soon. 
 
 For, nearing the sky, 
 At about a mile high. 
 The Aeronaut bold had resolved on a 
 
 fly; 
 
 So cutting his string, lo 
 
 In a Parasol thing 
 Down he came in a field like a lark 
 from the wing. 
 
 Meanwhile, thus adrift. 
 The Balloon made a shift 
 To rise very fast, with no burden to 
 lift ; 
 It got very small. 
 Then to nothing at all ; 
 And then rose the question of where 
 it would fall ? 
 
 Some thought that, for lack 
 Of the man and his pack, 20 
 'T would rise to the Cherub that 
 watches Poor Jack ; 
 Some held, but in vain. 
 With the first heavy rain 
 'Twould surely come^ down to the 
 Gardens again ! 
 
 But still not a word 
 For a month could be heard 
 Of what had become of the Wonderful 
 Bird: 
 The firm Gye and Hughes, 
 Wore their boots out and shoes. 
 In running about and inquiring for 
 news. 30 
 
 Some thought it must be 
 Tumbled into the Sea ; 
 Some thought it had gone off to High 
 Germanic ; . 
 For Germans, as shown 
 By their writings, 'tis known 
 Are always delighted with what is 
 high-flown. 
 
 Some hinted a bilk. 
 And that maidens who milk, 
 In far distant Shires would be walking 
 in silk : 
 Some swore that it must, 40 
 ' As they said at the fust, 
 Have gone agin flashes of lightning 
 and bust ! '' 
 
 However, at last. 
 
 When six weeks had gone past. 
 Intelligence came of a plausible cast ; 
 
 A wondering clown. 
 
 At a hamlet near town. 
 Had seen ' like a moon of green 
 cheese ' coming down. 
 
 Soon spread the alarm, 
 And from cottage and farm, 50 
 The natives buzz'd out like the bees 
 when they swarm ; 
 And off ran the folk, — 
 It is such a good joke 
 To see the descent of a bagful of 
 smoke. 
 
 And lo ! the machine. 
 Dappled yellow and green. 
 Was plainly enough in the clouds to be 
 seen : 
 ' Yes, yes,' was the cry, 
 ' It 's the old one, sure/y, 
 Where can it have been such a time in 
 the sky ? 60 
 
S44 
 
 A FLYING VISIT 
 
 ' Lord ! where will it fall ? 
 
 It can't find out Vauxhall, 
 Without any pilot to guide it at all ! ' 
 
 Some wager'd that Kent 
 
 Would behold the event, 
 Debrett had been posed to predict its 
 descent. 
 
 Some thought it would pitch 
 In the old Tower Ditch, 
 Some swore on the Cross of St. Paul's 
 it would hitch ; 69 
 
 And Farmers cried ' Zounds 1 
 If it drops on our grounds, . 
 We'll try if Balloons can't be put into 
 pounds ! ' 
 
 But still to and fro 
 
 It continued to go, 
 As if looking out for soft places below; 
 
 No difficult job, 
 
 It had only to bob 
 Slap-dash down at once on the heads 
 of the mob : 
 
 Who, too apt to stare 
 At some castle in air, 80 
 
 Forget that the earth is their proper 
 affair ; 
 Till, watchiflg the fall 
 Of some soap-bubble ball, 
 They tumble themselves with a ter- 
 rible sprawl. 
 
 Meanwhile, from its height 
 Stooping downward in flight. 
 The Phenomenon came more dis- 
 tinctly in sight : 
 Still bigger and bigger. 
 And strike me a nigger 
 Unfreed, if there was not a live human 
 figure ! 90 
 
 Yes, plain to be seen, 
 Underneath the machine, 
 There dangled a mortal — some swore 
 it was Green ; 
 Some Mason could spy ; 
 Others named Mr. Gye ; 
 Or HoUond, compell'd by the Belgians 
 to fly. 
 
 'Twas Graham the flighty, 
 Whom the Duke high and 
 mighty 
 Resign 'd to take care of his own lig- 
 num-vitae ; 99 
 
 'Twas Hampton, whose whim 
 Was in Cloudland to swim. 
 Till e'en Little Hampton looked Uttle 
 to him ! 
 
 But all were at fault ; 
 From the heavenly vault 
 The falling balloon came at last to a 
 halt; 
 And bounce ! with the jar 
 Of descending so far, 
 An outlandish Creature was thrown 
 from the car ! 
 
 At first with the jolt 
 All his wits made a bolt, 110 
 As if he'd been flung by a mettlesome 
 colt ; 
 And while in his iaxat. 
 To avoid all complaint. 
 The muse shall endeavour his portrait 
 to paint. 
 
 The face of this elf, 
 
 Round as platter of delf. 
 Was pale as if only a cast of itself : 
 
 His head had a rare 
 
 Fleece of silvery hair, 119 
 
 Just like the Albino at Bartlemy Fair. 
 
 His eyes they were odd. 
 Like the eyes of a cod. 
 And gave him the look of a watery 
 God. 
 His nose was a snub ; 
 Under which, for his grub. 
 Was a round open mouth like to that 
 of a chub. 
 
 His person was small. 
 
 Without figure at all, 
 A plump little bodyas round as a ball: 
 
 With two little fins, 130 
 
 And a couple of pins. 
 With what has been christened a bow 
 in the shins. 
 
A FLYING VISIT 
 
 545 
 
 His dress it was new, 
 A full suit of sky-blue — 
 With bright silver buckles in each 
 little shoe — 
 Thus painted complete, 
 From his head to his feet, 
 Conceive him laid flat in Squire Hop- 
 kins's wheat. 
 
 Fine text for the crowd ! 
 Who disputed aloud 140 
 
 What sort of a creature had dropp'd 
 from the cloud — 
 ' He 's come from o'er seas, 
 He 's a Cochin Chinese — 
 By jingo ! he 's one of the wild 
 Cherokees ! ' 
 
 ' Don't nobody know ? ' 
 ' He 's a young Esquimaux, 
 Turn'd white like the hares by the 
 Arctical snow.' 
 ' Some angel, my dear, 
 Sent from some upper spear 
 For Plumtree or Agnew, too good for 
 this-here ! ' 150 
 
 Meanwhile, with a sigh. 
 Having open'd one eye, 
 
 The Stranger rose up on his seat by 
 and by ; 
 And finding his tongue, 
 Thus he said, or he sung, 
 
 ' Mi crihy bo biggamy kiekery bung ! ' 
 
 ' Lord ! what does he speak ? ' 
 ' It's Dog-Latin — it's Greek!' 
 ' It 's some sort of slang for to puzzle 
 a Beak ! ' 
 ' It 's no like the Scotch,' 160 
 Said a Scot on the watch, 
 ' Phoo ! it 's nothing at all but a kind 
 of hotch-potch ! ' 
 
 ' It 's not parly voo,' 
 Cried a schoolboy or two, 
 ' Nor Hebrew at all,' said a wandering 
 Jew. 
 Some held it was sprung 
 From the Irvingite tongue. 
 The same that is used by a child very 
 young. 
 
 Some guess'd it high Dutch, 
 Others thought it had much 170 
 In sound of the true Hoky-poky-ish 
 touch ; 
 But none could be poz, 
 What the Dickins ! (not Boz) 
 No mortal could tell what the Dickins 
 it was I 
 
 When who should come pat, 
 In a moment like that. 
 But Bowring, to see what the people 
 were at — 
 A Doctor well able. 
 Without any fable, 
 To talk and translate all the babble of 
 Babel. 180 
 
 So just drawing near, 
 
 With a vigilant ear. 
 That took ev'ry syllable in, very clear. 
 
 Before one could sip 
 
 Up a tumbler of flip, 
 He knew the whole tongue, from the 
 root to the tip ! 
 
 Then stretching his hand. 
 As you see Daniel stand, 
 In the Feast of Belshazzar, that pic- 
 ture so grand ! 
 Without more delay, 190 
 
 In the Hamilton way 
 He EngUsh'd whatever the Elf had to 
 say. 
 
 ' Krak hraziboo ban, 
 I'm the Lunatick Man, 
 Confined in the Moon since creation 
 began— 
 Sit muggy bigog, 
 Wliom except in a fog 
 You see with a Lanthorn, a Bush, and 
 a Dog. 
 
 ' Lang sinery tear, 
 For this many a year, 200 
 
 I've longed to drop in at your own 
 little sphere, — 
 Och, pad-mad aroon 
 Till one fine afternoon, 
 I found that Wind-Coach on the 
 horns of the Moon. 
 
546 
 
 A FLYING VISIT 
 
 ' Cush quatkery go, 
 
 But, besides you must know, 
 I'd heard of a profiting Prophet below; 
 
 Big botherum blether, 
 
 Who pretended to gather 
 The tricks that the Moon meant to 
 play with the weather, aio 
 
 ' So Crismus an crash, 
 Being shortish of cash, 
 I thought I'd a right to partake of the 
 hash — 
 Slik mizzle an smak. 
 So I'm come with a pack, 
 To sell to the trade, of My Own 
 Almanack. 
 
 ' Fiz bobbery pershal 
 Besides aims commercial, 
 Much wishing to honour my friend 
 Sir John Herschel, 
 Cum puddin and ta^, zzo 
 
 It 's inscribed to his name. 
 Which is now at the full in celestial 
 fame. 
 
 ' Wept wepton wish wept, 
 
 Pray this Copy accept 1 ' 
 
 But hereaon the Stranger some Kid- 
 nappers leapt : 
 For why ? a shrewd man 
 Had devis'd a sly plan 
 The Wonder to grab for a show Cara- 
 van. 
 
 So plotted, so dbne — 
 With a fight as in fun, 230 
 While mock pugilistical rounds were 
 begun, 
 A knave who could box. 
 And give right and ifft knocks, 
 Caught hold of the Prize by his silvery 
 locks. 
 
 And hard he had fared. 
 But the people were scared 
 By what the Interpreter roundly de- 
 clared : 
 ' You ignorant Turks ! 
 You will be your own Burkes — 
 He holds all the keys of the lunary 
 works 1 240 
 
 ' You'd best let him go^ 
 If you keep him "below. 
 The Moon will not change, and the 
 tides will not flow ; 
 He left her at full. 
 And with such a long pull. 
 Zounds ! ev'ry man Jack will run 
 mad like a bull 1 ' 
 
 So awful a threat 
 Took effect on the set ; 
 The fight, tho', was more than their 
 guest could forget ; 
 So taking a jump, 250 
 
 In the car he came plump. 
 And threw all the ballast right out in 
 a lump. 
 
 Upsoar'd the machinei 
 With its yellow and green ; 
 But still the pale face of the Creature 
 was seen. 
 Who cried from the car, 
 ' Dam in zooman bi gar ! ' 
 That is, — ' What a sad set of villains 
 you are ! ' 
 
 Howbeit, at some height, 259 
 He threw down quite a flight 
 Of Almanacks wishing to set us all 
 right— 
 And, thanks to the boon, 
 We shall see very soon 
 If Murphy knows most, or the Man in 
 the Moon ! 
 
547 
 
 THE DOVES AND THE CROWS 
 
 Come all ye sable little girls and boys, 
 
 Ye coal-black Brothers — Sooty Sisters, come I 
 
 With kitty-katties make a joyful noise ; 
 With snaky-snekies, and the Eboe drum ! 
 
 From this day forth your freedom is your own : 
 
 Play, Sambo, play, — and Obadiah, groan ! 
 
 Ye vocal Blackbirds, bring your native pipes. 
 Your own Moor's Melodies, ye niggers, bring ; 
 
 To celebrate the fall of chains and stripes. 
 
 Sing ' Possum up a gum-tree,' roar and sing ! ,o 
 
 From this day forth your freedom is your own : 
 
 Chaunt, Sambo, chaunt.-^and Obadiah, groan ! 
 
 Bring all your woolly piccaninnies dear — 
 
 Bring John Canoe and all his jolly gang : 
 Stretch ev'ry blubber-mouth from ear to ear, 
 
 And let the driver in his whip go hang ! 
 From this day forth your freedom is your own ; 
 Grin, Sambo, grin, — and Obadiah, groan ! 
 
 Your working garb indignantly renounce ; 
 
 Discard your) Slops in honour of the day — 2b 
 
 Come all in frill, and furbelow, and flounce. 
 
 Come all as fine as Chimney Sweeps in May — 
 From this day forth your freedom is your own : 
 Dress, Sambo, dress, — and Obadiah, groan I ' 
 
 Come, join together in the dewy dance. 
 
 With melting maids in steamy mazes go ; 
 Humanity delights to see you prance, , 
 
 Up with your sooty legs and jump Jim Crow — 
 From this day forth your freedom is your own : 
 Skip, Sambo, skip, — and Obadiah, groan ! 30 
 
 Kiss dark Diana on her pouting lips. 
 And take black Phoebe by her ample waist — 
 
 Tell them to-day is Slavery's eclipse. 
 
 And Loye and Liberty must be embraced — 
 
 From this day forth your freedom is your own : 
 
 Kiss, Sambo, kiss, — and Obadiah, groaii ! 
 
 With bowls of sangaree and toddy come ! 
 
 Bring lemons,' sugar, old Madeira, limes. 
 Whole tanks and water-barrels full of rum, 
 
 To toast the whitest date of modern times — 40 
 
 From this day forth your freedom is your own : 
 Drink, Sambo, drink, — and Obadiah, groan ! 
 
548 THE DOVES AND THE CROWS 
 
 Talk, all together, talk ! both old and young, 
 Pour out the fulness of the negro heart ; 
 
 Let loose the now emancipated tongue. 
 
 And all your new-born sentiments impart — 
 
 From this day forth your freedom is your own : 
 
 Spojit, Sambo, spout, — and Obadiah, groan ! 
 
 Huzza ! for equal rights and equal laws ; > 
 
 The British parliament has doff'd your chain- 
 Join, join in gratitude your jettyjpaws, . 
 
 And swear you never will be slaves, again— 
 From this day forth your freedom is your own : 
 Swear, Sambo, swear, — and Obadiah, groan I 
 
 50 
 
 THE DOCTOR 
 
 A SKETCH 
 'Whatever is, is right.' — ^^e. 
 
 There once was a Doctor, 
 (No foe to the proctor,) 
 A physic-concocter. 
 Whose dose was so pat,. 
 However it acted. 
 One speech it extracted, — 
 ' Yes, yes,' said the doctor, 
 ' I meant it for that ! ' 
 
 And first, all unaisy, 
 Like woman that 's crazy 
 In flies Mistress Casey, 
 ' Do come to poor Pat 
 The blood 's running faster ! 
 He 's torn off the plaster^ ' 
 ' Yes, yes,' said the Doctor, 
 ' I meant it for that ! ' 
 
 Anon, with an antic, 
 Quite strange and romantic, 
 A woman comes frantic — 
 ' What could you be at ? 
 My darling dear Aleck, 
 You've sent him oxalic ! ' 
 ' Yes, yes,' said the Doctor, 
 ' I meant it for that ! ' 
 
 Then in comes another, 
 Despatch'd by his mother, 
 A blubbering brother, 
 Who gives a rat-tat — 
 
 ' Oh, poor little sister 
 
 Has lick'd o£E a blister ! ' 30 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' said the Doctor, 
 
 ' I meant it for that ! ' 
 
 Now home comes the flunkey. 
 
 His own powder-monkey, 
 
 But dull as a donkey — 
 
 With basket and that — 
 
 ' The draught for the Squire, Sir, 
 
 He chuck'd in the fire. Sir — ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' said the Doctor, 
 
 ' I meant it for that ! ' 40 
 
 The next is the pompous 
 Head Beadle, old Bumpus — 
 ' Lord ! here is a rumpus : 
 That pauper, Old Nat, 
 In some drunken notion 
 Has drunk up his lotion — ' 
 ' Yes, yes,' said the Doctor, 
 ' I meant it for that ! ' 
 
 At last comes a servant, 
 
 In grief very fervent : 50 
 
 '- Alas ! Doctor Derwent, 
 
 Poor Master is flat ! 
 
 He 's drawn his last breath, Sir — 
 
 That dose was his death. Sir. ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' said the Doctor, 
 
 ' I meant it for that 1 ' 
 
549 
 
 THE VISION 
 
 'Plague oii't! the last was ill enough, 
 This cannot but make better proot.'—CoUott. 
 
 As I sate the other uight, 
 Burning of a single light, 
 All at once a change there came 
 In the colour of the flame. 
 
 Strange it was the blaze to view, 
 
 Blue as summer sky is blue : 
 
 One ! two ! three ! four ! five 1 six ! 
 
 seven ! 
 Eight ! nine ! ten ! it struck eleven ! 
 
 Pale as sheet, with stiffen'd hair, 
 Motionless in elbow chair — lo 
 
 Blood congealing — dead almost — 
 ' Now,' thought I, 'to see a ghost ! ' 
 
 Strange misgiving, true as strange ! 
 In the air there came a change, 
 And as plain as mortals be, 
 Lo ! a Shape confronted me ! 
 
 Lines and features I could trace 
 
 Like an old famiUar face. 
 
 Thin and palUd like my own, 
 
 In the morning mirror shown. 20 
 
 ' Now,' he said, and near the grate 
 Drew a chair for tete-a-tSte, 
 Quite at odds with all decorum, — 
 ' Now, my boys, let 's have a jorum ! ' 
 
 ' Come,' he cried, ' old fellow, come. 
 Where 's the brandy, where 's the 
 
 rum ? 
 Where 's the kettle — is it hot ? 
 Shall we have some punch, or what ? ' 
 
 ' Feast of reason — flow of soul ! 29 
 Where 's the sugar, where 's the bowl ? 
 Lemons I will help to squeeze — 
 FUp, Egg-hot or what you please ! ' 
 
 ' Sir,' said I, with hectic cough. 
 Shock of nerves to carry off — 
 
 Looking at him very hard, 
 ' Pray oblige me with a card.' 
 
 ' Card,' said he — -' Phoo— nonsense — 
 
 stuff ! 
 We're aicquainted well enough — 
 Still, my name if you desire, 
 Eighteen Thirty-Eight, Esquire. 40 
 
 ' Ring for supper ! where 's the tray ? 
 No great time I have to stay. 
 One short hour, and Uke a May'r, 
 I must quit the yearly Chair ! ' 
 
 Scarce could I contain my rage — 
 O'er the retrospective page. 
 Looking back from date to^ date, 
 What I owed to Thirty-Eight. 
 
 Sickness here and sickness there. 
 Pain and sorrow, constant care ; so 
 Fifty-two long weeks to fall. 
 Nor a trump among them all I 
 
 ' Zounds ! ' I cried, in quite a huff, 
 ' Go — I've known you long enough. 
 Seek for supper where you please. 
 Here you have not bread and cheese.' 
 
 ' Nay,' cried he, " were things so ill ? 
 Let me have your pardon still — 
 What I've done to give you pain 
 1 will never do again.' Co 
 
 ' As from others, so from you. 
 Let me have my honours due ; 
 Soon the parish bells about 
 Will begin to ring me out.' 
 
 ' Ring you out ? — With all my heart !' 
 From my chair I made a start, 
 Pall'd the bell and gave a shout — 
 ' Peter, show the Old Year out ! 
 
5 so 
 
 THE ASSISTANT DRAPERS' PETITION 
 
 ' Now 's the lime and now's ihe hoar.'— Burns. 
 ' Seven 's the maw.' —Crock/i/rd. 
 
 Pity the sorrows of a class of men, 
 
 Who, though they bow to fashion and frivolity ; 
 No fancied claims or woes fictitious pen, 
 
 But wrongs ell-wide, and of a lasting quality. 
 
 Oppressed and discontented with our lot, 
 Amongst the clamorous we take our station • 
 
 A host of Ribbon Men— yet is there not 
 One piece of Irish in our agitation. 
 
 We do revere Her Majesty the Queen, 
 We venerate our Glorious Constitution ; 
 
 We joy King William's advent should have been. 
 And only want a Counter Revolution. 
 
 'TiS not Lord Russell and his final measure, 
 'Tis not Lord Melbourne's counsel to the throne, 
 
 'Tis not this" Bill, or that gives us displeasure. 
 The. measures we dislike are all our own. 
 
 The Cash Law the ' Great Western ' loves to name, 
 
 The tone our foreign policy pervading ; 
 The Corn Laws — none of these we care to blame, 
 
 Our evils we refer to over-trading. 
 
 By Tax or Tithe our murmurs are not drawn ; 
 
 We reverence the Church — but hang the cloth! 
 We love her ministers — but curse the lawn ! 
 
 We have, alas ! too much to do with both ! 
 
 We love the sex : — to serve them is a bliss ! 
 
 We trust they find us civil, never surly ; 
 All that we hope of female friends is this. 
 
 That their last linen may be wanted early. 
 
 Ah 1 who can tell the miseries of men 
 
 That serve the very cheapest shops in town ? 
 
 Till faint and weary, they leave ofi at ten, 
 Knock'd up by ladies beating of 'em down ! 
 
 But has not Hamlet his opinion given — 
 
 O Hamlet had a heart for Drapers' servants ! 
 
 ' That custom is ' — say custom after seven — 
 
 'More honour'd in the breach than the observance.' 
 
THE ASSISTANT DRAPERS' PETITION 
 
 O come then, gentle ladies, come in time, 
 O'erwhelm our counters, and unload our shelves ; 
 
 Torment us all until the seventh chime. 
 But let us have the remnant to ourselves 
 
 We wish of knowledge to lay in a stock, 
 And not remain in ignorance incurable ; — 
 
 To study Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, Locke, 
 And other fabrics that have proved so durable. 
 
 We long for thoughts of intellectual kind, 
 And not to go bewilder'd to our beds ; 
 
 With stuff and fustian taking up the mind. 
 And pins and needles running in our heads 1 
 
 For oh ! the brain gets very dull and dry. 
 Selling from morn till night for cash or credit ; 
 
 Or with a vacant face and vacant eye. 
 
 Watching cheap prints that Knight did never edit. 
 
 Till sick with toil, and lassitude extreme. 
 
 We often think, when we are dull and vapoury, 
 
 The bliss of Paradise was so supreme. 
 
 Because that Adam did not deal in drapery. 
 
 551 
 
 50 
 
 LORD DURHAM'S RETURN 
 
 •On revient touiovLTS.^—Freftc/i Song, 
 'And will I see his face again. 
 And villi I hear him spmky 
 
 — There 'j nae Luck ahoui the House. 
 
 ' The Inconstant is come ! ' 
 It 's in every man's mouth ; 
 From the East to the West, 
 From the North to the South ; 
 With a flag at her head. 
 And a flag at her stern ; 
 Whilst the Telegraph hints 
 At Lord Durham's return. 
 
 Turn wherever you will. 
 It 's the great talk and small ; 
 Going up to Cornhill, 
 Going down to Whitehall ; 
 If you ask for the news, 
 It 's the first you will learn, 
 And the last you will lose. 
 My Lord Durham's return. 
 
 The fat pig in the sty. 
 And the ox in the stall. 
 The old dog at the door, 
 And the cat in the wall ; 
 The wild bird in the bush, 
 And the hare in the fern. 
 All appear to have heard 
 Of Lord Durham's return. 
 
 It has flown all abroad. 
 It is known to goose-pens, 
 It is bray'd by the ass. 
 It is cackled by hens : 
 The Pintadas, indeed. 
 Make it quite their concern, 
 All exclaiming, ' Come back ! 
 At Lord Durham's return. 
 
SS2 
 
 LORD DURHAM'S RETURN 
 
 It 's the text over wine, 
 And the talk after tea ; 
 All are singing one tune, 
 Though not set in one key. 
 E'en the Barbers unite 
 Other gossip to spurn, 
 Whilst they lather away 
 At Lord Durham's return. 
 
 All the Painters leave off, 
 And the Carpenters go. 
 And the Tailor above 
 Joins the Cobbler below. 
 In whole gallons of beer 
 To expend what they earn ■ 
 While discussing one pint. 
 My Lord Durham's return. 
 
 It is timed in the Times, 
 With the News has a run. 
 Goes the round of the Globe, 
 And is writ in the Sun, 
 Like the Warren on walls. 
 Fancy seems to discern. 
 In great letters of chalk, 
 ' Try Lord Durham's return ! ' 
 
 Not a murder comes out ; 
 The reporters repine ; 
 And a hanging is scarce 
 Worth a penny a line. 
 If a Ghost reappeared 
 With his funeral urn. 
 He'd be thrown in the shade 
 By Lord Durham's return. 
 
 so 
 
 6a 
 
 No arrival could raise 
 
 Such a fever in town ; 
 
 There 's a talk about 'Change 
 
 Of the Stocks going down ; 
 
 But the Butter gets up 
 
 Just as if in the churn, 70 
 
 It forgot it should come 
 
 In Lord Durharri's return. 
 
 The most silent are loud ; 
 
 The most sleepy awake ; 
 
 Very odd that one man 
 
 Such a biistfe can make ! 
 
 But the schools all break up. 
 
 And both Houses adjourn. 
 
 To debate more at ease 
 
 On Lord Durham's return. 80 
 
 Is he well ? is he ill ? 
 Is he cheerful or sad ? 
 Has he spoken his mind 
 Of the breeze that he had ?. 
 It was rather too soon 
 With home-sickness to yearn ; 
 There will something come yet 
 Of Lord Durham's return. 
 
 There 's a sound in the wind 
 
 Since that ship is come home ; 90 
 
 Inhere are signs in the air 
 
 Like the omens of Rome ; 
 
 And the lamps in the street, 
 
 And the stars as they burn. 
 
 Seem to give a flare up 
 
 At Lord Durham's return ! 
 
 VERSES MISTAKEN FOR AN INCENDIARY SONG 
 
 Come, all conflagrating fellows. 
 Let us have a glorious rig ; 
 Sing old Kose, and burn the bellows ! 
 Burn me, but I'll burn my wig 1 
 
 Christmas time is all before us : 
 Burn all puddings, north and south. 
 Burn the Turkey — Burn the Devil ! 
 Burn snap-dragon ! burn your mouth! 
 
 Burn the coals ! they're up at sixty ! 
 Burn Burn's Justice — burn Old Coke. 
 Burn the chestnuts ! Burn the shovel ! 
 Burn a fire, and burn the snipke ! iz 
 
 Burn burnt almonds. Burn burnt 
 
 brandy. 
 Let all burnings have a turii. 
 Burn Chabert, the Salamander, — 
 Burn the man that wouldn't burn ! 
 
VERSES MISTAKEN FOR AN INCENDIARY SONG 553 
 
 Burn the old year out, don't ring it ; 
 Burn the one that must begin. 
 Burn Lang Syne ; and, whilst you're 
 
 burning, 
 Burn the burn he paidled in. 20 
 
 Burn the boxing 1 Burn the Beadle ! 
 Burn the baker ! Burn his man ! 
 Bum the butcher — Burnthedustman, 
 Burn the sweeper, if you can ! 
 
 Burn the Postman ! burn the postage. 
 Burn the knocker — burn the bell ! 
 Burn the folks that come for money ! 
 Burn the bills — and burn 'em well. 
 
 Burn the Parish ! Burn the rating ! 
 Burn all taxes in a mass. 30 
 
 Burn the Paving I Burn the Light- 
 ing ! 
 Burn the burners ! Burn the gas ! 
 
 Burn all candles, white or yellow — 
 Burn for war, and not for peace ; 
 Burn the Czar of all the 'Tallow ! 
 Burn the King of all the Greece ! 
 
 Burn all canters — burn in Smithfield. 
 Burn Tea-Total hum and bug. 
 Burn his kettle, burn his water, 
 Burn his mufiin, burn his mug ! 40 
 
 Burn the breeks of meddling vicars, 
 Picking holes in Anna's Urns ! 
 Burn all Steers's Opodeldoc, 
 Just for being good for bums. 
 
 Burn all Swindlers ! Burn Asphal- 
 
 tum ! 
 Burn the money-lenders down — 
 Burn all schemes that burn one's 
 
 fingers ! 
 Burn the Cheapest House in town ! 
 
 Burn all bores and boring topics ; 
 Burn Brunei — aye, in his hole ! 50 
 Burn all subjects that are Irish ! 
 Burn the niggers black as coal ! 
 
 Burn all Boz's imitators ! 
 Burn all tales without a head ! 
 Burn a candle near the curtain ! 
 Burn your Burns, and burn your bed ! 
 
 Burn all wrongs that won't be righted. 
 Poor poor Soup, and Spanish claims — 
 Burn that Bell, and burn his Vixen ! 
 Bum all sorts of burning shames ! 60 
 
 Burn the Whigs ! and burn the Tories ! 
 Burn all parties, great and small ! 
 Burn that everlasting Poynder — 
 Burn his Suttees once for all ! 
 
 Burn the fop that burns tobacco. 
 Burn a Critic that condemns. — 
 Burn Lucifer and all his matches ! 
 Burn the fool that burns the Thames ! 
 
 Burn all burning agitators — 
 
 Burn all torch-parading elves ! 70 
 
 And oh ! burn Parson Stephen's 
 
 speeches, 
 If they haven't burnt themselves. 
 
 THE GREEN MAN 
 
 Tom Simpson was as nice a kind of man 
 As ever lived — at least at number Four, 
 In Austin Friars, in Mrs. Brown's first floor, 
 At fifty pounds, — or thereabouts, — per ann. 
 The Lady reckon'd him her best of lodgers, 
 His rent so punctually paid each quarter, — 
 He did not smoke like nasty foreign codgers— 
 Or play French horns like Mr. Rogers — 
 Or talk his flirting nonsense to her daughter,- 
 
 T 3 
 
THE GREEN MAN 
 
 Not that the girl was light behaved or courtable — lo 
 
 Still on one failing tenderly to touch, 
 The Gentleman did like a drop too much, 
 
 (Tho' there are many such) 
 And took more Port than was exactly portable. 
 In fact, — to put the cap upon the nipple, 
 And try the charge, — Tom certainly did tipple. 
 He thought the motto was but sorry stuff 
 On Cribb's Prize Cup — Yes, wrong in ev'ry letter — 
 That ' D — d be he who first cries Hold Enough I '- 
 The more cups hold, and if enough, the better. 20 
 
 And so to set example in the eyes 
 Of Fancy's lads, and give a broadish hint to them. 
 All his cups were of such ample size 
 That he got into them. 
 
 Once in the company of merry mates. 
 In spite of Temperance's ifs and buts. 
 So sure as Eating is set off with plates, 
 His Drinking always was bound up with cuts I 
 
 Howbeit, such Bacchanalian revels 
 Bring very sad catastrophes about ; 30 
 
 Palsy, Dyspepsy, Dropsy, and Blue Devils, 
 
 Not to forget the Gout. 
 Sometimes the liver takes a spleenful whim 
 To grow to Strasburg's regulation size. 
 As if for those liepatical goose pies — 
 Or out of depth the head begins to swim — 
 Poor Simpson ! wiat a thing occurred to him ! 
 'Twas Christmas — he had drunk the night before, — 
 Like Baxter, who so ' went beyond his last ' — 
 One bottle more, and then one bottle more, 40 
 
 Till oh ! the red-wine Ruby-con was pass'd ! 
 Apd homeward, by the short small chimes of day. 
 With many a circumbendibus to spare. 
 
 For instance, twice round Finsbury Square, 
 To use a fitting phrase, he wound his way. 
 
 Then comes the rising, with repentance bitter, 
 
 And all the nerves — (and sparrows) — in a twitter, 
 
 Till settled by the sober Chinese cup : 
 
 The hands, o'er all, are members that make motions, 
 
 A sort of wavering, just like the ocean's, 50 
 
 Which has its swell, too, when it 's getting up -- 
 
 An awkward circumstance enough for elves 
 
 Who shave themselves ; 
 And Simpson just was ready to go thro' it. 
 When lo ! the first short glimpse within the glass — 
 He jump'd — and who alive would fail to do it ? — 
 
THE GREEN MAN 555 
 
 To see, however it had come to pass, 
 One section of his face as green as grass ! 
 
 In vain each eager wipe. 
 With soap — without — wet — hot or cold — or dry, 60 
 
 Still, still, and still, to his astonished eye 
 One cheek was green, the other cherry ripe I 
 Plump in the nearest chair he sat him down. 
 Quaking, and quite absorb'd in a deep study, — 
 
 But verdant and not brown, — 
 What could have happened to a tint so ruddy ? 
 Indeed it was a very novel case. 
 By way of penalty for being jolly. 
 To have that evergreen stuck in his face. 
 Just like the windows with their Christmas holly. 70 
 
 ' All claret marks,' — thought he — Tom knew his forte — 
 ' Are red — this colour cannot come from Port ! ' 
 
 One thing was plain ; with such a face as his, 
 
 'Twas quite impossible to ever greet 
 
 Good Mrs. Brown ; nay, any party meet, 
 
 Altho' 'twas such a parti-coloured phiz I 
 
 As for the public, fancy Sarcy Ned, 
 
 The coachman, flying, dog-like, at his head, 
 
 With ' Ax your pardon, Sir, but if you please — 
 
 Unless it comes too high — 80 
 
 Vere ought a feller, now, to go to buy 
 The t'other half. Sir, of that 'ere green cheese ? ' 
 His mind recoil'd — so he tied up his head. 
 As with a raging tooth, and took to bed ; 
 Of course with feelings far from the serene. 
 For all his future prospects seemed to be. 
 
 To match his customary tea. 
 
 Black, mixt with green. 
 
 Meanwhile, good Mrs. Brown 
 Wondered at Mr. S. not coming down, 90 
 
 And sent the maid up stairs to learn the why ; 
 To whom poor Simpson, half delirious. 
 
 Returned an answer so mysterious 
 That curiosity began to fry ; 
 The more, as Betty, who had caught a snatch 
 By peeping in upon the patient's bed. 
 Reported a most bloody, tied-up head. 
 Got over-night of course — ' Harm watch, harm catch,' 
 
 From Watchmen in a boxing-match. 
 
 So, liberty or not, — 100 
 
 Good lodgers are too scarce to let thera off in 
 
 A suicidal coffin — 
 The dame ran up as fast as she could trot ; 
 
556 THE GREEN MAN 
 
 Appearance,—' fiddle-sticks ! ' should not detei 
 
 From going to the bed, 
 
 And looking at the head : 
 
 ' La ! Mister S , he need not care for her ! 
 
 A married woman that had had 
 Nine boys and gals, and none had turned out bad — 
 Her own dear late would come home late at night, 
 
 And liquor always got him in a fight. 
 She'd been in hospitals — she wouldn't faint 
 At gores and gashes fingers wide and deep ; 
 She knew what 's good for bruises and what ain't — 
 Turlington's Drops she made a pint to keep. 
 Cases she'd seen beneath the surgent's hand — 
 Such skulls japann'd — she meant to say trepann'd ! 
 Poor wretches ! you would think they'd been in battle, 
 
 And hadn't hours to live, 
 From tearing horses' kicks or Smithfield cattle. 
 
 Shamefully over-driv ! — 
 Heads forced to have a silver plate atop. 
 
 To get the brains to stop. 
 At imputations of the legs she'd been, 
 
 And neither screech'd nor cried ' 
 
 Hereat she plnck'd the white cravat aside. 
 And lo ! the whole phenomenon was seen — 
 ' Preserve us all ! He 's going to gangrene ! ' 
 
 Alas ! through Simpson's brain 
 Shot the remark, like ball, with mortal pain ; 'j" 
 
 It tallied truly with his own misgiving, 
 
 And brought a groan, 
 
 To move a heart of stone — 
 A sort of farewell to the land of living ! 
 And as the case was imminent and urgent, 
 He did not make a shadow of objection 
 To Mrs. B.'s proposal for a ' surgent,' 
 But merely gave a sigh of deep dejection. 
 While down the verdant cheek a tear of grief 
 Stole, like a dew-drop on a cabbage-leaf. »4o 
 
 Swift flew the summons, — it was life or death ! 
 And in as short a time as he could race it. 
 Came Doctor Puddicome, as short of breath, 
 To try his Latin charms against Hie Jacet. 
 He took a seat beside the patient's bed. 
 Saw tongue — felt pulse — examined the bad cheek, — 
 Poked, strok'd, pinch'd, kneaded it — hemm'd — shook his head- 
 TooH a long solemn pause the cause to seek, 
 (Thinking, it seem'd, in Greek,) 
 
THE GREEN MAN 557 
 
 Then ask'd — 'twas Christmas — ' Had he eaten grass, 150 
 
 Or greens — and if the cook was so improper 
 To boil them up with copper, 
 Or farthings made of brass ; 
 Or if he drank his Hock from dark green glass, 
 Or dined at City Festivals, whereat 
 There 's turtle, and green fat ? ' 
 To all of which, with serious tone of woe. 
 
 Poor Simpson answered ' No.' 
 Indeed he might have said in form auricular. 
 
 Supposing Puddicombe had been a monk — 160 
 
 He had not eaten (he had only drunk) 
 Of any thing ' Particular.' 
 The Doctor was at fault ; 
 A thing so new quite brought him to a halt. 
 Cases of other colours came in crowds. 
 
 He could have found their remedy, and soon ; 
 But green — it sent him up among the clouds, 
 As if he had gone up with Green's balloon ! 
 
 Black with Black Jaundice he had seen the skin ; 
 
 From Yellow Jaundice yellow, 170 
 
 From saffron tints to sallow;;^ 
 Then retrospective memory lugg'd in 
 Old Purple Face, the Host at Kentish Town— 
 
 East Indians, without number. 
 He knew familiarly, by heat done Brown, 
 
 From tan to a burnt umber, 
 Ev'n those eruptions he had never seen 
 Of which the Caledonian Poet spoke. 
 
 As ' rashes growing green ' — 
 
 ' Phoo ! phoo I a rash grow green ! iSo 
 
 Nothing of course but a broad Scottish joke I ' 
 Then as to flaming visages, for those 
 The Scarlet Fever answer'd, or the Rose — 
 But verdant ! that was quite a novel stroke ! 
 Men turn'd to blue, by Cholera's last stage, 
 In common practice he had really seen ; 
 But Green — he was too old, and grave, and sage, 
 To think of the last stage to Turnham Green J 
 
 So matters stood in-doors — meanwhile without, 
 
 Growing in going like all other rumours, 190 
 
 The modern miracle was buzz'd about. 
 By people of all humours. 
 
 Native or foreign in their dialecticals ; 
 Till all the neighbourhood, as if their noses 
 Had taken the odd gross from little Moses, 
 
 Seem'd looking thro' green spectacles. 
 
S58 
 
 THE GREEN MAN 
 
 ' Green faces ! ' so they all began to comment- 
 
 • Yes— opposite to Druggists' lighted shops, 
 
 But that 's a flying colour — never stops — 
 A bottle-green that 's vanish'd in a moment. 200 
 
 Green ! nothing of the sort occurs to mind, 
 Nothing at all to match the present piece ; 
 
 Jack in the Green has nothing of the kind — 
 Green-grocers are not green — nor yet green geese I ' 
 The oldest Supercargoes or Old Sailors 
 Of such a case had never heard, 
 From Emerald Isle to Cape de Verd ; 
 ' Or Greenland ! ' cried the whalers. 
 All tongues were full of the Green Man, and still 
 They could not make him out, with all their skill ; aio 
 
 No soul could shape the matter, head or tail — 
 But Truth steps in where all conjectures fail. 
 
 A long half hour, in needless puzzle. 
 
 Our Galen's cane had rubbed against his muzzle ; 
 
 He thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, and thought — 
 
 And still it came to nought, 
 
 When up rush'd Betty, loudest of Town Criers, 
 
 ' Lord, Ma'am, the new Police is at the door ! 
 
 It 's B, ma'am. Twenty-four, — 
 As brought home Mister S. to Austin Friars, 220 
 
 And says there 's nothing but a simple case — 
 
 He got that 'ere green face 
 By sleeping in the kennel near the Dyer's ! ' 
 
 POMPEY'S GHOST 
 
 A PATHETIC BALLAD 
 
 * Skins may differ, but affection 
 Dwells in white and black the same.'— Cotofer. 
 
 'TwAS twelve o'clock, not twelve at 
 night. 
 
 But twelve o'clock at noon ; 
 Because the sun was shining bright, 
 
 And not the silver moon. 
 A proper time for friends to call. 
 
 Or Pots, or Penny Post ; 
 When, lo ! as Phoebe sat at work. 
 
 She saw her Pompey's Ghost ! 
 
 Now when a female has a call 
 
 From people, that are dead ; 10 
 
 Like Paris ladies, she receives 
 Her visitors in bed. 
 
 But Pompey's Spirit could not come 
 Like spirits that are white, 
 
 Because he was a Blackamoor, 
 And wouldn't show at night ! 
 
 But of all unexpected things 
 
 That happen to us here. 
 The most unpleasant is a rise 
 
 In what is very dear. 20 
 
 So Phoebe screamed an awful scream. 
 
 To prove the seaman's text : 
 That after black appearances, 
 
 White squalls will follow next. 
 
POMPEY'S GHOST 
 
 559 
 
 ' Oh, Phoebe, dear ! oh, Phoebe, dear 1 
 
 Don't go to scream or faint ; 
 You think because I'm black I am 
 
 The Devil, but I ain't ! 
 Behind the heels of Lady Lambe 
 
 I walked whilst I had breath ; 30 
 But that is past, and I am now 
 
 A-walking after Death ! 
 
 ' No, murder, though, I come to tell 
 
 By base and bloody crime ; 
 So Phoebe, dear, put off your fits 
 
 Till some more fitting time : 
 No Crowner, like a boatswain's mate. 
 
 My body need attack, 
 With his round dozen to find out 
 
 Why I have died so black. 40 
 
 ' One Sunday^ shortly after tea, 
 
 My skin began to burn 
 As if I had in my inside 
 
 A heater, like the urn. 
 Delirious in the night I grew. 
 
 And as I lay in bed. 
 They say I gather'd all the wool 
 
 You see upon my head. 
 
 ' His Lordship for his doctor sent. 
 
 My treatment to begin — 50 
 
 I wish that he had call'd him out, 
 
 Before he call'd him in ! 
 For though to physic he was bred, 
 
 And pass'd at Surgeons' Hall, 
 To make his post a sinecure, 
 
 He never cured at all ! 
 
 ' The Doctor look'd about my breast. 
 
 And then about my back. 
 And then he shook his head and said, 
 
 " Your case looks very black." 60 
 And first he sent me hot cayenne. 
 
 And then gamboge to swallow, — 
 But still my Fever would not turn 
 
 To Scarlet or to Yellow ! 
 
 ' With madder and with turmeric 
 He made his next attack ; 
 
 But neither he nor all his drugs 
 Could stop my dying black. 
 
 At last I got so sick of life. 
 
 And sick of being dosed, 70 
 
 One Monday morning I gave up 
 
 My physic and the ghost ! 
 
 ' Oh, Phoebe, dear, what pain it was 
 
 To sever every tie ! 
 You know black beetles feel as much 
 
 As giants when they die — 
 And if there is a bridal bed. 
 
 Or bride of little worth. 
 It 's lying in a bed of mould. 
 
 Along with Mother Earth. 80 
 
 ' Alas ; some happy, happy day. 
 
 In church I hoped to stand. 
 And like a muff of sable skin 
 
 Receive your lily hand ; 
 But sternly with that piebald match 
 
 My fate untimely clashes — 
 For now, like Pompe-double-i, 
 
 I'm sleeping in my ashes ! 
 
 ' And now farewell ! a last farewell ! 
 
 I'm wanted down below, 90 
 
 And have but time enough to add 
 
 One word before I go — 
 In mourning crape and bombazine 
 
 Ne'er spend your precious pelf — 
 Don't go in black for me, — for I 
 
 Can do it for myself. 
 
 ' Henceforth within my grave I rest. 
 
 But Death, who there inherits, 
 Allowed my spirit leave to come. 
 
 You seemed so out of spirits : 100 
 But do not sigh, and do not cry, 
 
 By grief too much engross'd, — ■ 
 Nor, for a ghost of colour, turn 
 
 The colour of a ghost ! 
 
 ' Again farewell, my Phcebe dear ! 
 
 Once more a last adieu ! 
 For I must make myself as scarce 
 
 As swans of sable hue.' 
 From black to gray, from gray to 
 nought. 
 
 The Shape began to fade, — 110 
 And, like an egg, though not so white. 
 
 The Ghost was newly laid ! 
 
S6o 
 
 AN OPEN QUESTION 
 
 ' It is the king's highway that we are in, and in this way it is that thou bast placed the lions.'» 
 Bunyan. 
 
 What ! shut the Gardens I lock the lattic'd gate ! 
 
 Refuse the shilling and the Fellow's ticket I 
 And hang a wooden notice up to state, 
 
 ' On Sundays no admittance at this wicket I ' 
 The Birds, the Beasts, and all the Reptile race 
 
 Denied to friends and visitors till Monday ! 
 Now, really, this appears the common case 
 
 Of putting too much Sabbath into Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 The Gardens, — so unlike the ones we dub lo 
 
 Of Tea, wherein the artisan carouses, — 
 Mere shrubberies without one drop of shrub, — 
 
 Wherefore should they be closed like public-houses ? 
 No ale is vended at the wild Deer's Head, — 
 
 Nor rum — =nor gin — not even of a Monday — 
 The Lion is not carv'd — or gilt — or red. 
 
 And does not send out porter of a Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 The Bear denied ! the Leopard under locks ! 
 
 As if his spots would give contagious fevers, 20 
 
 The Beaver close as hat within its box. 
 
 So different from other Sunday beavers ! 
 The Birds invisible — the Gnaw-way Rats — 
 
 The Seal hermetically sealed till Monday — 
 The Monkey tribe— rthe Family of Cats, — 
 
 We visit other families on Sunday — ■ 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 What is the brute profanity that shocks 
 
 The super-sensitively-serious feeling ? 
 The Kangaroo — is he not orthodox 30 
 
 To bend his legs, the way he does, in kneeling ? 
 Was strict Sir Andrew, in his Sabbath coat, 
 
 Struck all a heap to see a Coati Mundi ? 
 Or did the Kentish Plumtree faint to note 
 
 The Pelicans presenting bills on Sunday ? 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 What feature has repulsed the serious set ? 
 
 What error in the bestial birth or breeding, 
 To put their tender fancies on the fret — ? 
 
 One thing is plain — it is not in the feeding I 40 
 
AN OPEN QUESTION 561 
 
 Some stiffish people think that smoking joints 
 
 Are carnal sins 'twixt Saturday and Monday — 
 But then the beasts are pious on these points, 
 
 For they all eat cold dinners on a Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 What change comes o'er the spirit of the place, 
 
 As if transmuted by some spell organic ? 
 Turns fell Hyaena of the Ghoulish race ? 
 
 The Snake, pro tempore, the true Satanic ? 
 Do Irish minds, — (whose theory allows 50 
 
 That now and then Good Friday falls on Monday) — 
 Do Irish minds suppose that Indian Cows 
 
 Are wicked Bulls of Bashan on a Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 There are some moody Fellows, not a few, 
 
 Who, turn'd by Nature with a gloomy bias, 
 Renounce black devils to adopt the blue. 
 
 And think when they are dismal they are pious — 
 Is't possible that Pug's untimely fun 
 
 Has. sent the brutes to Coventry till Monday — do 
 
 Or p'rhaps some animal, no serious one, 
 
 Was overheard in laughter on a Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 What dire offence have serious fellows found 
 
 To raise their spleen against the Regent's spinney ? 
 Were charitable boxes handed round. 
 
 And would not Guinea Pigs subscribe their guinea ? 
 Perchance the Demoiselle refused to moult 
 
 The feathers in her head — at least till Monday ; 
 Or did the Elephant, unseemly, bolt 70 
 
 A tract presented to be read on Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 At whom did Leo struggle to get loose ? 
 
 Who mourns thro' Monkey tricks his damag'd clothing ? 
 Who has been hissed by the Canadian Goose ? 
 
 On whom did Llama spit in utter loathing ? 
 Some Smithfield Saint did jealous feelings tell 
 
 To keep the Puma out of sight till Monday, 
 Because he prey'd extempore as well 
 
 As certain wild Itinerants on Sunday — 80 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 To me it seems, that in the oddest way 
 
 (Begging the pardon of each rigid Socius) 
 Our would-be Keepers of the Sabbath-day 
 
 Are like the Keepers of the brutes ferocious — 
 
562 AN OPEN QUESTION 
 
 As soon the Tiger might expect to stalk 
 About the grounds from Saturday till Monday, 
 
 As any harmless Man to take a walk, 
 
 If Saints could clap him in a cage on Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 90 
 
 In spite of all hypocrisy can spin, 
 
 As surely as I am a Christian scion, 
 I cannot think it is a mortal sin — 
 
 (Unless he 's loose) to look upon a lion. 
 I really think that one may go, perchance, 
 
 To see a bear, as guiltless as on Monday — 
 (That is, provided that he did not dance) 
 
 Bruin 's no worse than bakin' on a Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 In spite of all the fanatic compiles, 100 
 
 I cannot think the day a bit diviner. 
 Because no children, with forestalling smiles, 
 
 Throng, happy, to the gates of Eden Minor — 
 It is not plain, to my poor faith at least, 
 
 That what we christen ' Natural ' on Monday, 
 The wondrous history of Bird and Beast, 
 
 Can be Unnatural- because it 's Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 Whereon is sinful phantasy to work ? 
 
 The Dove, — the wing'd Columbus of Man's haven ? 110 
 
 The tender Love-bird — or the filial Stork ? 
 
 The punctual Crane — the providential Raven ? 
 The Pelican whose bosom feeds her young ? 
 
 Nay, must we cut from Saturday till Monday 
 That feather'd marvel with a human tongue. 
 
 Because she does not preach upon a Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 The busy Beaver — that sagacious beast ! 
 
 The Sheep that own'd an Oriental Shepherd — 
 That Desert-ship the Camel of the East, 120 
 
 The horned Rhinoceros — the spotted Leopard — 
 The creatures of the Great Creator's hand 
 
 Are surely sights for better days than Monday — 
 The Elephant, although he wears no band, 
 
 Has he no sermon in his trunk for Sunday — 
 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 What harm if men who burn the midnight-oil. 
 Weary of frame, and worn and wan in feature. 
 
 Seek once a-week their spirits to assoil, 
 
 And snatch a glimpse of ' Animated Nature ' ? 130 
 
AN OPEN QUESTION 
 
 Better it were, if, in his best of suits, 
 
 The artisan, who goes to work on Monday, 
 
 Should spend a leisure hour amongst the brutes. 
 Than make a beast of his own self on Sunday — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 Why, zounds ! what raised so Protestant a. fuss 
 (Omit the zounds ! for which I make apology) 
 
 But that the Papists, like some Fellows, thus 
 
 Had somehow mixed up Dens with their theology ? 
 
 Is Brahma's Bull — a Hindoo god at home — 
 A papal Bull to be tied up till Monday — 
 
 Or Leo, like his namesake, Pope of Rome, 
 
 That there is such a dread of them on Sunday — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 Spirit of Kant ! have we not had enough 
 To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish. 
 
 But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, 
 As vessels cant their ballast — ^rattling rubbish ! 
 
 Once let the sect, triumphant to their text, 
 Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday, 
 
 And sure as fate they will deny us next 
 To see the Dandelions on a Sunday — 
 But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? 
 
 563 
 
 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 A GOLDEN LEGEND 
 
 'What is here? 
 Gold ? yellow, glittering, precious gold ? 
 
 -Timon of Athens, 
 
 1)ec t>et)\Qiee. 
 
 To trace the Kilmansegg pedigree. 
 To the very roots of the family tree. 
 
 Were a task as rash as ridiculous : 
 Through antediluvian mists as thick 
 As London fog such a line to pick 
 Were enough, in truth, to puzzle Old 
 Nick, 
 
 Not to name Sir Harris Nicholas. 
 
 It wouldn't require much verbal 
 strain 
 
 To trace the Kill-man, perchance, to 
 Cain ; 
 But waiving all such digressions, 10 
 
 Suffice it, according to family lore, 
 
 A Patriarch Kilmansegg lived of 
 yore. 
 Who was famed for his great posses- 
 sions. 
 
S64 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 Tradition said he feather'd his nest 
 Through an Agricultural Interest 
 In the Golden Age of Farming ; 
 When golden eggs were laid by the 
 
 geese, 
 And Colchian sheep wore a golden 
 
 fleece, 
 And golden pippins — the sterling kind 
 Of Hesperus — now so hard to find — 20 
 .Made Horticulture quite charming ! 
 
 A Lord of Land, on his own estate. 
 
 He lived at a very lively rate, 
 
 But his income would bear carous- 
 ing ; 
 
 Such acres he had of pasture and 
 heath. 
 
 With herbage so rich from the ore 
 beneath, 
 
 Tlie very ewes' and lambkins' teeth 
 Were turned into gold by browsing. 
 
 He gave, without any extra thrift, 
 A flock of sheep for a birthday gift 30 
 To each son of his loins, or daugh- 
 ter : 
 And his debts — if debts he had — at 
 
 will 
 He liquidated by giving each bill 
 A dip in Pactolian water. 
 
 'Twas said that even his pigs of lead, 
 By crossing with some by Midas bred. 
 
 Made a perfect.mine of his piggery. 
 And as for cattle, one yearling bull 
 Was worth all Smithfield-market full 
 
 Of the Golden Bulls of Pope 
 Gregory. 40 
 
 The high-bred horses within his stud. 
 
 Like human creatures of birth and 
 
 blood, 
 
 Had their Golden Cups and flagons : 
 
 And as for the common husbandry 
 
 nags. 
 Their noses were tied in money-bags. 
 When they stopp'd with the carts 
 and waggons. 
 
 Moreover, he had a Golden Ass, 
 Sometimes at stall, and sometimes at 
 grass. 
 
 That was worth his own weight in 
 
 money — 49 
 
 And a golden hive on a Golden Bank, 
 
 Where golden bees by alchemical 
 
 prank 
 
 Gather'd gold instead of honey. 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! and gold without 
 
 end ! 
 He had gold to lay by, and gold to 
 
 spend, 
 Gold to give, and gold to lend, 
 
 And reversions of gold in futuro. 
 In wealth the family revell'd and 
 
 roU'd ; 
 Himself and wife and sons so bold ; 
 And his daughters sang to their harps 
 
 of gold 
 ' O bella etk del' oro ! ' 60 
 
 Such was the tale of the Kilmansegg 
 
 Kin, 
 In golden text on a vellum skin, 
 Though certain people would wink 
 
 and grin, 
 And declare the whole story a 
 
 parable — 
 That the Ancestor rich was one Jacob 
 
 Ghrimes, 
 Who held a long lease, in prosperous 
 
 times, 
 Of acres, pasture and arable. 
 
 That as money makes money his 
 
 golden bees 
 Were the five per cents, or which you 
 
 please, 
 When his cash was more than 
 
 plenty — 70 
 
 That the golden cups were racing 
 
 affairs ; 
 And his daughters, who sang Italian 
 
 airs. 
 Had their golden harps of Clementi. 
 
 That the Golden Ass, or Golden 
 
 Bull, 
 Was English John with his pockets 
 
 full, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 565 
 
 Then at war by land and water : 
 While beef, and mutton, and other 
 
 meat, 
 Were almost as dear as money to 
 
 eat. 
 And Farmers reaped Golden Harvests 
 of wheat. 
 At the Lord knows what per quar- 
 ter ! 80 
 
 1ber 3Bittb. 
 
 What different dooms our birthdays 
 
 bring ! 
 For instance, one little mannikin thing 
 Survives to wear many a wrinkle ; 
 While Death forbids another to wake, 
 And a son that it took nine moons to 
 make. 
 Expires without even a twinkle ! 
 
 Into this world we come like ships, 
 Launch'd from the docks, and sto^'ks, 
 and slips, 
 For fortune fair or fatal ; 
 And one little craft is cast away, 90 
 In its very first trip in Babbicome 
 Bay, 
 While another rides safe at Port 
 Natal. 
 
 What different lots our stars accord ! 
 
 This babe to be hail'd and woo'd as 
 
 a Lord, 
 
 And that to be shunned like a leper! 
 
 One, to the world's wine, honey, and 
 
 corn. 
 Another, like Colchester native, born 
 To its vinegar, only, and pepper. 
 
 One is littered under a roof 
 Neither wind nor water proof, — 100 
 That 's the prose of Love in a 
 
 Cottage — 
 A puny, naked, shivering wretch. 
 The whole of whose birthright would 
 
 not fetch. 
 Though Robins himself drew up the 
 
 sketch. 
 The bid of ' a mess of pottage.' 
 
 Born of Fortunatus's kin. 
 Another comes tenderly usher'd in 
 To a prospect all bright and bur- 
 nish 'd : 
 No tenant he, for life's back slums — 
 He comes to the world as a gentleman 
 comes no 
 
 To a lodging ready furnish'd. 
 
 And the other sex — the tender — the 
 
 fair — 
 What wide reverses of fate are there ! 
 While Margaret, charm'd by the Bul- 
 
 bul rare, 
 In a garden of Gul reposes — 
 Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from 
 
 street to street. 
 Till — think of that, who find life so 
 
 sweet ! — 
 She hates the smell of roses ! 
 
 Not so with the infant Kilmansegg ! 
 She was not born to steal or beg, 120 
 
 Or gather cresses in ditches ; 
 To plait the straw or bind the shoe. 
 Or sit all day to hem and sew, 
 As females must, and not a few — 
 
 To fill their insides with stitches ! 
 
 She was not doom'd for bread to eat 
 To be put to her hands as well as her 
 feet — 
 
 To carry home linen from mangles — 
 Or heavy-hearted, and weary-limb'd, 
 To dance on a rope in a jacket trimm'd 
 
 With as many blows as spangles. 
 
 She was one of those who by Fortune's 
 boon 132 
 
 Are born, as they say, with a silver 
 spoon 
 In her mouth, not a wooden ladle ; 
 To speak according to poet's wont, 
 Plntus as sponsor stood at her 
 font. 
 And Midas rOck'd the cradle. 
 
 At her first debul she found her head 
 On a pillow of down, in a downy 
 bed, 
 
566 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 With a damask canopy over. 140 
 For although by the vulgar popular 
 
 saw, 
 All mothers are said to be 'in the 
 straw,' 
 Some children are born in clover. 
 
 Her very first thought of vital air, 
 It was not the common chameleon 
 fare 
 Of Plebeian lungs and noses, — 
 No — her earliest sniff 
 Of this world was a whiflE 
 Of the genuine Otto of Roses 1 
 
 When she saw the light — it was no 
 mere ray 150 
 
 Of that light so common — so every- 
 day — 
 That the sun each morning 
 launches — 
 
 Biit six wax tapers dazzled her eyes, 
 
 From a thing — a gooseberry bush for 
 size — 
 With a golden stem and branches. 
 
 She was born exactly at half -past 
 
 two, 
 As witness'd a timepiece in or-molu 
 
 That stood on a marble table — 
 Showing at once the time of day, 159 
 And a team of Gildings running away 
 
 As fast as they were able. 
 With a golden God with a golden Star, 
 And a golden spear in a golden Car 
 
 According to Grecian fable. 
 
 Like other babes, at her birth she 
 
 cried. 
 Which made a sensation far and wide, 
 Ay, for twenty miles around her ; 
 For though to the ear 'twas nothing 
 
 more 
 Than an infant's squall, it was really 
 the roar 
 Of a Fifty-thousand Pounder ! 170 
 It shook the next heir 
 In his library chair. 
 And made him cry, 'Confound 
 her ! ' 
 
 Of signs and omens there was no 
 
 dearth. 
 Any more than at Owen Glendower's 
 birth, 
 Or the advent of other great people: 
 Two bullocks dropp'd dead, 
 As if knock'd on the head. 
 And barrels of stout 
 And ale ran about, 180 
 
 And the village-bells such a peal 
 rang out; ■ 
 
 That they cracked the village 
 steeple. 
 
 In no time at all, like mushroom 
 
 spawn. 
 Tables sprang up all over the lawn ; 
 Not furnish 'd scantly or shabbily. 
 But on scale as vast 
 As that huge repast, 
 With its loads and cargoes 
 Of drink and botargoes, 
 At the Birth of the Babe in Ra- 
 belais. 190 
 
 Hundreds of men were turn'd into 
 
 beasts, 
 Like the guests at Circe's horrible 
 
 feasts. 
 By the magic of ale and cider : 
 And each country lass, and each 
 
 country lad. 
 Began to caper and dance like mad. 
 And even some old ones appear'd to 
 
 have had 
 A bite from the Naples Spider. 
 
 Then as night came on. 
 It had scared King John, 
 Who considered such signs not 
 
 risible, soo 
 
 To have seen the maroons, 
 And the whirling moons, 
 And the serpents of flange. 
 And wheels of the same, 
 That according to some were ''whi?- 
 
 zable.' 
 
 Oh, happy Hope of the Kilmanseggs t 
 Thrice happy in head, and body, ai^d 
 legs, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 567 
 
 That her parents had such full 
 pockets I 
 For had she been born of Want and 
 
 Thrift, 
 For care and nursing all adrift, 210 
 It 's ten to one she had had to make 
 shift 
 With rickets instead of rockets I 
 
 And how was the precious Baby 
 
 drest ? 
 In a robe of the East, with lace of the 
 West, 
 Like one of Croesus's issue — 
 Her best bibs were made 
 Of rich gold brocade. 
 And the others of silver tissue. 
 
 And when the Baby inclined to nap. 
 She was luU'd on a Gros de Naples lap, 
 By a nurse, in a modish Paris cap, 221 
 
 Of notions so exalted, 
 ShedranknothinglowerthanCura^oa, 
 Maraschino, or pink Noyau, 
 
 And on principle never malted. 
 
 From a golden boat, with a golden 
 
 spoon. 
 The babe was fed uight, morning, and 
 
 noon ; 
 And altho' the tale seems fabulous, 
 'Tis said her tops and bottoms were 
 
 gilt, 
 Like the oats in that Stable-yard 
 
 Palace built 230 
 
 For the Horse of Heliogabalus. 
 
 And when she took to squall and kick. 
 For pain will wring, and pins will 
 prick. 
 E'en the wealthiest nabob's daugh- 
 ter;- 
 They gave her no vulgar Dalby or gin. 
 But a liquor with leaf of gold therein. 
 Videlicet — Dantzic Water. 
 
 In short, she was born, and bred, and 
 
 nurst. 
 And drest in the best from the very 
 
 first, 239 
 
 To please the genteelest censor — 
 And then, as soon as strength would 
 
 allow. 
 Was vaccinated, as babes are now, 
 With virus ta'en from the best-bred 
 cow 
 Of Lord Althorpe's — now Earl Spen- 
 cer. 
 
 Ibet GbTtstening. 
 
 Though Shakespeare asks us, ' What 's 
 
 in a name ? ' 
 (As if cognomens were much the 
 
 same), 
 There 's really a very great scope 
 
 in it. 
 A name ? — why, wasn't there Doctor 
 
 Dodd, 
 That servant at once of Mammon and 
 
 God, 
 Who found four thousand pounds and 
 
 odd, 250 
 
 A prison — a cart — and a rope in it ? 
 
 A name ? — if the party had a voice. 
 What mortal would be a, Bugg by 
 
 choice. 
 As a Hogg, a Grubb, or a Chubb re- 
 joice. 
 Or any such nauseous blazon ? 
 Not to mention many a vulgar name. 
 That would make a doorpCite blush 
 for shame. 
 If doorplates were not so brazen ! 
 
 A name ? — it has more than nominal 
 
 worth, 
 And belongs to good or bad luck at 
 
 birth — 260 
 
 As dames of a certain degree know. 
 In spite of his Page's hat and hose, 
 His Page's jacket, and buttons in 
 
 rows. 
 Bob only sounds like a page of prose 
 Till turu'd into Rupertino. 
 
 Now to christen the infant Kilman- 
 
 segg. 
 For days and days it was quite a 
 
 plague. 
 
568 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 To hunt the Ust in the Lexicon : 
 And scores were tried like coin by the 
 
 ring, 
 Ere names were found just the proper 
 thing 270 
 
 For a minor rich as a Mexican. 
 
 Then cards were sent, the presence to 
 
 beg 
 Of all the kin of Kilmansegg, 
 
 White, yellow, and brown relations: 
 Brothers, Wardens of City Halls, 
 And Uncles — ^rich as three Golden 
 Balls 
 From taking pledges of nations. 
 
 Nephews, whom Fortune seem'd to 
 bewitch, 
 
 Rising in life like rockets — 279 
 Nieces whose dowries knew no hitch — 
 Aunts as certain of dying rich 
 
 As candles in golden sockets — 
 Cousins German and cousins' sons. 
 All thriving and opulent — some had 
 tons 
 
 Of Kentish hops in" their pockets ! 
 
 For money had stuck to the race thro' 
 
 life 
 ( As it did to the bushel when cash so rife 
 Posed Ali Baba's brother's wife) — 
 And down to the Cousins and Coz- 
 
 lings, 
 The fortunate brood of the Kilman- 
 
 seggs, 290 
 
 As if they had come out of golden eggs 
 
 Were all as wealthy as ' Goslings.' 
 
 It would fill a Court Gazette to name 
 What East and West End people came 
 
 To the rite of Christianity : 
 The lofty Lord and the titled Dame, 
 All di'monds, plumes, and urbanity: 
 His Lordship the May'r with his 
 
 golden chain, 
 And two Gold .Sticks, and the Sheriffs 
 
 twain, 
 
 Nine foreign Counts, and other great 
 
 men 300 
 
 With their orders and stars, to help 
 
 MorN 
 
 To renounce all pomp and vanity. 
 
 To paint the maternal Kilmansegg, 
 The pen of an Eastern Poet would beg, 
 . And need an elaborate sonnet ; 
 How she sparkled with gems whenever 
 
 she stirr'd, 
 And her head niddle-noddled at every 
 
 word, 
 And seem'd so happy, a Paradise Bird 
 Had nidificated upon it. 
 
 And Sir Jacob the Father strutted and 
 bow'd, 310 
 
 And smiled to himself, and laugh'd 
 aloud, 
 To think of his heiress and daugh- 
 ter— 
 
 And then in his pockets he made a 
 grope. 
 
 And then, in the fulness of joy and 
 hope, 
 
 Seem'd washing his hands with in- 
 visible soap. 
 In imperceptible water. 
 
 He had roll'd in money like pigs in 
 
 mud. 
 Till it seem'd to have enter'd into his 
 
 blood 
 By some occult projection : 
 And his cheeks, instead of a healthy 
 
 hue, 320 
 
 As yellow as any guinea grew, 
 Making the common phrase seem true 
 About a rich complexion. 
 
 And now came the Nurse, and during 
 
 a pause. 
 Her dead-leaf satin would fitly cause 
 
 A very autumnal rustle — 
 So full of figure, so full of fuss, 
 As she carried about the babe to buss. 
 
 She seem'd to be nothing but bustle. 
 
 A wealthy Nabob was Godpapa, 330 
 And an Indian Begum was God- 
 mamma, 
 Whose jewels aQueen might covet — 
 And the Priest was a Vicar, and Dean 
 
 withal 
 Of that Temple we see with a Golden 
 Ball, 
 And a Golden Cross above it. 
 
INUSS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 569 
 
 The Font was a bowl of American gold, 
 Won by Raleigh in days of old, 
 
 In spite of Spanish bravado ; 
 And the Book of Pray'r was so over- 
 run 339 
 With gilt devices, it shone in the sun, 
 Like a copy — a presentation one — 
 
 Of Humboldt's ' El Dorado/ 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! and nothing but 
 
 gold 1 
 The same auriferous shine behold 
 Wherever the eye could settle ! 
 On the walls — the sideboard — ^the 
 
 ceiling-sky — 
 On the gorgeous footmen standing by. 
 In coats to delight a miner's eye. 
 With seams of the precious metal. 
 
 Gold! and gold I and besides the gold. 
 The very robe of the infant told 351 
 A tale of wealth in every fold ; 
 
 It lapp'd her like a vapour ! 
 So fine ! so thin ! the mind at a loss 
 Could compare it to nothing, except a 
 cross 
 
 Of cobwebs with bank-note paper. 
 
 Then her pearls — 'twas a perfect 
 
 sight, forsooth. 
 To see them, like ' the dew of her 
 youth,' 
 In such a plentiful sprinkle. 
 Meanwhile, the Vicar read through 
 the form, ,^ " < 360 
 
 And gave her another, not overwarm, 
 That made her little eyes twinkle. 
 
 Then the babe was cross'd, and bless'd 
 amain. 
 
 But instead of the Kate, or Ann, or 
 Jane, ' 
 Which the humbler' female en- 
 dorses. 
 
 Instead of one name, as some people 
 prefix, 
 
 Kilmansegg went at the tails of six, 
 Like a carriage of state with its 
 horses. 
 
 Oh, then the kisses she got and hugs ! 
 
 The golden mugs and the golden jugs, 
 
 That lent fresh rays to the midges ! 
 
 The golden knives, and the golden 
 
 spoons, 372 
 
 The gems that sparkled like fairy 
 
 boons, 
 It was one of the Kilmanseggs' own 
 
 saloons, 
 But looked like Rundell and 
 
 Bridge's ! 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! the new a:nd old ! 
 The company ate and drank from gold. 
 They revell'd, they sang;, and were 
 merry ; 
 And one of the Gold Sticks rose from 
 
 his chair, 
 And toasted ' the Lass with the 
 golden hair ' 380 
 
 In a bumper of golden Sherry. 
 
 Gold ! still gold ! it rain'd on the 
 
 Nurse, 
 Who, unlike Danae, was none the 
 
 worse ; 
 There was nothing but guineas 
 glistening 1 
 Fifty were given to Doctor James 
 For calling the little Baby names, 
 And for saying. Amen ! 
 The Clerk had ten. 
 And that was the end of the Christen 
 ing. 
 
 fbet CbU&boo&. 
 
 Our youth! our childhood! that spring 
 
 of springs ! 390 
 
 'Tis surely one of the blessedest things 
 
 That nature ever invented ! 
 When the rich are wealthy beyond 
 
 their wealth, 
 And the poor are rich in spirits and 
 health, 
 And all with their lots contented ! 
 
 There 's little Plielim, he sings like a 
 
 thrush, 
 In the selfsame pair of patchwork 
 
 plush, 
 
S70 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 With the selfsame empty pockets, 
 That tempted his daddy so often to 
 
 cut 
 His throat, or jump in the water- 
 butt. — 400 
 But what cares Phelim ? an empty 
 nut 
 Would sooner bring tears to their 
 sockets. 
 
 Give him a collar without a skirt. 
 That 's the Irish linen for shirt, 
 And a slice of bread; with a taste of 
 dirt. , 
 That 's Poverty's Irish butter.. 
 And what does he lack to make him 
 
 blest?,,.. 
 Some oyster-shells, or a. sparrow's 
 .nest, 
 A candle-end and a gutter. 409 
 
 But ±0 leave the happy Phelim alone, 
 Gnawing, perchance, a marrowless 
 bOne, 
 For which no dog would quarrel — 
 Turn we to little Miss Kilmansegg, 
 Cutting her first little toothy-peg 
 With a fifty-guinea coral — 
 A peg upon which 
 About poor and rich 
 Reflection might hang a moral. 
 
 Born in wealth and wealthily nursed, 
 Gapp'd, papp^d, napp'd, and lapp'd 
 from the first 420 
 
 On the knees of Prodigality. 
 Her childhood was one eternal round 
 Of the game of going on Tickler's 
 ground, 
 Picking up gold — in reality. 
 
 With extempore carts she never 
 
 play'd. 
 Or the odds and ends of a Tinker's 
 
 trade. 
 Or little dirt pies and puddings made, 
 Like children happy and squalid ; 
 The very puppet she had to pet, 
 Like a bait for the ' Nix my Dolly ' 
 set, 430 
 
 Was a Dolly of gold — and solid ! 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! 'twas the burden 
 
 still! 
 To gain the Heiress's early goodwill 
 There was much corruption and 
 
 bribery — 
 The yearly cost of her golden toys 
 Would have given half London's 
 
 Charity Boys 
 And Charity Girls the annual joys 
 Of a holiday dinner at Highbury. 
 
 Bon-bons she ate from the gilt cornet ; 
 And gilded queens on St. Bartlemy's 
 day ; 440 
 
 Till her fancy was tinged by her 
 presents — 
 And first a Goldfinch excited her wish, 
 Then a spherical bowl with it's Golden 
 fish, 
 And then two Golden Pheasants. 
 
 Nay, once she squall'd and scream 'd 
 
 like wild — 
 And it shows how the bias we give to 
 
 a child 
 Is a thing most weighty and 
 
 solemn ; — 
 But whence was wonder or blame to 
 
 spring, 
 If little Miss K., — after such a swing — 
 Made a dust for the flaming gilded 
 
 thing 450 
 
 On the top of the Fish-street 
 
 column ? 
 
 fbcx Education. 
 
 According to metaphysical creed. 
 To the earliest books that children 
 
 read 
 For much good or much bad they 
 
 are debtors ; 
 But before with their ABC they start, 
 There are things in morals as well as 
 
 art. 
 That play a very important part — 
 ' Impressions before the letters." 
 
 Dame Education begins the pile. 
 Mayhap in the graceful Corinthian 
 style, 460 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 571 
 
 But alas for the elevation ! 
 If the Lady's maid or Gossip the 
 
 Nurse 
 With a load of rubbish, or something 
 worse, 
 Have made a rotten foundation. 
 
 Even thus with little Miss Kilmaiisegg, 
 Before she learnt hqr E for egg, 
 Ere her Governess came, or her 
 Masters — 
 Teachers of quite a different kind 
 Had ' cramm'd ' her beforehand, and 
 put her mind 
 In a go-cart on golden castors. 470 
 
 Long before her A B and C, 
 
 They had taught her by heart her 
 
 L. S. D., ' 
 And as how she was born a, great 
 
 Heiress ; 
 And as sure as London is built of 
 
 bricks, 
 My Lord would ask her the day to fix. 
 To ride in a fine gilt coach and six, 
 Like her Worship the Lady May 'ress. 
 
 Instead of stories from Edgeworth's 
 
 page, > '• 
 
 The true goldenlore for our golden age. 
 Or lessons from Barbauld and 
 
 Trimmer, 480 
 
 Teaching the worth of Virtue and 
 
 Health, 
 All that she knew was the Virtue of 
 
 Wealth, , 
 Provided by vulgar nursery stealth 
 With a Book of Leaf Gold for a 
 
 Primer. 
 
 The very metal of merit they told, 
 And prais'd her for being as ' good as 
 
 gold' 
 Till she grew as a peacock haughty ; 
 Of money they talk'd the whole day 
 
 round, 
 And weigh'd desert like grapes by the 
 
 pound. 
 Till she had an idea from the very 
 
 sound 490 
 
 That people with naught were 
 
 naughty. 
 
 They praised — ^poor children with 
 nothing at all ! 
 
 Lord 1 how you twaddle and waddle 
 and squall. 
 Like common-bred geese and gan- 
 ders ! 
 
 What sad little bad little figures you 
 make 
 
 To the rich Miss K., whose plainest 
 seed-cake 
 Was stufi'd with corianders 1 
 
 They prais'd her falls, as well as her 
 
 walk. 
 
 Flatterers make cream cheese of chalk , 
 
 They prais'd — how they prais'd — her 
 
 very small talk, 500 
 
 As if it fell from a Solon ; 
 
 Or the girl who at each pretty phrase 
 
 let drop 
 A ruby comma, a pearl full-stop. 
 And an emerald semi-colon. 
 
 They prais'd her spirit, and now and 
 
 then, 
 The Nurse brought her own little 
 ' nevy ' Ben, 
 To play with the future May'iress, 
 And when he got raps, and taps, and 
 
 slaps. 
 Scratches, and pinches, snips, and 
 snaps, 
 As if from a Tigiress or Bearess, 510 
 They told him how lords would court 
 
 that hand. 
 And always gave him to understand, 
 While he rubbed, poor soul ! 
 His carroty poll. 
 That his hair had been pulled by ' a 
 Hairess.' 
 
 Such were the lessons from maid and 
 
 nurse, 
 A Governess helped to make still 
 
 worse. 
 Giving an appetite so perverse 
 
 Fresh diet whereon to batten- 
 Beginning with A B C to hold 520 
 Like a royal play-bill printed in gold 
 On a square of pearl-white satin. 
 
572 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 The books to teach the verbs and 
 
 nouns, 
 And those about countries, cities, and 
 
 towns, 
 Instead of their sober drabs and 
 
 browns, 
 Were in crimson silk, with gilt 
 
 edges ; — 
 Her Butler and Enfield and Entick— 
 
 in short 
 Her ' Early Lessons ' of every sort, 
 Looked like Souvenirs, Keepsakes, 
 
 and Pledges. 5^9 
 
 Old Johnson shone out in as fine array 
 As he did one night when he went to 
 
 the play ; 
 Chambaud like a beau of King 
 
 Charles's day — 
 Lindley Murray in like conditions^ 
 Each weary, unwelcomejirksome task, 
 Appear'd in a fancy dress and a 
 
 mask — 
 If you wish for similar copies ask 
 
 For Howell and James's Editions. 
 Novels she read to amuse her mind, 
 But always the afifluent match-making 
 
 kind 
 That ends with Promessi Sposi, 540 
 And a father-in-law so wealthy and 
 
 grand, 
 He could give cheque-mate to Coutts 
 
 in the Strand ; 
 So along with a ring and posy. 
 He endows the Bride with Golconda 
 
 offhand, 
 And gives the Groom Potosi. 
 Plays she perused— ^but she liked the 
 
 best 
 Those comedy gentlefolks always 
 
 possessed 
 Of fortunes so truly romantic — • 
 Of money so ready that right or 
 
 wrong 
 It always is ready to go for a song, sso 
 Throwing it, going it, pitching it 
 
 strong — 
 They ought to have purses as green 
 
 and long 
 As the cucumber called theGigau tic. 
 
 Then Eastern Tales she loved for the 
 
 sake 
 
 Of the Purse of Oriental make. 
 And the thousand pieces they put 
 
 in it — 
 But Pastoral scenes on her heart fell 
 
 cold, 
 For Nature with her had lost its hold. 
 No field but the Field of the Cloth of 
 
 Gold 
 Would ever have caught her foot in 
 
 it. 560 
 
 What more ? She learned to sing, 
 
 and dance. 
 To sit on a horse, although he should 
 
 prance. 
 And to speak a French not spoken in 
 France 
 Any more than at Babel's build- 
 , iug— 
 And she painted shells, and flowers, 
 
 and Turks, 
 But her great delight was in Fancy 
 Works 
 That are done with gold or gilding. 
 
 Gold ! still gold !— the bright and the 
 
 dead, 
 With golden beads, and gold lace, and 
 
 gold thread, 5*9 
 
 She work'd in gold as if for her bread, 
 
 The metal had so undermined her — 
 
 Gold ran in her thoughts and fiU'd her 
 
 brain. 
 She was golden-headed as Peter's cane 
 With which he walked behind her. 
 
 f>et BcciDent. 
 
 The horse that carried Miss Kilman- 
 
 segg. 
 And a better never lifted leg. 
 
 Was a very rich bay, called 
 
 Banker — 
 A horse of a breed and a mettle so 
 
 rare, — 
 By Bullion out of an Ingot mare, — 
 That for action, the best of figures, 
 
 and air, 580 
 
 It made many good judges hanker. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER 'PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 573 
 
 And when she took a ride in the Park, 
 Equestrian Lord, or pedestrian Clerk, 
 
 Was thrown in an amorous fever, 
 To see the heiress how well she sat, 
 With her groom behind her. Bob or 
 
 Nat, 
 In green, half smpther'd with gold, 
 and a hat 
 With more gold lace than beaver. 
 
 And then when Banker obtained a pat. 
 To see how he arch'd his neck at that ! 
 
 He snorted with pride and pleasure I 
 
 Like the Steed in the fable so lofty 
 
 and grand, S92 
 
 Who gave the poor Ass to understand. 
 
 That he didn't carry a bag of sand, 
 
 But a burden of golden treasure. 
 
 A load of treasure ? — alas ! alas ! 
 Had her horse but been fed upon 
 I English grass 
 
 And sheltered in Yorkshire spinneys. 
 
 Had he: scour'd the sand with the 
 
 Desert Ass,- S99 
 
 Or where the American whinnies, — 
 
 But a hunter from Erin's turf and 
 
 gorse, 
 A regular thorough-bred Irish horse. 
 Why, he ran away, as a matter of 
 course. 
 With a girl worth her weight in 
 guineas ! 
 
 Mayhap 'tis the trick of such pamper'd 
 
 . nags 
 To shy at the sight of a beggar in rags ; 
 But away, like the bolt of a rabbit. 
 Away went the horse in the madness 
 
 of fright, 
 And away went the horsewoman 
 
 mocking the sight — 
 Was yonder blue flash a flash of blue 
 light, 610 
 
 Or only the skirt of her habit ? 
 
 Away she flies, with the groom be- 
 hind, — 
 
 It looks like a race of the Calmuck 
 kind. 
 
 When Hymen himself is the starter : 
 And the Maid rides first in the four- 
 
 I footed strife, : 
 Riding, striding, as if for her life. 
 While the Lover rides after to catch 
 him a wife. 
 
 Although it 's catching a Tartar, 
 
 But the Groom has lost his glittering 
 
 hat ! 
 Though he does not sigh and pull up 
 
 for that — 6zo 
 
 Alas ! his horse is a tit for Tatt, 
 To sell to a very low bidder — 
 His wind is ruin'd, his shoulder is 
 
 sprung. 
 Things, though a horse be well-bred 
 
 and young, 
 A purchaser will consider. 
 
 But still flies the heiress through 
 
 stones and dust. 
 Oh, for a fall, if fall she must, , 
 
 On the gentle lap of Flora ! 
 But still, thank Heaven ! she clings 
 
 to her seat — 629 
 
 Away! away! shecould ride a dead heat 
 With the Dead who ride so fast and 
 
 fleet,' 
 In the Ballad of Leonora ! 
 
 Away she gallops ! — it 's awful work ! 
 It 's faster than Turpin's ride to York, 
 
 On Sess that notable clipper ! 
 She has circled the Ring I — she crosses 
 the Park! ' 
 
 Mazeppa, although he was stripp'd so 
 stark, 
 Mazeppa couldn't outstrip her ! 
 
 The fields seem , running away with 
 the folks ! 
 
 The Elms are having a race for the 
 Oaks ! 640 
 
 At a pace that all Jockeys dis- 
 parages ! 
 
 All, all is racing ! the Serpentine 
 
 Seems rushing past like the ' arrowy 
 Rhine,' 
 
 The houses have got on a railway line, 
 And are off like the first-class car- 
 riages I 
 
574 ^nSS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 She'll lose her life ! she. is losing her 
 
 breath ! 
 A cruel chase, she is chasing Death, 
 As female shriekings forewarn her ; 
 And now — as gratis as blood of 
 
 Guelph — 
 She clears that gate, which has cleared 
 itself 650 
 
 Since then, at Hyde Pai-k Corner ! 
 
 Alas ! for the hope of the Kilman- 
 
 seggs ! 
 For her head, her brains, her body, 
 and legs, 
 Her life 's not worth a copper ! 
 Willy-nilly, 
 In Piccadilly, 
 A hundred hearts turn sick and chilly, 
 A hundred voices cry, ' Stop her ! ' 
 And one old gentleman stares and 
 
 stands, 
 Shakes his head and lifts Ijis hahds,66o 
 And says, ' How very improper ! ' 
 
 On, and on ! — what a perilous run ! 
 The iron rails seem all mingling in one. 
 To shut out the Green Park scenery! 
 And now the Cellar its dangers reveals. 
 She shudders — she shrieks — she 's 
 
 doom'd, she, feels, 
 To be torn by powers of horses and 
 wheels, 
 Like a spinner by steam machinery! 
 
 Sick with horror she shuts her eyes^ 
 
 But the very stones seem uttering 
 
 cries, 670 
 
 As they did to that Persian 
 
 daughter. 
 
 When she climb 'd up the steep 
 
 vociferous hill. 
 Her little silver flagon to fill 
 With the magical Golden Water ! 
 
 ' Batter her ! shatter her ! 
 Throw and scatter her I ' 
 Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer ! 
 
 ' Dash at the heavy Dover ! 
 Spill her ! kill her ! tear and tatter 
 
 her! 
 Smash her ! crash her ! ' (the stones 
 didn't flatter her !) 680 
 
 ' Kick her. brains out ! let her blood 
 • spatter her ! 
 Roll on her over and over ! ' 
 
 For so she gathered the awful sense 
 
 Of the street in its past unmacad- 
 
 amiz'd tense, 
 
 As the wild horse overran it,— 
 
 His four heels making the clatter of 
 
 six, ' 
 Like a Devil's tattoo, play'd with iron 
 sticks 
 On a kettle-drum of granite ! 
 
 On! still oni! she 's dazzled with hints 
 Qf oranges, ribbons, and colour'd 
 , . prints, 690 
 
 A Kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and 
 tiilts. 
 And human faces all flashing, 
 Bright and brief as the sparks from 
 thp fliijts, , , ,, 
 That the desperate hoof keeps 
 dashing ! / 
 
 On and on ! : still frightfully fast ! 
 Dover-street, Bond-street, all are past! 
 But — yes— no — ^yes ! — they're down 
 . at last ! 
 The Furies and Fates have found 
 .:•'. them ! 
 Down they; go with a sparkle arid 
 
 crash, • ■ 
 
 Like a Bark that 's struck by the 
 lightning flash — 700 
 
 There 's a shriek — and a sob — 
 And the dense dark mob 
 Like a billow closes around them ! 
 
 ****** 
 ' She breathes ! ' 
 ' She don't ! ' 
 'She'll recover ! ' 
 ' She won't ! ' 
 'She 's stirring ! she 's living, by 
 Nemesis ! ' 
 Gold, still gold! on counter and shelf ! 
 Golden dishes as plenty as delf ! 710 
 Miss Kilmansegg 's coming again to 
 herself 
 On an opulent Goldsmith's pre- 
 mises ! 
 
:\IISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 575 
 both yellow and 
 
 Gold ! fine gold ! 
 
 red, 
 Beaten, and molten — polish'd, and 
 
 dead — 
 To see the gold with profusion spread 
 
 In all forms of its -manufacture ! 
 But what avails gold to Miss Kilman- 
 
 segg. 
 When the femoral bone of her dexter 
 
 leg 
 Has met with a compound fracture ? 
 
 Gold may sooth Adversity's smart ; 
 
 Nay, help to bind up a broken heart ; 
 
 But to try it on any other part 722 
 Were as certain a disappointment, 
 
 As if one should rub the dish and 
 plate, 
 
 Taken out of a Staffordshire crat6 — 
 
 In the hope of a Golden Service of 
 State— 
 With Singleton's ' Golden Oint- 
 ment.' 
 
 Ibec precious %eg. 
 
 ' As the twig is bent, the tree 's in- 
 clined,' 
 
 Is an adage often recall'd to mind, 
 Referring to juvenile bias : 730 
 
 And never so well is the verity 
 seen, 
 
 As when to the weak, warp'd side we 
 lean. 
 While Life's tempests and hurri- 
 canes try us. 
 
 Kven thus with Miss K. and her 
 
 broken limb, 
 By a very, very remarkable whim. 
 
 She show'd her early tuition : 
 While the buds of character came into 
 
 blow 
 With a certain tinge that served to 
 
 show 
 The nursery culture long ago, 739 
 As the graft is known by fruition ! 
 
 For the King's Physician, ^yho nursed 
 the case. 
 
 His verdict gave with an awful face, 
 And three others concurr'd to egg it : 
 That the Patient to give old Death 
 
 the slip. 
 Like the Pope, instead of a personal 
 trip, 
 Must send her Leg as a Legate. 
 
 The limb was doom'd — it couldn't be 
 
 saved ! 
 And like other people the patient 
 
 behaved, ' 
 
 Nay, bravely that cruel parting 
 
 braved. 
 Which makes some persons so 
 
 falter ; 750 
 
 They rather would part without a 
 
 groan, 
 With the flesh of their flesh, and bone 
 
 of their bone, 
 They obtained at St. George's altar. 
 
 But when it came to fitting the 
 
 stump 
 With a proxy limb — then flatly and 
 
 plump 
 She spoke, in the spirit olden ; 
 She couldn't — she shouldn't — she 
 
 wouldn't have wood ! 
 Nor a leg of cork, if. she never 
 
 stood, 
 And she swore an oath, or something 
 
 as good, 7S9 
 
 The proxy limb should be golden ! ^ 
 
 A wooden leg ! what, a Sort of peg, 
 For your common Jockeys and 
 
 Jennies I 
 No, no, her mother might worry and 
 
 plague — 
 Weep, go down on her knees, and beg. 
 But nothing would move Miss Kil- 
 
 mansegg 
 
 She could — she would have a Golden 
 Leg, 
 If it cost ten thousand guiiieas ! ; 
 
 Wood indeed, in Forest or Park, 
 With its sylvan honours and feudal 
 bark. 
 
5/6 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 Is an aristocratical article ; 770 
 But split and sawn, and hack'd about 
 
 town, 
 Serving all needs of pauper or clown, 
 Trod on! staggered on I. Wood cut 
 down 
 Is vulgar — fibre and particle ! 
 
 And Cork l-rrwhen the noble Cork 
 
 Tree shades 
 A lovely group of Castilian maids, 
 
 'Tis a thing for a song or sonnet ! — 
 
 But cork, as it stops the bottle of gin, 
 
 Or bungs the beer — the small beer ! — 
 
 in— ,^ 779 
 
 It pierced her heart like a corking-pin. 
 
 To think of standing upon it ! 
 
 A Leg of Gold — solid gold throughout. 
 Nothing else, whether slim or stout. 
 Should ever support her, God will- 
 ing ! 
 She must — she could — she would have 
 
 her whim. 
 Her father, she turned a deaf ear to 
 him — 
 He might kill her — she didn't mind 
 killing ! 
 He was -wdcome to cut off her other 
 limb — 
 He might cut her all off with a 
 shilling ! 789 
 
 All other promised gifts were in vain. 
 Golden Girdle, or Golden Chain 
 She writhed with impatience more 
 than pain. 
 And uttered 'psha\y,s! ' and 'pishes I ' 
 But a Leg of Gold ! as she lay in bed. 
 It danced before her — it ran in her 
 head ! 
 It jump'd with her dearest wishes ! 
 
 ' Gold— gold— gold ! Oh, let it be 
 
 gold ! ' 
 Asleep or awake that tale she told, 
 
 And when she grew delirious : 
 Till her parents resolved to grant her 
 wish, 80a 
 
 If they melted down plate, and goblet, 
 and dish, 
 The case was getting so serious. 
 
 So a Leg was made in a comely mould. 
 Of Gold, fine virgin glittering gold, 
 
 As solid as man could make it — 
 Solid in foot, and calf, and shank, 
 A prodigious sum of money it sank ; 
 In fact 'twas a Branch of the family 
 Bank, 
 
 And no easy matter to break it. 
 
 All sterling metal^not half-and-half. 
 The Goldsmith's mark was stamped 
 
 on the calf — 811 
 
 'Twas pure as from Mexican barter! 
 
 And to make it more costly, just over 
 
 the knee- 
 Where another ligature used to be, 
 Was a circle of Jewels, worth shillings 
 
 to see, 
 A new-fangled Badge of the Garter I 
 
 'Twas a splendid, brilliant, beautiful 
 
 Leg, 
 Fit for the Court of Scander-Beg, 
 ThatPreciousLeg of Miss Kilmansegg I 
 For, thanks to parental bounty, 820 
 Secure from Mortification's touch. 
 She stood on a Member that cost as 
 much 
 As a Member for all the County ! 
 
 •fccr jfame. 
 
 To gratify stern ambition's whims, 
 What hundreds and thousands of 
 precious limbs 
 On a field of battle we scatter ! 
 Sever'd by sword, or bullet, or saw, 
 Off they go, all bleeding and raw, — 
 But the public seems to get the lock- 
 jaw, 
 So little is said on the matter ! 830 
 
 Legs, the tightest that ever were seen. 
 The tightest, the lightest, that danc'd 
 
 on the green. 
 Cutting capers to sweet Kitty 
 
 Clover ; 
 Shatter'd, scatter'd, cut,bowrd down. 
 Off they go, worse off for renown, 
 A line in the Times, or a talk about 
 
 town. 
 Than the leg that a fly runs over ! 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 577 
 
 But the Precious Leg of Mis? Kilman- 
 
 segg, 
 That gowden, goolden, golden leg, 839 
 Was the theme of all conversation ! 
 Had it been a Pillar of Church and 
 
 State, 
 Or a prop to support the whole Dead 
 
 Weight, 
 It could not have furnish'd more 
 
 debate 
 To the heads and tails qf the nation! 
 
 East, and west, and north, and south. 
 Though useless for either hunger or 
 
 drouth — 
 The Leg was in everybody's mouth, 
 
 To use a poetical figure, 848 
 
 Rumour, in taking her ravenous swim, 
 Saw, and seiz'd on the tempting limb. 
 
 Like a shark on the leg of a nigger. 
 
 Wilful Murder fell very dead ; 
 Debates in the House were Jiardly 
 
 •read ; 
 In vain the Police Reports were fed 
 
 With Irish riots and rumpuses^ 
 The Leg ! the Leg I was the great 
 
 event, i 
 
 Through every circle in life it went. 
 Like the leg of a pair of compasses. 
 
 The last new Novel seem'd tame and 
 
 flat, 8S9 
 
 The Leg, a novelty newer than that. 
 Had tripp'd up the heels of Fiction ! 
 It Burked the very essays of Burke, 
 And, alas! how Wealth over Wit plays 
 
 the Turk ! 
 As a regular piece of goldsmith's work. 
 Got the better of Goldsmith's dic- 
 tion. 
 
 ■ A leg of gold ! what, of solid gold ! ' 
 
 Cried rich and poor, and young and 
 
 old. 
 
 And Master and Miss and Madam— 
 
 'Twas the talk of 'Change — the Alley 
 
 — the Bank^- 
 And with men of scientific rank, 870 
 It made as much stir as the fossil 
 shank 
 Of a Lizard coeval with Adam ! 
 
 Of course with Greenwich and Chelsea 
 
 elves, 
 Men who had lost a limb themselves. 
 
 Its interest did not dwindle — 
 But Bill, and Ben, and Jack, and 
 
 Tom 
 Could hardly have spun more yarns 
 therefrom, 
 If the leg had been a spindle. 
 
 Meanwhile the story went to and fro. 
 Till, gathering like the ball of snow, 
 By the time it got to Stratford-le- 
 Bow, 881 
 
 Through Exaggeration's touches, 
 The Heiress and Hope of the Kilman- 
 
 seggs ' 
 Was propped on two fine Golden Legs, 
 And a pair of Golden Crutches ! 
 
 Never had leg so great a run I 
 'Twas the ' go ' and the ' Kick ' 
 
 thrown into one ! 
 The mode — the new thing under the 
 sun, 
 The rage — the fancy — the passion ! 
 Bonnets were nam'd, and hats were 
 worn, 890 
 
 A la Golden Leg instead of Leghorn, 
 And stockings and shoes. 
 Of golden hues. 
 Took the lead in the walks of 
 fashion ! 
 
 The Golden Leg had a vast career. 
 It was sung and danced — and to show 
 
 how near 
 Low Folly to lofty approaches, 
 Down to society's very dregs, 
 The Belles of Wapping wore ' Kil- 
 
 manseggs,' 
 And St. Giles's Beaux sported Golden 
 
 Legs goo 
 
 In their pinchbeck pins and 
 
 brooches ! 
 
 •bet ffirst Step. 
 
 Supposing the Trunk and .Linibs of 
 
 Man 
 Shar'd, on the allegorical plan, 
 
578 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 By the Passions that mark Hu- 
 manity, 
 Whichever might claim the head, or 
 
 heart, 
 The stomach, or any other part, 
 The Legs would be seized by Vanity. 
 
 There 's Bardus, a, six-foot column of 
 
 fop, 
 A lighthouse without any light atop, 
 Whose height would attract be- 
 holders, , 910 
 If he had not lost some inches clear 
 By looking down at his kerseymere. 
 Ogling the limbs he holds so dear, 
 Till he got a stoop in his shoulders. 
 
 Talk of Art, of Science, or Books, 
 And down go the everlasting looks. 
 To his crural beauties so wedded ! 
 Try him, wherever you will, you find 
 His mind in his legs, and his legs in 
 his mind, ■ 919 
 
 All prongs and folly — in short a kind 
 ' Of Fork^that is Fiddle-headed. 
 
 What wonder, then, if Miss Kil- 
 
 mansegg, 
 With a splendid, brilliant, beautiful 
 
 leg, 
 Fit for the Court of Scander-Beg, 
 Disdained to hide it, like Joan or 
 
 Meg, 
 In petticoats stuff'd or quilted ? 
 Not she ! 'twas her convalescent 
 
 whim 
 To dazzle the world with the precious 
 
 limb, — 
 Nay, to go a little high-kilted. 
 
 So cards were sent for that sort of 
 mob 930 
 
 Where Tartars and Africans hob-and- 
 nob. 
 
 And the Cherokee talks of his cab and 
 cob 
 To. Polish or Lapland lovers — 
 
 Cards, like that hieroglyphical call 
 
 To a geographical Fancy Ball 
 
 On the present Post-Ofifice covers. 
 
 For if Lion-hunters — and great ones 
 
 too — 
 Would mob a savage from Latakoo, 
 Or squeeze for a glimpse of Prince Le 
 
 Boo, _ 939 
 
 That unfortunate Sandwich scion — 
 
 Hundreds of .first-rate people, no 
 
 doubt, 
 Would gladly, madly, rush to a rout,' 
 That promis'd a Golden Lion ! 
 
 1bct Jfancg 3BaIl. 
 
 Of all the spirits of evil fame 
 That hurt the soul or injure the frame. 
 And _poison what 's honest and 
 hearty. 
 There 's none more needs a Mathew 
 
 to preach 
 A cooling, antiphlogistic speech. 
 To' praise and enforce 
 A temperate course, 950 
 
 Than the Evil Spirit of Party. 
 
 Go- to the House of Commons or 
 
 Lords, 
 And they seem to be busy with simple 
 
 - words 
 • In their popular sense or pedantic — 
 But,. ala.s ! with their cheers, and 
 
 sneers, and jeers. 
 They're really busy, whateverappears, 
 Putting peas in each other's ears. 
 To drive their enemies frantic ! 
 
 Thus Tories love to worry the Whigs, 
 Who treat them in turn like Schwal- 
 bach pigs, 96a 
 
 Giving them lashes, thrashes, and digs. 
 With their writhing and pain de- 
 lighted — 
 But after all that 's said, and more, 
 The malice and spite of Party are poor 
 To the malice and spite of a party next 
 door. 
 To a party not invited. 
 
 On with the cap and out with the 
 
 light. 
 Weariness bids the world good-night, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 579 
 
 At least for the usual season ; 969 
 But hark ! a clatter of horses' heels ; 
 And Sleep and Silence are broken on 
 wheels, 
 
 Like Wilful Murder and Treason ! 
 
 Another crash — and the carriage 
 
 goes — 
 Again poor Weariness seeks the repose 
 That Nature demands imperious ; 
 But Echo takes up the burden now. 
 With a rattling chorus of row-de- 
 
 dpw-dow, 
 Till Silence herself seems making a 
 
 row. 
 Like a Quaker gone delirious I 
 
 'Tis night — a winter night — and the 
 stars 980 
 
 Are shining like winkin'^ Venus and 
 Mars 
 
 Are rolling along in their golden cars 
 Through the sky's serene expan- 
 sion — 
 
 But vainly the stars dispense their 
 rays, 
 
 Venus and Mars are lost in the blaze 
 Of the Kilmanseggs' luminous man- 
 sion ! 
 
 Up jumps Fear in a terrible fright ! 
 His bedchamber windows look so 
 bright, 988 
 
 With light all the Square is glutted ! 
 Up he jumps, like a sole from the pan, 
 And a tremor sickens his inward man. 
 For he feels as only a gentleman can. 
 
 Who thinks he 's being ' gutted.' 
 
 Again Fear settles, all snug and warm ; 
 But only to dream of a dreadful storm 
 From Autumn's sulphurous locker ; 
 But the only electric body that falls. 
 Wears a negative coat, and positive 
 
 smalls. 
 And draws the peal that so appals 
 From the Kilmanseggs' brazen 
 knocker ! looo 
 
 'Tis Curiosity's Benefit Night — 
 And perchance 'tis the English 
 Second-Sight ; 
 
 But whatever it be, so be it — 
 As the friends and guests of Miss 
 
 Kilmansegg 
 Crowd in to look at her Golden Leg, 
 As many more 
 Mob round the door. 
 To see them going to see it ! 
 
 In they go— in jackets and cloaks. 
 Plumes and bonnets, turbans and 
 toques, loio 
 
 As if to a Congress of Nations : 
 Greeks and Malays, with daggers and 
 
 dirks, 
 Spaniards, Jews, Chinese, and Turks, 
 Some like original foreign works. 
 But mostly like bad translations. 
 
 In they go, and to work like a pack, 
 Juan, Moses, and Shacabac, 
 Tom, and Jerry, and Springheel'd 
 Jack, 
 
 For some of low Fancy are lovers — 
 Skirting, zigzagging, casting about. 
 Here and there, and in and out, 1021 
 With a crush, and a rush, for a full- 
 bodied rout 
 
 Is one of the stiffest of covers. 
 
 In they went, and hunted about. 
 Open-mouthed like chub and trout, 
 And some with the upper lip thrust 
 
 out. 
 Like that fish for routing a barbel — 
 While Sir Jacob stood to welcome the 
 
 crowd, 
 And rubbed his hands, and smiled 
 
 aloud, 
 And bow'd, and bow'd, and bow'd, 
 
 and bow'd, 103a 
 
 Like a man who is sawing marble. 
 
 For Princes were there, and noble 
 
 Peers ; 
 Diikes descended from Norman spears; 
 Earls that dated from early years ; 
 
 And Lords in vast variety — 
 Besides the Gentry, both new and 
 
 old— 
 For people who stand on legs of gold 
 Are sure to stand well with society. 
 
58o MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 ' But where — where — where ? ' with 
 
 one accord 
 Cried Moses and Mufti, Jack and my 
 Lord, 1040 
 
 Wang-fong and II Bondocani — 
 When slow, and heavy, and dead as a 
 
 dump. 
 They heard a foot begin to stump, 
 Thump ! lump ! 
 Lump ! thump ! 
 Like the Spectre in ' Don Giovanni ! ' 
 
 And lo ! the Heiress, Miss Kilmansegg, 
 With her splendid, brilliant, beautiful 
 leg. 
 In the garb of a Goddess olden — 
 Like chaste Diana going to hunt, 1050 
 With a golden spear — which of course 
 
 was blunt, 
 And a tunic loop'd up to a gem in 
 front. 
 To show the Leg that was Golden ! 
 
 Gold ! still gold ! her Crescent behold, 
 That should be silver, but would be 
 
 gold ; 
 . And her robe's auriferous spangles ! 
 Her golden stomacher — how she 
 
 would melt ! 
 Her golden quiver, and golden belt. 
 Where a golden bugle dangles ! 
 
 And her jewelled Garter ? Oh, sin ! 
 
 Oh, shame ! 1060 
 
 Let Pride and Vanity bear the blame, 
 
 That bring such blots on female fame ! 
 
 But to be a true recorder. 
 Besides its thin transparent stuff. 
 The tunic was looped quite high 
 enough 
 To give a glimpse of the Order ! 
 
 But what have sin or shame to do 
 With a golden Leg — and a stout one 
 too? 
 Away with all Prudery's panics ! 
 That the precious metal, by thick and 
 thin, , 1070 
 
 Will cover square acres of land or sin, 
 Is a fact made plain 
 Again and again. 
 In Morals as well as Mechanics. 
 
 A few, indeed, of her proper sex. 
 Who seemed to feel her foot on their 
 
 necks. 
 And feared their charms would meet 
 
 with checks 
 From so rare and splendid a blazon — 
 A few cried ' fie ! ' — and ' forward ' — 
 
 and • bold ! ' 
 And said of the Leg, it might be 
 
 gold, loSd 
 
 But to them it looked like brazen ! 
 
 'Twas hard, they hinted, for flesh and 
 blood, 
 
 Virtue and Beauty, and all that 's 
 good, 
 To strike to mere dross their top- 
 gallants — 
 
 But what were Beauty, or Virtue, or 
 Worth, 
 
 Gentle manners, or gentle birth, 
 
 Nay, what, the most talented head on 
 earth 
 To a Leg worth fifty Talents ! 
 
 But the men sang quite another 
 
 hymn 
 Of glory and praise to the precious 
 
 Limb — 1090 
 
 Age, sordid Age, admir'd the whim, 
 
 And its indecorum pardon 'd — 
 While half of the young — ay, more 
 
 than half — 
 Bowed down and worshipped the 
 
 Golden Calf, 
 Like the Jews when their hearts 
 
 were harden'd. 
 
 A Golden Leg ! what fancies it fir'd I 
 What golden wishes and hopes in- 
 spir'd ! 
 To give but a mere abridgment^- 
 What a leg to leg-bail Embarrass- 
 ment's serf I 
 What a leg for a Leg to take on the 
 turf ! 1 100 
 
 What a leg for a marching regiment ! 
 
 A Golden Leg ! — whatever Love sings, 
 'Twas worth a bushel of ' Plain Gold 
 Rings,' 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 581 
 
 With which the Romantic wheedles. 
 'Twas worth aH the legs in stockings 
 
 and socks — 
 'Twas a leg that might be put in the 
 Stocks, 
 N.B. — Not the parish beadle's ! 
 
 And Lady K. nid-nodded her head, 
 Lapp'd in a turban fancy-bred, 1109 
 Just like a love-apple, huge and red. 
 Some Mussul-womanish mystery ; 
 But whatever she meant 
 To represent, 
 She talk'd like the Muse of History. 
 
 She told how the filial leg was lost ; 
 And then how much the gold one cost. 
 
 With its weight to aTrojan fraction; 
 And how it took off, and how it put on; 
 And call'd on Devil, Duke, and Don, 
 Mahomet, Moses, and Prester John, 
 
 To notice its beautiful action. 1121 
 
 And then of the Leg she went in quest; 
 And led it where the light was best ; 
 And made it lay itself up to rest 
 
 In postures for painters' studies : 
 It cost more tricks and trouble by half. 
 Than it takes to exhibit a Six-Legged 
 Calf 
 
 To a boothful of country Cuddies. 
 
 Nor yet did the Heiress herself omit 
 The arts that help to make a hit, 11 30 
 And preserve a prominent station. 
 She talk'd and laugh'd far more than 
 
 her share ; 
 And took a part in ' Rich and Rare 
 Were the gems she wore ' — and the 
 gems were there. 
 Like a Song with an Illustration. 
 
 She even stood up with a Count of 
 
 France — 
 To dance — alfis ! the measures we 
 dance 
 When Vanity plays the Piper : 
 Vanity, Vanity, apt to betray. 
 And lead all sorts of legs astray, — J140 
 Wood, or metal, or human clay, — 
 Since Satan first played the Viper ! 
 
 But first she doff 'd her hunting gear. 
 And favour'd Tom Tug with her 
 golden spear 
 
 To row with down the river — 
 A Bonze had her golden bow to hold ; 
 A Hermit her belt and bugle of gold ; 
 
 And an Abbot her golden quiver. 
 
 And then a space was clear'd on the 
 fioor, 1149 
 
 And she walked the Minuet de la Cour, 
 With all the pomp of a Pompadour, 
 
 But although she began andante, 
 Conceive the faces of all the Rout, 
 When she finished off with a whirligig 
 
 bout, 
 And the Precious Leg stuck stiffly out 
 
 Like the leg of a Figumnti I 
 
 So the courtly dance was goldenly 
 
 done. 
 And golden opinions, of course, it won 
 From all different sorts of people — • 
 Chiming, ding-dong, with flattering 
 phrase, 11 6a 
 
 In one vociferous peal of praise, 
 Like the peal that rings on Royal days 
 From Loyalty's parish-steeple. 
 
 And yet, had the leg been one of those 
 That dance for bread in flesh-colour'd 
 hose, 
 With Rosina's pastoral bevy. 
 The jeers it had met, — the shouts ! 
 
 the scoff ! 
 The cutting advice to ' take itself off,' 
 For sounding but half so heavy. 
 
 Had it been a leg like those, perchance, 
 
 That teach little girls and boys to 
 dance, 117* 
 
 To set, poussette, recede, and ad- 
 vance. 
 With the steps and figures most 
 proper, — 
 
 Had it hopp'd for a weekly or quar- 
 terly sum. 
 
 How little of praise or grist would have 
 come 
 To a mill with such a hopper : 
 
582 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 But the Leg was none of those limbs 
 
 forlorn — 
 Bartering capers and hops for corn — 
 That meet with public hisses and 
 
 scorn, "79 
 
 Or themorning journaldenounces — 
 
 Had it pleas'd to caper from morn till 
 
 dusk, 
 There was all the music of ' Money 
 
 Musk,' 
 In its ponderous bangs and bounces. 
 
 But, hark ! as slow as the strokes of 
 a pump. 
 Lump, thump ! 
 Thump, lump ! 
 As the Giant of Castle Otranto might 
 stump 
 To a lower room from an upper — 
 Down she goes with a noisy dint. 
 For taking the crimson turban's hint, 
 A noble Lord at the Head of the Mint 
 Is leading the Leg to supper ! 1192 
 
 But the supper, alas I must rest un- 
 told. 
 
 With its blaze of light, and its glitter 
 of gold. 
 For to paint that scene of glamour. 
 
 It would need the Great Enchanter's 
 charm, 
 
 Who waves over Palace, and Cot, and 
 Farm, 
 
 An arm like the Goldbeater's Golden 
 Arm 
 That wields a Golden Hammer. 
 
 He — only he could fitly state 1200 
 
 The Massive Service of Golden Plate, 
 With the proper phrase and expan- 
 sion — 
 
 The rare selection of Foreign Wines — 
 
 The Alps of Ice and Mountains of 
 Pines, 
 
 The punch in Oceans and sugary 
 shrines. 
 
 The Temple of Taste from Gunter's 
 Designs — 
 
 In short, all that Wealth with a Feast 
 combines. 
 In a Splendid Family Mansion. 
 
 Suffice it each mask'd outlandish 
 
 guest. 
 Ate and drank of the very best, isio 
 
 According to critical conners — 
 And then they pledg'd the Hostess 
 
 and Host, 
 But the Golden Leg, was the standing 
 toast, 
 And as somebody swore, 
 Walked off with more 
 Than its share of the ' Hips ! ' and 
 honours 1 
 
 ' Miss Kilmansegg ! — 
 Full glasses I beg I — 
 Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious 
 Leg!' 
 And away went the bottle career- 
 ing I J220 
 Wine in bumpers ! and shouts in 
 
 peals I 
 Till the Clown didn't know his head 
 
 from his heels, 
 The Mussulman's eyes danced two- 
 some reels. 
 And the Quaker was hoarse with 
 cheering ! 
 
 Ibec ©ream. 
 
 Miss Kilmansegg took off her leg, 
 And laid it down like a cribbage-peg. 
 For the Rout was done and the riot : 
 The Square was hush'd ; not a sound 
 
 was heard ; 
 The sky was grey, and no creature 
 
 stirr'd. 
 Except one little precocious bird, 1230 
 That chirp'd — and then was quiet. 
 
 So still without, — so still within ; — 
 It had been a sin 
 To drop a pin — 
 So intense is silence after a din. 
 
 It seemed like Death's rehearsal ! 
 To stir the air no eddy came ; 
 And the taper burnt with as still a 
 
 flame. 
 As to flicker had been a burning 
 shame. 
 In a calm so universal. 124a 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 583 
 
 The time for sleep had come at last ; 
 And there was the Bed, so soft, so vast. 
 Quite a field of Bedfordshire clover ; 
 Softer, cooler, and calmer, no doubt. 
 From the piece of work just ravell'd 
 
 out. 
 For one of the pleasures of having a 
 rout. 
 Is the pleasure of having it over. 
 
 No sordid pallet, or truckle mean. 
 
 Of straw, and rug, and tatters un- 
 clean ; 1249 
 
 But asplendid, gilded, carved machine. 
 That was fit for a Royal Chamber, 
 
 On the top was a gorgeous golden 
 wreath ; 
 
 And the damask curtains hung be- 
 neath. 
 Like clouds of crimson and amber. 
 
 Curtains, held up by two little plump 
 
 things, 
 With golden bodies and golden 
 wings — 
 Mere fins for such solidities — 
 Two Cupids, in short. 
 Of the regular sort, 
 But the housemaid called them 
 ' Cupidities.' iz6o 
 
 No patchwork quilt, all seams and 
 
 •scars, ; 
 
 Butvelvetjpowder'dwithgolden stars, 
 
 A fit mantle ioi Night-Comma.ndeTS ! 
 
 And the pillow, as white as snow iin- 
 
 dimm'd. 
 And as cool as the pool that the breeze 
 
 . has skimm'd, 
 Was cased in the finest cambric, and 
 trimm'd 
 ■ With the costliest lace of Flanders. 
 
 And the bed — of the Eider's softest 
 
 down, 
 'Twas a place to revel, to smother, to 
 drown 1269 
 
 In a bliss inferr'd by the Poet : 
 For if Ignorance be indeed a bliss, 
 What blessed ignorance equals this, 
 To sleep — and not to know it ? 
 
 Oh, bed ! oh, bed ! delicious bed ! 
 
 That heav'n upon earth to the weary 
 head ; 
 
 But a place that to name would be ill- 
 bred, 
 Tothe head with a wakeful trouble — 
 
 'Tis held by such a different lease ! 
 
 To one, a place of comfort and peace. 
 
 All stufi'd with the down of stubble 
 
 geese, 1280 
 
 To another, with only the stubble. 
 
 To one, a perfect Halcyon nest. 
 
 All calm, and balm, and quiet, aiid 
 
 rest. 
 And soft as the fur of the cony — 
 To another, so restlesSjfor body and 
 
 head. 
 That the bed seems borrow'd from 
 
 Nettlebed, 
 And the pillow from Stratford the 
 
 Stony ! 
 
 To the happy, a first-class carriage of 
 
 ease. 
 To the land of Nod, or where you 
 please ; 
 But alas ! for the watchers and 
 weepers, 129a 
 
 Who turn, and turn, and turn again. 
 But turn, and turn, and turn in vain. 
 With an anxious brain. 
 And thoughts in a train 
 That does not run upon sleepers ! 
 
 Wide awake as the mousing owl, 
 Night-hawk, or other nocturnal fowl, — 
 
 But more profitless vigils keeping, — 
 Wide awake in the dark they stare. 
 Filling with phantoms the vacant air. 
 As if that Crook-Back'd Tyrant Care 
 
 Had plotted to kill them sleeping. 
 
 And oh ! when the blessed diurnal 
 light 1303 
 
 Is quench'd by the providential night, 
 • 'To render our slumber more certain. 
 Pity, pity the wretches that weep, 
 For they must be wretched who can- 
 not sleep 
 When nature herself draws the 
 curtain ! 
 
584 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 The careful Betty the pillow beats, 
 And airs the blankets, and smooths 
 the sheets, 1310 
 
 And gives the mattress a shaking — ■ 
 But vainly Betty performs her part, 
 If a rufiSed head and a rumpled heart. 
 
 As well as the couch want making. 
 
 There 's Morbid, all bile, and verjuice, 
 and nerves. 
 
 Where other people would make pre- 
 serves, 
 He turns his fruits into pickles : 
 
 Jealbus; envious, and fretful by day. 
 
 At night, to his own sharp fancies a 
 prey, 
 
 He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the 
 
 wrong way, 1 320 
 
 Tormenting himself withhisprickles. 
 
 But a child ! — that bids the world 
 
 good-night, 
 In downright earnest and cuts it 
 quite — 
 A Cherub no Art can copy, — 
 'Tis a perfect picture to see him lie 
 As if he had supp'd on dormouse pie 
 (An ancient classical dish by the by). 
 With a sauce of syrup of poppy. 
 
 Oh, bed ! bed ! bed I delicious bed ! 
 
 That heav'n upon earth to the weary 
 
 head, 1330 
 
 Whether lofty or low its condition ! 
 
 But instead of putting our plagues on 
 shelves, 
 
 In our blankets how often we toss 
 ourselves. 
 
 Or are tossed by such allegorical elvei 
 As Pride, Hate, Greed, and Ambi- 
 tion I 
 
 The independent Miss Kilmansegg 
 Took off her independent Leg 
 
 And laid it beneath her pillow^ 
 
 And then on the bed her frame she 
 
 cast, 1339 
 
 The time for repose had come at last. 
 
 But long, long after the storm is past 
 
 Rolls the turbid, turbulent billow. 
 
 No part she had in vulgar cares 
 That belong to common household 
 
 affairs — 
 Nocturnal annoyances such as theirs 
 Who lie with a shrewd surmising 
 That while they are couchant (a bitter 
 
 cup !) 
 Their bread and butter are getting up. 
 And the coals^confound them ! — 
 
 are rising. 1349 
 
 No fear she had her sleep to postpone. 
 Like the crippled Widow who weeps 
 
 alone. 
 And cannot make a doze her own, 
 For the dread that may hap on the 
 
 morrow. 
 The true and Christian reading to 
 
 baulk, 
 A broker will take up her bed and walk. 
 By way of curing her sorrow. 
 
 No cause like these she had to bewail : 
 But the breath of applause had blown 
 
 a gale, 
 And winds from that quarter seldom 
 fail 1359 
 
 To cause some human commotion ; 
 But whenever such breezes coincide 
 With the very spring-tide 
 Of human pride. 
 There 's no such swell on the ocean 1 
 
 Peace, and ease, and slumber lost, 
 She turn'd, and roU'd, and tumbled, 
 and toss'd, 
 With a tumult that would not 
 settle : 
 A common case, indeed, with such 
 As have too Uttle, or think too much, 
 Of the precious and glittering metal. 
 
 Gold ! — she saw at her golden foot 1 371 
 The Peer whose tree had an olden root, 
 The Proud, the Great, the Learned to 
 
 boot, 
 The handsome, the gay, and the 
 
 witty — 
 The man of Science — of Arms — of Art, 
 The man who deals but at Pleasure's 
 
 mart 
 And the man who deals in the City. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 585 
 
 Gold, still gold — and true to the 
 
 mould ! 
 In the very scheme of her dream it 
 
 told ; 
 For, by magical transmutation, 1380 
 From her Leg through her body it 
 
 seem'd to go. 
 Till, gold above, and gold below, 
 She was gold, all gold, from her little 
 
 gold toe 
 To her organ of Veneiration I 
 
 And still she retain'd, through Fancy's 
 art, 
 
 The Golden Bow, and the Golden 
 Dart, 
 
 With which she had' play'd a God- 
 dess's part 
 In her recent glorification^ 
 
 And still, like one of the selfsame 
 brood. 
 
 On a Plinth of the selfsame metal she 
 stood 1390 
 
 For the whole world's adoration. 
 
 And hymns and incense around her 
 
 roU'd, 
 Froili Golden Harps and Censers of 
 
 • Gold,— 
 For Fancy in dreams is as uncon- 
 : .troU'd 
 
 As a horse without a bridle : 
 What wonder, then, from all checks 
 
 exempt. 
 If, inspired by the Golden Leg, she 
 dreamt '■ 
 She was turn'd to a Golden Idol ? 
 
 1bet CouTtsbip. 
 
 When leaving Eden's happy land 1399 
 The grieving Angel led by the hand 
 ■ Our banish'd [Father and Mother, 
 Forgotten amid their awful doom. 
 The tears, the fears, and the future's 
 
 gloom. 
 On each brow was a wreath of Para- 
 dise bloom. 
 That our Parents had twined for 
 each other. 
 
 It was only while sitting Uke Figures 
 
 of stone, . 
 For the grieving Angel had skyward 
 
 flown. 
 As they sat, those Two, in the world 
 
 alone, * 
 
 With disconsolate hearts nigh 
 
 cloven. 
 That, scenting the gust of happier 
 
 hours, 1410 
 
 They look'd around for the precious 
 
 flowers. 
 And lo ! — a last relic of Eden's dear 
 
 bowers — 
 The chaplet that Love had woven ! 
 
 And still, when a pair of Lovers meet, 
 
 There 's a sweetness in air, unearthly 
 sweet. 
 
 That savours still -of that happy re- 
 treat 
 Where Eve by Adam was courted : 
 
 Whilst the joyous Thrush, and the 
 gentle Dove, 
 
 Woo'd their mates in the boughs 
 above. 
 And the Serpent, as yet, only 
 sported. 1420 
 
 Who hath not felt that breath in the 
 
 air, 
 A perfume and freshness strange and 
 
 rare, 
 A warmth in the light, and a bliss 
 
 everywhere, 
 When young hearts yearn together ? 
 All sweets below, and all sunny above. 
 Oh ! there 's nothing in life like 
 
 making love, 
 Save making hay in fine weather ! 
 
 Who hath not found amongst his 
 
 flow'rs, 
 A blossom too bright for this world of 
 ours, 1429 
 
 Like a rose among snows of Sweden ? 
 But to turn again to Miss Kilmansegg, 
 Where must Love have gone to beg, 
 If such a thing as a Golden Leg 
 Had put its foot in Ederi ? 
 
 u 3 
 
586 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 And yet — to tell the rigid truth — 
 Her favour was sought by Age and 
 
 Youth— 
 For the prey will find a prowler ! 
 She was follow'd, flatter'd, courted, 
 
 address'd, " ' 
 
 Woo'd, and coo'd, and wheedled, and 
 
 press'd, 
 By suitors from North, South, East, 
 
 and West, 1440 
 
 Like that Heiress, in song, Tibbie 
 
 Fowler ! 
 
 Put, alas ! alas ! for the Woman's 
 
 fate. 
 Who has from a mob to choose a 
 
 mate 
 'Tis a strange and painful mystery ! 
 But the more the eggs, the worse the 
 
 hatch ; 
 The more the fish, the worse the catch ; 
 The more the sparks, the worse the 
 
 match ; 
 Is a fact in Woman's history. 
 
 Give her between a brace to pick. 
 And, mayhap, with luck to help, the 
 
 trick, 1450 
 
 She will take the Faustus, and leave 
 
 the Old Nick- 
 But her future bliss to baffle. 
 Amongst a score let her have a, voice. 
 And she'll have as little cause to 
 
 rejoice. 
 As if she had won the ' Man of her 
 
 choice ' 
 In a matrimonial raffle ! , 
 
 Thus, even thus, with the Heiress and 
 
 Hope, 
 Fulfilling the adage of too much rope, 
 
 With so ample a competition, 
 She chose the least worthy of all the 
 group, 1460 
 
 Jiist as the vulture makes a stoop, 
 And singles out from the herd or troop. 
 The beast of the worst condition. 
 
 A Foreign Count, — who came incog., 
 
 Not under a cloud, but under a fog, 
 
 In a Calais packet's fore-cabin, 
 
 To charm some lady; British-born, 
 With his eyes as black as the fruit of 
 
 the thorn. 
 And his hooky nose, and his beard 
 
 half-shorn, 
 I jke a half-converted R'abbih. 1476 
 
 And because the Sex confess a chartjii. 
 In the man who has slash'd a hea(l or 
 
 arm, , i 
 
 Or has been a. throat's undoing, 
 He was dress'd like one of the glorious 
 
 trade, . v ' 
 
 At least when Glory is off parade, 
 With a stock, and a frock,: well 
 
 trimm'd with braid. 
 And frogs-r^that went a-wooing. 
 
 Moreover, as Counts are apt to do, 
 On the left-hand side of his dark 
 
 surtout. 
 At one of those holes that buttons go 
 through 1480 
 
 (To be a precise recorder),' 
 A ribbon he wore, or rather a scrap. 
 About an inch of ribbon mayhap. 
 That one of hisri vals, a whimsical chap. 
 
 Described as his ' Retail 6rder.' 
 
 And then — and much it he^ed his 
 
 chance^ 
 He could sing, and play first fiddle, 
 
 and dance, 
 Perform charades, and Proveirbs of 
 
 France — 
 Act the tender, and do the cruel ; 
 For amongst his other killing parts. 
 He had broken a brace of female 
 
 hearts, 1491 
 
 And murder'd three men in duel ! 
 
 Savage atheart, arid false" of tongue, 
 Subtle with age, and sniooth to the 
 
 young, 
 Like a snake in his coiling and 
 
 curling — 
 Such was the Count — to give him a 
 
 niche — 
 Who came to court that Heiress rich. 
 And knelt at her foot — one needn't 
 
 say which — 
 Besieging her Castle of Sterling. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 587 
 
 And without any sordid leaven ! 
 Who blushes as red as haws and hips, 
 Dowii to her very fiiiger-tips, 
 For Roger's blue ribbons — to her, like 
 strips 
 
 Cut out of the azure of Heaven ! 
 
 Ijet Aartiage. 
 
 'Twas morn — a most auspicious one ! 
 From the Golden East, the Golden Sun 
 Came forth his glorious race to run, 
 Through clouds of most splendid 
 tinges ; . 1540 
 
 Clouds that lately slept in shade, 
 But now seemed made 
 Of gold brocade. 
 With magnificeJnt golden fringes. 
 
 Gold above, and gold below, , 
 The earth reflected the golden glow, 
 From river, and hill, and valley ; 
 Gilt by the golden light of morn. 
 The Thames — it looked like the 
 
 Golden Horn, 
 And the Barge, that carried coal or 
 corn, 1550 
 
 Like Cleopatra's Galley ! 
 
 Bright as clusters of Golden-rod, 
 Suburban poplars began to nod. 
 With extempore splendour fur- 
 nished ; 
 While London was bright with glitter- 
 ing clocks, ■ 
 Golden dragons, and Golden cocks. 
 And above them all. 
 The dome of St. Paul, 
 With its Golden Cross and its Golden 
 Ball, ISS9 
 
 Shone out as if newly burnish 'd ! 
 
 And lo ! for Golden Hours and Joys, 
 Troops of glittering Golden Bbys 
 Danced along with a jocund noise. 
 
 And their gilded emblems carried ! 
 In - short, 'twas the year's most 
 
 Golden Day, 
 By mortals called the First of May, 
 When Miss Kilmansegg 
 Of the Golden Leg 
 With a Golden Ring was married ! 
 
 With pray'rs and vows he open'd his 
 
 trench, xsoo 
 
 And plied her with English, Spanish, 
 
 and French, 
 In phrases the most sentimental. 
 And quoted poems in High and Low 
 
 Dutch, 
 With now and then an Italian touch. 
 Till she: yielded, without resisting 
 
 much, 
 To homage so continental. 
 
 And then the sordid bargain to close, 
 With a miniature sketch of his hooky 
 
 nose, 
 And his dear dark eyes, as black as 
 
 sloes, , , 
 
 And his beard and whiskery as black 
 as. those, 1510 
 
 The lady's consent he requited — 
 I And instead of the lock that lovers beg. 
 The Count received from Miss Kil- 
 mansegg 
 A model in small, of her Precious Leg — 
 And so the couple were plighted 1 
 
 But, oh ! the love that gold must 
 
 crown ! 
 Better-^better, the love of the clown. 
 Who admires his lass in her Sunday 
 gown. 
 As if all the fairies had dress'd her ! 
 Whose brain to no crooked thought 
 gives birth, 1520 
 
 Except that he never will part on 
 . earth, 
 With his true love's crooked tester ! 
 
 Alas, for the love that 's link'd with 
 
 gold! 
 Better— betterathousand times told — 
 Most honest, happy, and laudable. 
 The downright loving of pretty Cis, 
 Who wipes her lips, though there 's 
 
 nothing amiss, 
 And takes a kiss, and gives a kiss. 
 In which her heart is audible ! 
 
 Pretty Cis, so smiling and bright, 1530 
 Who loves as she labours, with all her 
 might, 
 
588 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 And thousands of children, women, 
 
 and men, 'S?" 
 
 Counted the clock from eight till ten. 
 
 From St. James's sonorous steeple ; 
 
 For next to that interesting job, 
 
 The hanging of Jack, or Bill^ or Bob, 
 
 There 's nothing so draws a London 
 
 mob ■ : . . •. ' ' 
 
 As the noosing of very rich people. 
 
 And a treat it was for a mob to 
 
 behold 
 The bridal carriage that blazed with 
 
 gold ! 
 And the Footmen tall, and the Coach- 
 man bold. 
 In liveries so resplendent — 1580 
 Coats you wonder'd to see in place, 
 They seemed so rich with golden lace. 
 That they might have been in- 
 dependent. 
 
 Coats that made these menials proud. 
 Gaze with scorn on 4he dingy crowd. 
 
 From their gilded elevations ; 
 Not to forget that saucy lad 
 (Ostentation's favourite cad)^ 
 The page, who looked so splendidly 
 clad. 
 Like a page of the ' Wealth of 
 Nations.' 1590 
 
 But the coachman carried off the 
 
 state. 
 With what was a Lancashire body of 
 
 late, , 
 Turned into a Dresden Figure ; 
 With a bridal Nosegay of early bloom. 
 About the size of a birchen broom. 
 And so huge a White Favour, had 
 
 Gog been Groom, 
 He need not have worn a bigger. 
 
 And then to see the Groom ! the 
 
 Count ! 
 
 With Foreign Orders to such an 
 
 amount, 159(1 
 
 And whiskers so wild — nay, bestial ; 
 
 He seem'd to have borrow'd the 
 
 shaggy hair. 
 As well as the Stars of the Polar Bear, 
 To make him look celestial I 
 
 And then — Great Jove ! the struggle, 
 
 the crush. 
 The screams, the heaving, the awful 
 
 rush, 
 The swearing, the tearing, and 
 
 fighting, 
 The hats and bonnets smash'd like an 
 
 egg- 
 To catch a glimpse of the Golden Leg, 
 Which, between the steps and Miss 
 
 Kilniansegg, 1609 
 
 Was fully display 'd in alighting ! 
 
 From the Golden Ankle up to the 
 
 Knee, 
 There it was for the mob to see ! 
 A shocking act had it chanced to be 
 
 A crocA;ed leg or a skinny : 
 But although a magnificent veil she 
 
 wore. 
 Such as never was seen before. 
 In case of blushes, she blushed no 
 
 more 
 Than George the First on a guinea ! 
 
 Anotherstep,and lo! shewas launch'd! 
 All in white, as Brides are blanch' d, 
 With a wreath of most wonderful 
 splendour — 1621 
 
 Diamonds, and pearls, so rich in de- 
 vice. 
 That, according to calculation nice. 
 Her head was worth as royal a price 
 As the head of the Young Pretender, 
 
 Bravely she shone-^and shone the 
 more. 
 
 As she sailed through the crowd of 
 squalid and poor. 
 Thief, beggar, and tatterdemalion — 
 
 Led by the Count, with his sloe-black 
 eyes, 
 
 Bright with triumph, and some sur- 
 prise, 1630 
 
 Like Anson, on making sure of his 
 Prize, 
 The famous Mexican Galleon 1 
 
 Anon, came Lady K., with her face 
 Quite made up to act with grace, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 S89 
 
 Butshecut the performance shorter ; 
 For instead of pacing stately and stiff, 
 At the stare of the vulgar she took a 
 
 miff, 
 And ran, full speed, into Church, as if 
 
 To get married before her daughter. 
 
 But Sir Jacob walk'd more slowly, and 
 bow'd 1640 
 
 Right and left to the gaping crowd. 
 Wherever a glance was seizable : 
 
 For Sir Jacob thought he bow'd like a 
 Guelph, 
 
 And therefore bow'd to imp and elf. 
 
 And would gladly have made a bow 
 to himself, 
 Had such a bow been feasible. 
 
 And last — and not the l^ast of the 
 
 sight, 
 Six ' Handsome Fortunes,' all in 
 
 white. 
 Came to help in the marriage rite, — 
 Andrehearse their own hymeneals — 
 And then the bright procession to 
 
 close 16S1 
 
 They were followed by just as many 
 
 Beaux, 
 Quite fiiie enough for Ideals. 
 
 Glittering men, and splendid dames. 
 Thus they enter'd the porch of St. 
 
 James, 
 Pursued by a thunder of laughter ; 
 For the Beadlewasforcedtointervene, 
 For Jim the Crow, and his Mayday 
 
 Queen, 
 With her gilded ladle, and Jack i' the 
 
 Green, ifiS9 
 
 Would fain have foUow'd after ! 
 
 Beadle-like he hushed the shout ; ' 
 But the temple was full ' inside and 
 
 out,' 
 And a buzz kept buzzing all round 
 
 about 
 Like bees when the day is sunny — 
 A buzz universal that interfered 
 With the rite that ought to have been 
 
 revered. 
 As if the couple already were smeared 
 With Wedlock's treacle and honey ! 
 
 Yet Wedlock 's a very awful thing I 
 
 'Tis something like that feat in the 
 
 ring, 1670 
 
 Which requires good nerve to do it — 
 
 When one of a ' Grand Equestrian 
 
 Troop ' 
 Makes a jump at a gilded hoop, 
 Not certain at all 
 Of what may befall 
 After his getting through it ! 
 
 But the Count he felt the nervous 
 
 work ; , 
 No more than any polygamous Turk, 
 Or bold piratical skipper, 1679 
 
 Who, during his buccaneering search, 
 Would as soon engage ' a hand ' in 
 church 
 As a hand on board his clipper ! 
 
 And how did the Bride perform her 
 
 part ? 
 Like any Bride who is cold at heart. 
 Mere snow with the ice's;, glitter ; 
 What but a life of winter for her ! 
 Bright but chilly, alive without stir, 
 So splendidly comfortless, — just like 
 a Fir less 
 
 When the frost is severe and bitter. 
 
 Such were the future man and wife ! 
 Whose bale or bliss to the end of life 
 A few short words were to settle — 
 Will you have this woman ? 
 
 I will — and then. 
 Will you have this man ? 
 I will, and Amen — 
 And those Two were one Flesh, in the 
 Angels' ken. 
 Except one Leg;— that was metal. 
 
 Then the names were ,sign'd — and 
 kiss'd the kiss : 
 
 And the Bride, who came from her 
 coach a Miss, 1700 
 
 As a Countess walked to her car- 
 riage— 
 
 Whilst Hymen preen'd his plumes 
 like a dove. 
 
 And Cupid flutter'd his wings above 
 
 In the shape of a fly,— as little a Love 
 As ever look'd in at a marriage ! 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 590 
 
 Another crash— and away they dash'd, 
 And the gilded carriage and footmen 
 
 . flash'd 
 
 From the eyes of the gaping people— 
 
 Who turn'd to gaze at the toe-and 
 
 heel '709 
 
 Of the Golden Boys beginning a reel 
 
 To the merry sound of a wedding-peal 
 
 From St. James's musical steeple. 
 
 Those wedding bells ! those wedding 
 
 bells! ' i 
 How sweetly they sound in pastoral 
 
 dells 
 From a tow'r in an ivy-green 
 
 jacket ! 
 But town-made joys how dearly they 
 
 cost ; ' 
 
 And after all are tumbled and tost, 
 Like a peal from a London steeple, 
 
 and lost 
 In town-made riot and racket. 171 9 
 
 Thewedding-peal.how sweetly it peals 
 "With grass or heather beneath our 
 
 heels, — 
 For bells are Music's laughter I — 
 But a London peal, well mingled, be 
 
 sure, 
 With vulgar noises and voices impure, 
 What a harsh and discordant overture 
 To the Harmony meant to come 
 
 after ! 
 
 But hence with Discord — perchance, 
 
 too soon 
 To cloud the face of the honeymoon 
 
 With a dismal occultation ! — 
 Whatever Fate's concerted trick, 1730 
 The Countess and Count, at the pre- 
 sent nick 
 Have a chicken and not a crow to pick 
 At a sumptuous Cold Collation. 
 
 A Breakfast — no unsubstantial mess. 
 But one in the style of Good Queen 
 Bess, 
 
 Who, — hearty as hippocampus, — 
 Broke her fast with ale and beef. 
 Instead of toast and the Chinese leaf, 
 
 And in lieu of anchovy — grampus ! 
 
 A breakfast of fowl, and fish, and flesh ; 
 
 Whatever was sweet, or salt, or fresh ; 
 
 With wines the most rare and 
 
 curious — 1 742 
 
 Wines of the richest flavour and hue ,; 
 With fruits from the worlds, both Old 
 
 and New ; 
 And fruits obtained before they were 
 
 due 
 At a discount most usurious. 
 
 For wealthy palates: there bey that 
 
 scout 
 What is in season, for what is out, 
 
 And prefer all precocious savour : 
 For instance, early green peas, of the 
 
 sort 1750 
 
 That costs some four or five guineas a 
 
 quart ; 
 Where the Mint is the principal 
 
 flavour. 
 
 And many a wealthy man was there, 
 Such as the wealthy City could spare. 
 
 To put in a portly appearance — 
 Men, whom their fathers had help'd 
 
 to gild ; 
 And men who had their fortunes to 
 
 build, 
 And — much to their credit — had 
 
 richly fill'd 
 Theii purses by pursy-verance. 
 
 Men, by popular rumour at least, 1760 
 Not the last to enjoy a feast ! 
 
 And truly they were not idle ! 
 Luckier far than the chestnut tits. 
 Which, down at the door, stood 
 champing their bits. 
 
 At a different sort of bridal. 
 
 For the time was come — and the 
 
 whisker 'd Count 
 Help'd his Bride in the carriage to 
 
 mount. 
 And fain would the Muse deny it. 
 But the crowd, including two Butchers 
 
 in blue 1769 
 
 (The regular killing Whitechapel hue). 
 Of her Precious Calf had as ample a 
 
 view, 
 As if they had come to buy it ! 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 591 
 
 Then away I away I with all the speed 
 That golden spurs can give; to the 
 
 steed, — 
 Both Yellow Boys and Guineas, in- 
 deed, 
 
 Concurred to urge the cattle — 
 Away they went, with favours white, 
 Yellow jackets, and panels bright, 
 And left the mob, like a mob at night. 
 
 Agape at the sound of a rattle. 178a 
 
 Away! away! they rattled and roU'd, 
 
 The Count, and his Bride, and her 
 
 ^ Leg of Gold — 
 
 , That fated charm to the charmer I 
 
 Away, — through Old Brentford rang 
 
 the din. 
 Of wheel s and heels,on their way to wi n 
 That hill, named after one of her kin. 
 The hill of the Golden Farmer ! 
 
 Gold, still gold— it flew like dust I 
 
 It tipp'd the post-boy, and paid the 
 trust ; 1789 
 
 In each open palm it was freely thrust ; 
 There was nothing but giving and 
 taking ! 
 
 And if gold could ensure the future 
 hour, 
 
 What hopes attended that. Bride to 
 her bow'r. 
 
 But alas ! even hearts with a four- 
 horse pow'r 
 Of opulence end in breaking I 
 
 net t)onesmooit. 
 
 The moon — the moon, so silver and 
 
 cold. 
 Her fickle temper has oft been told. 
 Now shady — now bright and 
 
 sunny — ■ 
 But of all the lunar things that change. 
 The one that shows most fickle and 
 
 strange, 1800 
 
 And takes the most eccentric range. 
 Is the moon — so called — of honey ! 
 
 To some a full-grown orb reveal'd, 
 As big and as round as Norval's shield , 
 And as bright as a burner ,Bude- 
 lighted ; 
 
 To others asduU, and dingy, and damp 
 As any oleaginous lamp, 
 Of the regular old parochial stamp, 
 In a London fog benighted. 
 
 To the loving, a bright and constant 
 sphere, 1810 
 
 That makes earth's commonest scenes 
 appear 
 All poetic, romantic, and tender : 
 
 Ranging with jewels a cabbage stump. 
 
 And investing a common post or a 
 pump, 
 
 Acurrant-bush, or agooseberry clump. 
 With a halo of dreamlike splendour. 
 
 A sphere such as shone from Italian 
 
 skies. 
 In Juliet's dear, dark, liquid eyes. 
 Tipping trees with its argent 
 
 braveries — 
 And to couples not favour 'd with 
 
 Fortune's boons, 1820 
 
 One of the most delightful of moons, 
 For it brightens their pewter platters 
 
 and spoons 
 Like a silver service of Savory's ! 
 
 For all is bright, and beauteous, and 
 
 clear, 
 And the meanest thing most precious 
 
 and dear. 
 When the magic of love is present : 
 Love, that lends a sweetness and grace 
 To the humblest spot and the plainest 
 
 face — . 
 That turns Wilderness Row into 
 
 Paradise Place, 1829 
 
 AndGarlick Hill to Mount Pleasant! 
 
 Love that sweetens sugarless tea. 
 And makes contentment and joy 
 
 agree 
 With the coarsest boarding and 
 
 bedding : 
 
 Love that no golden ties can attach. 
 But nestles under thehumblestthatch. 
 And will fly away from an Emperor's 
 match 
 To dance at a Penny Wedding 1 
 Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state, 
 
592 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 When such a bright Planet governs 
 the fate 
 
 Of a pair of united lovers ! 1840 
 'Tistheirs.inspiteoftheSerpent'shiss, 
 To enjoy the pure primeval kiss, 
 With as much of the old original bliss 
 
 As mortality ever recovers ! 
 
 There 's strength in double joints, no 
 
 : doubt, 1 
 
 In double X Ale, and Dublin Stout, 
 That the single sorts know nothing 
 
 about — 
 • And a • fist is strbngest when 
 
 doubled — 
 And double aqua-fortis, of course, 
 And double soda-water, perforce, 1 850 
 Are the strongest that ever bubbled ! 
 
 There 's double beauty whenever a 
 
 Swan 
 Swims on a Lake, with her double 
 
 thereon ; 
 
 And ask, the gardener, Luke or John, 
 
 Of the beauty of double-blowing — 
 
 A double dahlia delights the eye : 
 
 Andit 's far the loveliest sight in the sky 
 
 When a double rainbow is glowing ! 
 
 There 's warmth in a pair of double 
 soles ; 1859 
 
 As well as a double allowance of coals — 
 In a coat that is double-breasted — 
 In double windows and double doors ; 
 And a double U wind is blest by 
 scores 
 For its warmth to the tender- 
 chested. 
 
 There 's a twofold sweetness in doiible 
 
 pipes ; 
 And adpuble-barrel and double snipes 
 Give the sportsman a duplicate 
 
 pleasure : 
 There 's double safety in double locks ; 
 And double letters bring cash for the 
 
 box ; 
 And all the world knows that double 
 
 knocks 1870 
 
 Are gentility's double measure. 
 There 's a double sweetness in double 
 
 rhymes, 
 
 And a double at Whist, and a double 
 Times 
 In profit are certainly double — 
 By doubling, the Hare contrives to 
 
 escape : 
 And all seamen delight in a doubled 
 Cape, 
 And a double-reefed topsail in 
 trouble. 
 
 There 's a double chuck at a double 
 
 chin, 
 
 And of course there *s a double 
 
 pleasure therein, 1879 
 
 If theparties were broughtto telling: 
 
 And however our Dennises take 
 
 offence, 
 A double meaning shows double' 
 sense ; 
 And if proverbs tell truth, 
 A double tooth 
 Is Wisdom's adopted dwelling i 
 
 But double wisdom, and pleasure, and 
 sense, 
 
 Beauty, respect, strength, comfort, 
 and thence 
 Through whatever the list dis- 
 covers, 
 
 They are all in the double blessedness 
 summ'd. 
 
 Of what was formerly double- 
 drumm'd, 1890 
 
 The Marriage of two true Lovers ! 
 
 Now the Kilmansegg Mobn— it must 
 
 be told— 
 Though instead of silver it tipp'd 
 
 with goldrr 
 Shone rather wan, and distant, and 
 
 cold ; 
 
 And before its days were at thirty. 
 
 Such gloomy clouds began to collect. 
 
 With an ominous ring of ill effect. 
 
 As gave but too much cause to expect 
 
 Such weather as seamen call dirty ! 
 
 And yet the moon was the ' Young 
 May Moon,' 1900 
 
 And the scented hawthorn had 
 blossom 'd soon, 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 593 
 
 And the thrush and the blackbird 
 were singing — 
 The snow-white lambs were skipping 
 
 in play; 
 And the bee was humming a tune all 
 
 day i 
 To flowers as welcome as flowers in 
 May, 
 And the Trout in the stream was 
 
 spnngmg 
 
 But what were the, hues of the bloom- 
 ing earth, 
 Its scents — its sounds — or the music 
 and mirth 
 Of its furr'd or its feather'd crea- 
 tures. 
 To a Pair in the world's last sordid 
 stage, ' ipio 
 
 Who had never look'd into Nature's 
 
 page, 
 And had strange ideas of a Golden 
 . Age, 
 Without any Arcadian features ? 
 
 And what were joys of the pastoral 
 
 kiiid 
 To a Bride— town-made — with a heart 
 
 and a mind 
 With simplicity ever at battle ? , 
 A bride of an ostentatious race, 
 Who, thrown in the Golden Farmer's 
 
 place, 
 Would have Inmin'd her shepherds 
 
 with golden lace, 191 9 
 
 And gilt the horns of her cattle. 
 
 She could not please the pigs with her 
 
 whim. 
 And the sheep wouldn't cast their 
 eyes at a limb 
 For which shfe had been such a 
 martyr ; 
 The deer in the park, and the colts at 
 
 grass. 
 And the cows unheeded let it pass ; 
 And the ass on the common was such 
 an ass, 
 That he wouldn't have sWapp'd 
 The thistle he eropp'd 1928 
 
 For her Leg, including the Garter ! 
 
 She hated lanes, and she hated fields — 
 She hated all that the country yields ! 
 Aiid barely -knew turnips from 
 clover ; 
 She hated walking in any shape. 
 And a country stile was an awkward 
 
 scrape. 
 Without the bribe of a mob to gape 
 At the Leg in clambering over ! 
 
 O blessed nature, ,' O, rus ! O rus ! ' 
 
 Who cannot sigh for the country thus. 
 Absorbed in, a worldly torpor — 
 
 Who does not yearn for its meadow- 
 sweet breath, j 940 
 
 Untainted by care, and crime, and 
 death, 
 
 And to stand sometimes upon grass or 
 heath—' 
 That soul, spite of gold, is a pauper! 
 
 But to hail the pearly advent of morn. 
 And relish the odour fresh from the 
 thorn, 
 
 Shewasfartoppamper'damadam — 
 Or to j oy in the daylight waxing strong. 
 While, after ages of sorrow and wrong. 
 The scorn of the proud, the misrule of 
 the strong, j 949 
 
 And all the woes that to man belong, 
 The Lark still carols the self -same song 
 
 That he did to the uncurst Adam ! 
 
 The Lark ! — she had given all Leip- 
 
 ' ■ zig's flocks '- '■ ■ '■ 
 
 For a Vauxhall tune in a musical box ; 
 
 And as for the birds in the thicket. 
 
 Thrush or ouzel in leafy niche, 
 
 The linnet or finch; — she was fartoo rich 
 
 To care for a. Morning concert, to 
 
 which 1958 
 
 Shewas welcpme without any ticket. 
 
 Gold, still gold, her standard of old, 
 All pastoral joys were tried by gold, 
 Or by fancies golden and crural — 
 Till ere she had pass 'd one week un- 
 
 blest. 
 As her agricultural Uncle's guest, 
 Her mind was made up arid fully 
 imprest 
 That felicity could not be rural I 
 
594 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 And the Count ?^to the snow-white 
 
 . lambs at play, : , i , 
 
 And, all, the, scents and the sighte of 
 May, 
 And the birds that warbled their 
 passion, 
 His ears, and dark eyes, and decided 
 nose, ,1970 
 
 Were as deaf and as blind and as dull 
 
 as those 
 That overlook the Bouquet de Rose, 
 The Huile Antique, 
 And Parfum Unique, 
 In a Barber's Temple' of Fashion. 
 
 To tell, indeed, the true extent 
 Of his rural bias, so far it went 
 
 As to covet estates in ring fences — 
 And for rural lore he had learn 'd in 
 
 town. 
 That the country was green, turn'd 
 
 up with brown, 198a 
 
 And garnish'd with trees that a man 
 
 might cut down 
 Instead of his own expehses. 
 
 And yet had that fault been his only 
 
 one. 
 The Pair might have had few quarrels 
 
 or none, 
 For their tastes thus far were in 
 
 common ; 
 But faults he had, that a haughty 
 
 bride 
 With a Golden Leg could hardly 
 
 abide — 
 Faults that would even have roused 
 
 the pride 1988 
 
 Of a far less metalsome woman ! 
 
 It was early days indeed for a wife,- 
 
 In the very spring of her married life, 
 
 Tobechill'd by its wintry weather — 
 
 But instead of sitting a-s Love-Birds 
 
 do, 
 Or Hymen's turtles that b}ll and coo, 
 Enjoying their ' moon and honey for 
 two,' 
 They were scarcely seen together I 
 
 In vain she sat with her Precious Leg, 
 
 A little exposed, A la Kilmansegg, 
 And rolled her eyes in their sockets' 
 
 He left her in spite of her tender 
 regards, 2000 
 
 And those loving murmurs describ'd 
 by bards, 1 
 
 For the rattling of dice and the shuf- 
 fling of cards, ; 
 And thepokingof ballsintopockets! 
 
 Moreover he lov'd the deepest stake ' 
 
 And the heaviest bet that players 
 
 would make ; 
 
 And he drank — the reverse of 
 
 sparely, — 
 
 And he used strange curses that made 
 
 her fret ; 
 And when he played with herself at 
 piquet. 
 She found, to her cost, 
 ' For she always lost, 2010 
 
 That the Count did not count quite 
 • fairly. 
 
 And then came dark mistrust and 
 
 doubt, 
 Gath(Ei-ed by worming his secrets out. 
 
 And slips in his conversations — 
 Fears, which all her peace destroy'd. 
 That his title was null, — his. coffers 
 
 were void — 
 And his French Chateau was in Spain, 
 
 of enjoy 'd 
 The most airy of situations. 
 
 But still his heart— if he had such a 
 
 part- 
 She — only she — might possess his 
 
 neart, 2020 
 
 And hold,Ius: affections in fetters- 
 Alas ! that Hope, like a crazy ship. 
 Was forced its anchor and cable to slip 
 When, seduced by her fears, she took 
 
 a dip 
 In his private papers and letters. 
 
 Letters that told of dangerous leagues ; 
 And notes that hinted as many in- 
 trigues 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 595 
 
 As the Count's in the 'Barber of 
 
 Seville '— 
 In short such mysteries came to light, 
 That the Countess-Bride, on the 
 
 thirtieth night, 2030 
 
 Woke and started up in affright, 
 And kick'd and scream 'd with all her 
 
 might. 
 And finallyi fainted away outright. 
 For she dreamt she had married the 
 
 Devil ! 
 
 •bet Aisecs. 
 
 Who hath not met with home-made 
 
 bread, 
 A heavy compound of putty and 
 
 lead — 
 And home-made wines that rack the 
 head. 
 And home-made liqueurs and 
 waters ? 
 Home-made pop that will not foam, 
 And home-made dishes that drive one 
 from home, 2040 
 
 Not to name each mess. 
 For the face or dress. 
 Home-made by the homely daugh- 
 ters ? 
 
 Home-made physic, that sickens the 
 
 sick ; 
 Thick for thin and thin for thick ; — 
 In short each homogeneous trick 
 
 For poisoning domesticity ? 
 And since our Parents, called the 
 
 First, 
 A little family squabble nurst, 2049 
 Of all our evils the worst of the worst 
 Is home-made infelicity. 
 
 There 's a Golden Bird that claps its 
 
 wings. 
 And dances for joy on its perch; and 
 
 sings 
 With a Persian exaltation : 
 For the Sun is shining into the room, 
 And brightens up the carpet-bloom. 
 As if it were new, bran new from the 
 
 loom. 
 Or the lone Nun's fabrication. 
 
 And thence the glorious radiance 
 ' flames 2059 
 
 On pictures in massy gilded frames — 
 Enshrining, however, no painted 
 Dames, 
 But portraits of colts and fiUies — 
 Pictures hanging on walls which shine. 
 In spite of the bard's familiar line. 
 With clusters of ' gilded lilies.' 
 
 And still the flooding sunlight shares 
 Its lustre with gilded sofas and chairs, 
 That shine as if freshly burnish'd-^ 
 And gilded tables, with glittering 
 stocks 2069 
 
 Of gilded china, and golden clocks. 
 Toy, and trinket, and musical box, 
 ■That Peace and Paris have fur- 
 nish'd. 
 
 And lo ! with the brightest gleam of 
 
 all 
 The glowing sunbeam is seen to fall 
 On an object as rare as splendid — 
 The golden foot of the Golden Leg 
 Of the Countess — once Miss Kilman- 
 segg— 
 But there all sunshine is ended. 
 
 Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim. 
 And downward cast, yet n6t at the 
 
 limb, 2080 
 
 Once the centre of all speculation ; 
 
 But downward drooping in comfort's 
 
 dearth. 
 As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the 
 
 earth — 
 Whence human sorrows derive their 
 
 birth— 
 By a moral gravitation. 
 
 Her golden hair is out of its braids. 
 And her sighs betray the gloomy 
 
 shades 
 That her evil planet revolves in — 
 And tears are falling that catch a 
 
 gleam 
 So bright as they drop in the sunny 
 
 beam, 2090 
 
 That tears of aqua regia they seem. 
 The water that Gold dissolves in 1 
 
596 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 Yet, not in filial grief were shed 
 
 Those tears for a mother's insanity; 
 
 Nor yet because her father was dead,' 
 
 For the bowing Sir Jacob had bow'd 
 
 his head 
 
 To Death— with his usual urbanity; 
 
 The waters that down her visage rill'd 
 
 Were drops of unrectified spirit dis- 
 
 till'd -.■ 
 
 From the limbeck of Pride and 
 
 Vanity. aioo 
 
 Tears that fell alone and uncheckt, 
 Without relief, and without respect, 
 Like the fabled pearls that the pigs 
 neglect, 
 
 When pigs have that opportunity— 
 And of all the griefs that njprtals sl^are. 
 The one that seems the hardest to bear 
 
 Is the grief without community. 
 
 How blessed' the heart that has a 
 
 friend 
 A sympathizing ear to lend 2109 
 
 To troubles too great to smother ! 
 For as ale and porter, when flat, are 
 
 restbred, 
 Till a sparkling, bubbling head they 
 
 afford. 
 So sorrow is, cheer'd by being pour'd 
 Frpm one vessel into another. 
 
 But friend or gossip she had not one 
 
 To hear the vile deeds that the Count 
 
 had doriis. 
 
 How night after night he raimbled ; 
 
 And how she learn'd, by sad degrees, 
 
 That he drank, and smok'd,and worse 
 
 than these; 
 
 That he ' swindled, intrigued, and 
 
 gambled.' ' ^ 2x20 
 
 How he kiss'd the maids, and sparr'd 
 
 with John ; 
 And came to bed with his garments on ; 
 
 With other offences as heinouS: — 
 And brought Mrange gentlemen home 
 
 to dine, 
 That he said were in the Fancy Line, 
 And they fancied spirits instead of 
 wine, 
 And called her lap-dog ' Wenus.' 
 
 Of ' making a book,' how he made a 
 
 stir. 
 But never had written a line to her, 
 Once his idol and Cara Sposa : 2130 
 And how he had storm 'd, and treated 
 
 her ill. 
 Because she refused to go down to a 
 
 mill. 
 She didn't know where, but remem- 
 
 ber'd still 
 That the Miller's name was Men- 
 
 doza. 
 
 How often he wak'd her up at night, 
 And oftener still by the morning light, 
 Reeling home from his haunts un- 
 lawful ; 
 Singiiig songs that shouldn't be sung. 
 Except by beggars and thieves un- 
 hung — 
 Or volleying oaths, that a foreign 
 tongue 2140 
 
 Made still more horrid and awful ! 
 
 How oft,instead of otto of rose. 
 With vulgar smells he offended her 
 
 nose, 
 From gin, tobacco, and onion ! 
 And then how wildly he used to stare ! 
 And shake his fist at nothing, and 
 
 swear, — 
 And pluck by the handful his shaggy 
 
 hair. 
 Till he looked like a study of Giant 
 
 Despair 
 For a new Edition of Buiiyan ! 2149 
 
 For dice will run the contrary way. 
 As well is known to all who play. 
 
 And cards will conspire as in treason ; 
 And what with keeping a hunting-box, 
 
 Following fox — 
 
 Friends in flocks, 
 
 Burgundies, Hocks, 
 
 Froih London Docks ; 
 
 Stultz's frocks, 
 
 Manton and Nock's 
 
 Barrels and locks, 2160 
 
 Shooting, blue rocks : 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 597 
 
 Trainers and jocks, 
 Buskins and socks, 
 Pugilistical knocks, 
 And fighting-cocks. 
 If he found himself short in funds and 
 stocks. 
 These rhymes will furnish the 
 reason ! 
 
 Hisfriends,indeed,werefallingaway — 
 Friends who insist on play or pay — 
 And he fear'd at no very distant day 
 To be cut by Lord and by cadger, 
 As one who was gone or going to 
 
 smash, 2172 
 
 For his cheques no longer drew "the 
 
 cash. 
 Because, as his comrades explain'd in 
 
 flash, 
 ' He had overdrawn his badger.' 
 
 Gold, gold — alas ! for the gold 
 Spent where souls are bought and sold. 
 
 In Vice's Walpurgis revel ! 
 Alas ! for muffles, and bulldogs, and 
 
 guns. 
 The leg that walks, and the leg that 
 
 runs, 218a 
 
 All real evils, though Fancy ones, 
 When they lead to debt, dishonour, 
 
 and duns. 
 Nay, to death, and perchance, the 
 
 Devil ! 
 
 Alas ! for the last of a Golden race ! 
 JIa,d she cried her wrongs in the 
 
 market-place,. 
 She had warrant for all her 
 
 clamour — ■ 
 For the worst of rogues, and brutes, 
 
 and rakes, ; 
 
 Was breaking her heart by constant 
 
 aches, 
 With as little remorse as the pauper 
 
 who breaks 
 A flint with a parish hammer J 2x90 
 
 HER LAST WILL. 
 
 Now the Precious Leg, while cash 
 
 was flush. 
 Or the Count's acceptance worth a 
 
 rush, 
 
 Had never excited dissension; 
 But no sooner the stocks began to fall. 
 Than, without any ossification at all, 
 The limb became what people call 
 
 A perfect bone of contention. 
 
 Foir alter'd days brought alter'd ways, 
 And instead of the complimentary 
 phrase. 
 So current before her bridal — 2200 
 The Countess heard, in language low. 
 That her Prepious Leg was precious 
 
 slow, 
 A gqod 'un to look at but bad to go. 
 And kept quite a sum lying idle. 
 
 That instead of playing musical airs, 
 Like Colin's foot in going up-stairs^-^ 
 As the wife in the Scottish ballad 
 declares— 
 It made an infernal stumping. 
 Whereas a member of cork or wood, 
 Would be Ughter and cheaper, and 
 quite as good, . 2210 
 
 Without the unbeairable thumping. 
 
 P'rhaps she thought it a decent thing. 
 To show her talf to cobbler and king, 
 
 But nothing could be absurder — 
 While none but the crazy would 
 
 advertise 
 Their gold before their servants' eyes. 
 Who of course some night would 
 make it a prize. 
 By a Shocking and Barbarous 
 Murder. 
 
 But spite of hint, and Ihrfeat, and scoff, 
 The Leg kept its situation : 2220 
 
 For legs are not to be taken off 
 By a verbal amputation. 
 
 And mortals when they take a whim. 
 
 The greater the fpUy the stiffer- the 
 
 limb 
 
 That stands upon it or by it — 
 
 So the Countess, then Miss Kilman- 
 
 : segg, ; .. .. • . 
 
 At her marriage i-efused to stir a peg. 
 Till the Lawyers had fastened on her 
 Leg, 
 As fast as the Law could tie it. 
 
598 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 Firmly then — arid more firmly yet^— 
 With scorn for scorn, and with threat 
 
 for threat, 2231 
 
 The Proud One confronted the 
 
 Cruel : 
 And loud and bitter the quarrel arose. 
 Fierce and merciless — one of those, 
 With spoken daggers, and looks like 
 
 blows, 
 In all but the bloodshed a duel ! 
 
 Rash, and wild, arid wretched, and 
 
 wrong, 
 Were the words that came from Weak 
 and Strong, 
 Till maddened fordesperate nfiatters 
 Fierce as tigress.escap'd from, her den; 
 She flew to her desk — 'twas opened — 
 and then, 2241 
 
 In the time it takes to try a pen. 
 Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen, 
 Her Will was in fifty tatters ! 
 
 But the Count, instead of curses wild. 
 Only nodded his head and smil'd, 
 As if at the spleen of an angry child ; 
 But the calm was deceitful and 
 
 sinister ! 
 A lull like those of the treacherous 
 
 sea — 
 For Hate in that moment had sworn 
 
 to be 2250 
 
 The Golden Leg's sole Legatee, 
 And that very night to administer ! 
 
 Ibet H)catb; 
 
 'Tis a stern and startling thing to 
 
 think 
 How often mortality stands on the 
 brink 
 Of its grave without any misgiving : 
 And yet in this slippery world of strife. 
 In the stir of human bustle so rife. 
 There are daily sounds to tell us that 
 Life 
 Is dying, and Death is living ! 
 
 Ay, Beauty the Girl, and Love the 
 
 Boy, 2260 
 
 Bright as they are with hope and joy, 
 
 How their souls would' sadden 
 instanterj 
 To remember that one of those 
 
 wedding-bells; '• 
 
 That ring so merrily through the dells. 
 Is the same that knells 
 Our last farewells. 
 Only broken into a canter ! 
 
 But breath and blood set doom ' at 
 nought — 
 
 How little the wretched Countess 
 thought. 
 When at night she unloos'd her 
 sandal, 2270 
 
 That the Fates had woven her burial- 
 cloth. 
 
 And that Death, in the shape of a 
 Death's Head Moth, 
 Was fluttering round her candle ! 
 
 As she look'd at her clock of or-molu. 
 For the hours she had gone so wearily 
 through 
 At the end of a day of trial — 
 How little she saw in her pride of 
 
 prime 
 The Dart of Death in the Hand of 
 Time — 
 That hand which mov'd on the dial ! 
 
 As she went With her taper up the 
 
 stair, 2280 
 
 How little her swollen eye was aware 
 
 That the shadow which foUow'd 
 
 was double ! 
 
 Or when she clos'd her chamber door. 
 
 It was shutting out, arid for evermore. 
 
 The ^vorld — and its worldly trouble. 
 
 Little she dreamt, as she laid aside 
 Her j ewels^af ter one glance of pride— 
 They were solemn bequests to 
 Vanity — 
 Or when her robe she began to doff. 
 That she stood so near to the putting 
 off 2290 
 
 Of the flesh that clothes humanity. 
 
MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 599 
 
 And when she quench'd the taper's 
 
 light, , 
 How httle she thought as the' smoke 
 
 took flight, 
 That her day was done — and merg'd 
 in a night 
 Of dreams and duration uncertain — 
 Or, along with her own, 
 That a hand of bone ' 
 
 Was closing mortality's curtain ! 
 
 But life is sweet, and mortality blind. 
 And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind 
 
 In concealing the day of sorrow ; 
 And enough i,s. the present tense of 
 toil — . ; I •z,302 
 
 For this world is, to all, a stiiiish soil — 
 And the mind 'flies back with a. glad 
 1 recoil , , . 
 
 From the debts not due till to- 
 morrow. 
 
 Wherefore else does the Spirit fly 
 And bid its daily cares good-bye. 
 
 Along with its daily clothing ? 
 Just as the Felon condemn 'd. to die — 
 
 With a very natural loathing — 2310 
 Leaving the Sheriff to dream of ropes, 
 From hisgloomy cell in a vision elopes, 
 To caper on sunny greens and slopes, 
 
 Instead of the dance upoii nothing. 
 
 Thus, even thus, the Countess slept, 
 While Death still nearer and nearer 
 crept. 
 Like the Thane who smote the 
 sleeping — 
 But her mind was busy withearly joys, 
 Her golden treasures and gold'en, toys,- 
 That flash'd a bright 2320 
 
 And golden light 
 Under lids still red with weeping. 
 
 The golden doll that she used to hug ! 
 Her coral of gold, and the golden mug ! 
 
 Her godfather's golden presents ! 
 The golden service she had at her 
 
 meals, 
 The golden watch, andchain, and seals, 
 Her golden scissors, and thread, and 
 reels, ' ^ 
 And her golden fishes and pheasants ! 
 
 The golden guineas in silken purse — 
 
 And the Golden Legends she heard 
 
 from her nurse, 2331 
 
 Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage — 
 
 And London streets that were pav'd 
 
 with gold' — 
 And the Golden Eggs that were laid 
 of old— 
 With each golden thing 
 To the golden ring 
 At her own auriferous Marriage ! 
 
 And still the golden light bt the sun 
 Through her golden dreiam appear'd 
 
 to run. 
 Though the night that roar'd without 
 was one 2340 
 
 To terrify seamen or gipsies — 
 While the moon, as if in malicious 
 
 mirth, 
 Kept peeping down at the ruffled 
 
 , earth, 
 As though she enjoyed the tempest's 
 birth, 
 In revenge of her old eclipses. 
 
 But vainly, vainly, the thunder fell. 
 For the soiil of the sleeper was under 
 
 a spell 
 That Time had lately embitter 'd — 
 The Count, as once at her feet he 
 
 knelt— 
 That Foot which now he wanted to 
 
 melt ! 2350 
 
 But — hush ! — 'twas a stir at her 
 
 pillow she felt — 
 Andsomeobject beforeher gUtter'd. 
 
 'Twas the Golden Leg ! — she knew its 
 
 ' gleam ! 
 And up she started, and tried to 
 scream, — 
 But ev'n in the moment she 
 started — 
 Down came the limb with a frightful 
 
 smash. 
 Arid, lost in the universal flash 
 That her eyeballs made at so mortal a 
 •Crash; 
 The Spark, called Vital, departed 1 
 
6oq MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG 
 
 Gold, still gold ! hard, yellow, and 
 
 ' cold, 2360 
 
 For gold she had lived, and she died 
 
 ■ for gold — 
 
 By a golden weapon — 'not oaken ; 
 
 In the morning they found her all 
 
 aloiie — ' 
 
 Stiff, and bloody, and cold as stone — 
 But her Leig, the Golden Leg, was 
 gone. 
 And the 'Golden Bowl was broken! ' 
 
 Gold, still gold I it haunted her yet^ 
 
 At the Golden Ljpn the Inquest met-f 
 
 Its foreman, a carver and gilder — 
 
 And the jury debated from twelve till 
 
 three 2370 
 
 What the Verdict ought to be. 
 
 And they brought it in as Felo de Se, 
 
 ' Because her own Leg had killed 
 
 her 1 • 
 
 1bec Abotal. 
 
 Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! , . 
 Bright and yellow, hajdand cold. 
 Molten, graven, hapimer'd, and roU'd^ 
 Heavy to get, and light to hold ; 
 Hoarded,, barter'd, bought,, and so)d. 
 Stolen, borrow'd, squander'd, jdoled : 
 Spurn 'd by the young, but hugg'd by 
 
 the old - 2380 
 
 To the very verge of the churchyard 
 
 mould ; ' ' 
 
 Price of many a crime untold ; ' 
 Gold ! Gold ! Gold ! Gold : 
 Good or bad a thousand fold ! ' 
 How widely its agencies vary — 
 Tosave^to ruin — to curse — to bless — 
 As even its minted coins express. 
 Now stamp 'd with the image of Good 
 
 Queen Bess, 
 And now of a Bloody Mary ! 
 
 ON A LATE IMMERSION 
 
 Long Life and hard frosts to the fortunate Prince ! 
 
 And for many a skating may Provideiice spare him ! 
 For surely his accident served to evince 
 
 That the Queen dearly loved, tho' the ice couldn't bear him! 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 Old wonian,''oId woman, will you go a-sbearing? 
 
 Speak a little loader, for I'm very Sard of hearing.'— 0^5«//arf. 
 
 Of all old women hard of hearing 
 The deafest, sure, was Dame Eleanor 
 Spearing ! 
 
 On her head, it is true. 
 Two flaps there grew,. 
 That serv'd for a pair of gold rings 
 to go through, 
 But for any purpose of ears in a 
 
 parley, 
 They heard no more than ears of 
 barley. 
 
 No hint was. needed from D. E. F. 
 You saw in her face that the woman 
 
 was deaf : 
 From her twisted mouth to her eyes 
 
 so peery, 10 
 
 Each queer feature ask'd a query ; 
 A look that said in a silent way, 
 ' Who ? and What ? and How ? and 
 
 Eh? , ,. 
 
 I'd give my ears to know what you 
 
 say ! ' 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 601 
 
 And well she might ! for each auri- 
 cular 
 Was deaf as a post — and that post in 
 
 particular 
 That stands at the corner of Dyott- 
 
 street now, 
 And never hears a word of a row ! 
 Ears that might serve her now and 
 
 then 
 As extempore racks for an idle pen, zo 
 Or to hang with hoops from jewellers' 
 
 shops 
 With coral, ruby, or garnet drops ; 
 Or, provided the owner so inclin'd, 
 Ears to stick a blister behind ; 
 But as for hearing wisdom, or wit, 
 Falsehood, or folly, or tell-tale-tit. 
 Or politics, whether of Fox or Pitt, 
 Sermon, lecture, or musical bit, 
 Harp, piano, fiddle, or kit, 29 
 
 They might as well, for any such wish, 
 Have been butter'd; done brown, and 
 laid in a dish ! 
 
 She !was deaf as a post, — as said 
 
 tefore^- 
 And as deaf as twenty similes more. 
 Including the adder, that deafest of 
 
 snakes, 
 Which never hears the coil it makes. 
 
 She was deaf as a house — which 
 
 modern tricks 
 Of language would call as deaf as 
 
 bricks — 
 For all her human kind were dumb. 
 Her drum, indeed, was so muffled a 
 
 drum. 
 That none could get a sound to 
 
 come, 4" 
 
 Unless the Devil that had Two 
 
 Sticks ! 
 She was deaf as a stone — say, one of 
 
 the stones 
 Demosthenes suck'd to improve his 
 
 tones ; 
 And surely deafness no further could 
 
 reach 
 Than to be in his mouth without hear- 
 ing his speech I 
 
 She was deaf as a nut — for nuts, no 
 
 doubt. 
 Are deaf to the grub that 's hollowing 
 
 out — 
 As deaf, alas ! as the dead and for- 
 gotten — 
 (Gray has noticed the Waste of breath. 
 In addressing the ' dull, cold ear of 
 
 death '), so 
 
 Or the Felon's ear that was stu£E'd 
 
 with Cotton — 
 Or Charles the First in slafue quo ; 
 Or the still-born figures of Madame 
 
 Tussaud, 
 With their eyes of glass, and their hair 
 
 of flax. 
 That only stare whatever you ' ax,' 
 For their ears, you know, are nothing 
 
 but wax. 
 
 She was deaf as the ducks that swam 
 
 in the pond. 
 And wouldn't listen to Mrs. Bond, — 
 As deaf as any Frenchman appears. 
 When he puts his shoulders into his 
 
 ears : 60 
 
 And — whatever the citizen tells his 
 
 son — 
 As deaf as Gog and Magog at one ! 
 Or, still to be a simile-seeker. 
 As deaf as dogs'-ears to Enfield's 
 
 Speaker ! 
 
 She was deaf as any tradesman's 
 dummy. 
 
 Or as Pharaoh's mother's mother's 
 mummy ; 
 
 Whose organs, for fear of our modern 
 sceptics. 
 
 Were plugg'd with gums and anti- 
 septics. 
 
 She was deaf as a nail — that you 
 
 cannot hammer 6» 
 
 A meaning into for all your clamour — 
 
 There never was such a deaf old 
 
 Gammer 
 
 So formed to worry 
 Both Lindley and Murray, 
 By having no ear for Music or Gram- 
 mar ! 
 
6o2 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 Deaf to sounds, as a ship out of sound- 
 ings, 
 Deaf to verbs, and all their com- 
 
 poundings, 
 Adjective, noun, and adverb, and 
 
 particle, 
 Deaf to even the definite article — 
 No verbal message was worth a, pin. 
 Though you hired an earwig to carry 
 ; it in 1 80 
 
 In short, she was twice as deaf as 
 
 ' Deaf Burke, 
 
 Or all the Deafness in Yearsley's Work, 
 
 Who in spite of his skill in hardness of 
 
 hearing. 
 
 Boring, blasting, and pioneering, 
 
 ' To give the dummy organ a clear- 
 
 Could never have cured Dame Eleanor 
 
 Spearing. 
 
 Of course the loss was a great priva- 
 tion. 
 For one of her sex — whatever her 
 
 station — 
 And none the less that the Dame had 
 
 a turn 89 
 
 For mating all families one concern. 
 And learning whatever there was to 
 
 learn 
 In the prattling, tattling village of 
 
 Tringham — 
 As who wore silk ? and who wore 
 
 gingham ? 
 And what the Atkins's shop might 
 
 bring 'em ? 
 
 How the Smiths contrived to live ? 
 
 and whether 
 The fourteen Murphys all pigg'd 
 
 together ? 
 The wages per week of the Weavers 
 
 and Skinners, 
 And what they boil'd for their Sunday 
 
 dinners — 
 What .plates the Bugsbys had on the 
 
 shelf. 
 Crockery, china, wooden, or delf ? 100 
 And if the parlour of Mrs. O 'Grady 
 Had a wicked French print, or Death 
 
 and the Lady ? 
 
 Did Snip and his wife continue to 
 jangle ? 
 
 Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle ? 
 
 What liquor was drunk by Jones and 
 Brown ? 
 
 And the weekly score they ran up at 
 the Crown ? 
 
 If the Cobbler could read, and be- 
 lieved in the Pope ? 
 
 And how the Grubbs were ofi for soap ? 
 
 If the Snobbs had furnish'd their 
 
 room up-stairs. 
 And how they managed for tables and 
 chairs, no 
 
 Beds, and other household affairs, 
 Iron,wooden, and Staffordshire wares ? 
 And if they could muster a whole 
 pair of bellows ? 
 In fact, she had much of the spirit that 
 
 lies 
 Perdu, in. a qotable set of Paul Prys, 
 By courtesy call'd Statistical Fel- 
 lows — 
 A prying, spying, inquisitive clan. 
 Who have gone upon much of the 
 self-same plan, 
 JottingtheLabouringClass'sriehes; 
 And after poking in pot and pan, 120 
 And routing garments in want of 
 stitches. 
 Have ascertaih'd that a working man 
 Wears a pair and a quarter of aver- 
 age breeches ! 
 
 But this, alas ! from her loss of hear- 
 ing. 
 
 Was all a. seal'd book to Dame 
 Eleanor Spearing ; 
 And often her tears would rise to 
 their founts — 
 
 Supposing a little scandal at play 
 
 'Twixt Mrs. O'Fie and Mrs. Au Fait— 
 That she couldn't audit the Gossips' 
 accounts. 
 
 'Tis true to her cottage still they 
 came, 130 
 
 And ate her muffins just the same. 
 
 And drank the tea of the widow'd 
 Dame, 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 603 
 
 And never swallow'd a thimble the 
 
 less 
 Of something the Reader is left to 
 
 guess, 
 For all the deafness of Mrs. S., 
 Who saw them talk, and chuckle, 
 
 and cough. 
 But to see and not share in the social 
 
 flow. 
 She might as well have liv'd, you 
 
 know, 
 In one of the houses in Owen's Row, 
 Near the New River Head, with its 
 
 water cut off 1 140 
 
 And yet the almond-oil she had tried. 
 And fifty infallible things beside, 
 Hot, and cold, and thick, and thin, 
 Dabb'd,anddribbled, and squirted in: 
 But all remedies fail'd ; and though 
 some it was clear 
 
 (Like the brandy and salt 
 We now exalt) 
 Had made a noise in the public ear. 
 She was just as deaf as ever, poor dear ! 
 
 At last — one very fine day in June — 
 Suppose her sitting, iS' 
 
 Busily knitting, 
 And humming she didn't quite know 
 what tune ; 
 For nothing she heard but a sort of 
 a whizz, 
 Which unless the sound of the circula- 
 tion, 
 Or of Thoughts in the process of 
 
 fabrication, 
 By a Spinning- Jennyish operation, 
 
 It 's hard to say what buzzing it is. 
 However, except that ghostof asound. 
 She sat in a silence most profound — 
 The cat was purring about the mat, 
 But her Mistress heard no more of that 
 Than if it had been a boatswain's cat : 
 And as for the clock the moments 
 nicking, 164 
 
 The Dame only gave it credit for 
 
 ticking. 
 The bark of her dog she did not catch ; 
 Nor yet the click of the lifted latch ; 
 
 Nor yet the creak of the opening door ; 
 Nor yet the fall of a foot on the floor — • 
 But she saw the shadow that crept on 
 her gown 170 
 
 And turned its skirt of a darker brown. 
 
 And lo 1 a man I — a pedlar ! ay, marry. 
 
 With the little back-shop that such 
 tradesmen carry, 
 
 Stock'd with brooches, ribbons, and 
 rings. 
 
 Spectacles, razors, and other odd 
 things. 
 
 For lad and lass, as Autolycus sings ; 
 
 A chapman for goodness and cheap- 
 ness of ware. 
 
 Held a fair dealer enough at a fair, 
 
 But deem'd a piratical sort of invader 
 
 By him we dub the ' regular trader,' 
 
 Who — luring the pas.sengers in as they 
 pass 181 
 
 By lamps, gay panels, and mouldings 
 of brass, 
 
 •And windows with only one huge pane 
 of glass. 
 
 And his name in gilt characters, 
 German or Roman, — 
 
 If he isn't a Pedlar, at least is a Show- 
 man ! 
 
 However, in the stranger came. 
 And, the moment he met the eyes of 
 
 the Dame, 
 Threw her as knowing a nod as though 
 He had known her fifty long years ago ; 
 And presto ! before she could utter 
 
 ' Jack ' — 190 
 
 Much less 'Robinson ' — open'd his 
 
 pack — 
 And then from amongst his portable 
 
 gear. 
 With even more than a pedlar's tact, 
 (Slick himself might have envied the 
 
 act) — 
 Beforeshehad timetobedeaf.in fact — 
 Popp'd a trumpet into her ear. 
 
 ' There, ma'am ! try it ! 
 You needn't buy it — 
 The last New Patent — and nothing 
 comes nigh it 
 
604 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 For affording the Deaf, at little ex- 
 pense, 200 
 The sense of hearing, and hearing of 
 
 sense I 
 A Real Blessing — and no mistake. 
 Invented for poor Humanity's sake ; 
 For what can be a greater privation 
 Than playing dummy to all creation. 
 And only looking at conversation — 
 Great Philosophers talking like Platos, 
 And Members of Parliament moral as 
 
 Catos, 
 And your ears as dull as waxy 
 potatoes ! 209 
 
 Not to name the mischievous quizzers. 
 Sharp as knives, but double as scissors, 
 Who get you to answer quite by guess 
 Yes for No, and No for Yes.' 
 (' That 's very true,' says Dame 
 Eleanor S.) 
 
 ' Try it again ! No harm in trying — 
 I'm sure you'll find it worth your buy- 
 ing, 
 A little practice — that is all — 
 And you'll hear a whisper, however 
 
 small. 
 Through an Act of Parliament party- 
 wall, — 
 Ev'ry syllable clear as day, 220 
 
 And even what people are going to 
 say — 
 I wouldn't tell a lie, I wouldn't, 
 But my Trumpets have heard what 
 Solomon's couldn't. 
 And as for Scott he promises fine. 
 But can he warrant his horns like 
 
 mine 
 Never to hear whataLadyshbuldn't — 
 Only a guinea — and can't take less.' 
 (' That 's very dear,' says Dame 
 Eleanor S.) 
 
 ' Dear ! — Oh dear, to call it dea,r ! 
 
 Why it isn't a horn you buy, but an 
 ear ; 230 
 
 Only think, and you'll find on reflec- 
 tion 
 
 You're bargaining, ma'am, for the 
 Voice of Affection ; 
 
 For the language of Wisdom, and 
 
 Virtue, and Truth, 
 And the sweet little innocent prattle 
 
 of youth : 
 Not to mention the striking of clocks— s 
 Cackle of hens — crowing of cocks — 
 Lowing of cow, and bull, and ox — ■ 
 Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks — 
 Murmur of waterfall over the rocks — 
 Every sound that Echo mocks — 240 
 Vocals, fiddles, and musical-box — 
 And zounds ! to call such a concert 
 
 dear ! 
 But I mustn't swear with my horn in 
 
 your ear. 
 Why, in buying that Trumpet you buy 
 
 all those 
 That Harper, or any trumpeter, blows 
 At the Queen's Levees or the Lord 
 
 Mayor's Shows, 
 At least as far as the music goes, 
 Including the wonderful lively sound. 
 Of the one-key 'd, bugles all the year 
 
 round : 249 
 
 Come — suppose we call it a pound ! 
 
 ' Come,' said the talkative Man of the 
 
 Pack, 
 ' Before I put my box on my back. 
 For this elegant, useful Conductor of 
 
 Sound, 
 Come — suppose we call it a pound ! 
 
 ' Only a pound ! it 's only the price 
 Of hearing a Concert once or twice. 
 It 's only the fee 
 You might give Mr. C, 
 And after all not hear his advice, 
 But common prudence would bid you 
 stump it ; 2io 
 
 For, not to enlarge. 
 It 's the regular charge 
 At a Fancy Fair for a penny trumpet. 
 Lord ! what 's a pound to the blessing 
 
 of hearing I ' 
 (' A pound 's a pound,' said Dame 
 Eleanor Spearing.) 
 
 ' Try it again ! no harm in trying ! 
 A pound 's a pound there 's no deny 
 
 >ng; 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 605 
 
 But think what thousands and thou- 
 sands of pounds 
 We pay for nothing but hearing sounds, 
 Sounds of Equity, Justice, and Law, 
 Parliamentary jabber and jaw, 271 
 Pious cant and moral saw. 
 Hocus-pocus, and Mon-tong-paw, 
 And empty sounds not worth a straw — 
 Why it costs a guinea, as I'm a sinner, 
 To hear the sounds at a Public 
 
 Dinner I 
 Onepoundonethrown in to the puddle, 
 To listen to Fiddle, Faddle, and 
 
 Fuddle ! 
 Not to forget the sounds we buy 
 From those who sell their sounds so 
 high, 280 
 
 That, unless the Managers pitch it 
 
 strong, . 
 To get a Signora to warble a song. 
 You must fork out the blunt with a 
 haymaker's prong ! 
 
 ' It 's not the thing for me — I know it. 
 
 To crack my own Trumpet up and 
 blow it ; 
 
 But it is the best, and time will show it. 
 There was Mrs. F. 
 So very deaf, 
 
 That she might have worn a percus- 
 sion-cap, 
 
 And been knock'd on the head with- 
 out hearing it snap. 290 
 
 Well, I sold her a horn, and the very 
 next day 
 
 Sheheardfrom her husband at Botany 
 Bay! 
 
 Come^eighteenshillihgs — that's very 
 ■ low, 
 
 You'll save the money as shillings go, 
 
 And I never knew so bad a lot, 
 
 By hearing whether they ring or not ! 
 
 ' Eighteen shillings ! it 's worth the 
 
 price. 
 Supposing you're delicate minded and 
 
 rather nice. 
 To have the medical man of your 
 
 choice, 
 Instead of the one ■ycith the strongest 
 
 voice — SO" 
 
 Who comes and asks you, how 's your 
 
 liver. 
 And where you ache, and whether you 
 
 shiver ; 
 And as to your nerves, so apt to 
 
 quiver 
 As if he was hailing a boat on the 
 
 river ! 
 And then with a shout, like Pat in a 
 
 riot. 
 Tells you to keep yourself perfectly 
 
 quiet ! 
 Or a tradesman comes — as tradesmen 
 
 will- 
 Short and crusty about his bill. 
 Of patience, indeed, a perfect 
 
 scorneir. 
 And because you're deaf and unable 
 
 to pay, 3"> 
 
 Shouts whatever he has to say, 
 In a vulgar voice, that goes over the 
 
 way, 
 Down the street and round the 
 
 corner I 
 Come — ^speak your mind — it 's " No 
 
 or Yes." ' 
 (' I've half a mind,' said Dame 
 
 Eleanor S.) 
 
 ' Try it again — no harm in trying. 
 Of course you hear me, as easy as 
 
 lying- 
 No pain at all, like a surgical trick, 
 To make you squall, and struggle, and 
 
 kick, 
 
 Like Juno, or Rose, 320 
 
 Whose ear undergoes 
 Such horrid tugs at membrane and 
 
 gristle. 
 For being as deaf as yourself to a 
 
 whistle ! 
 
 ' You may go to surgical chaps if you 
 
 choose, 
 Who will blow up your tubes like 
 
 copper flues. 
 Or cut your tonsils right away. 
 As you'd shell out your almonds for 
 
 Chris^nias-day ; 
 
6o6 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 And after all a matter of doubt, 
 Whether you ever would hear the 
 
 shout 
 Of the little blackguards that bawl 
 
 about, 330 
 
 " There you go with your tonsils out! " 
 
 Why I knew a deaf Welshman, who 
 
 came from Glamorgan 
 On purpose to try a surgical spell, 
 And paid a guinea, and might as well 
 Have called a monkey into his organ ! 
 For the Aurist only took a mug. 
 And pour'd in his ear some acoustical 
 
 drug. 
 That, instead of curing, deafened him 
 
 rather. 
 As Hamlet's uncle served Hamlet's 
 
 father ! 
 That 's the way with your surgical 
 
 gentry I 340 
 
 And happy your luck 
 If you don't get stuck 
 Through your liver and lights at a 
 
 royal entry. 
 Because you never answer'd the 
 
 sentry I 
 
 ' Try it again, dear madam, try it 1 
 Many would sell their beds to buy it. 
 I warrant you often wake up in the 
 
 night. 
 Ready to shake to a jelly with fright. 
 And up you must get to strike a light, 
 And down you go, in you know what. 
 Whether the weather is chilly or hot. 
 That 's the way a cold is got, — isz 
 To see if you heard a noise or not I 
 
 ' Why, bless you, a woman with 
 
 organs like yours 
 Is hardly safe to step out of doors ! 
 Just fancy a horse that comes full pelt, 
 But as quiet as if he was " shod with 
 
 felt," 
 Till he rushes against you with all his 
 
 force. 
 And then I needn'tdescribethecourse, 
 While he kicks you about without 
 
 remorse, 360 
 
 How awkward it is to be groom 'd by 
 
 a horse ! 
 
 Or a bullock comes, as mad as King 
 
 Lear, 
 And you never dream that the brute 
 
 is near. 
 Till he pokes his horn right into your 
 
 ear. 
 Whether you like the thing or lump 
 
 it,- 
 And all for want of buying a trumpet I 
 
 ' I'm not a female to fret and vex, 
 But if I belonged to the sensitive sex. 
 Exposed to all sorts of indelicate 
 
 sounds, 
 I wouldn't be deaf for a thousand 
 
 pounds. 370 
 
 ' Lord ! only think of chucking a 
 copper 
 To Jack or Bob with a timber limb, 
 Who looks as if he was singing a hyran. 
 Instead of a song that 's very 
 improper ! 
 
 ' Or just suppose in a public place 
 You see a great fellow a-puUing a face. 
 With his staring eyes and his mouth 
 
 like an O, — 
 And how is a. poor deaf lady to know. 
 The lower orders are up to such 
 
 games — 
 If he 's calling " Green Peas," or 
 
 calling her names ? ' 380 
 
 (' They're tenpence a peck ! ' said the 
 
 deafest of Dames.) 
 
 ' 'Tis strange what very strong advis- 
 ing, 
 By word of mouth, or advertising,. , 
 By chalking on walls, or placarding 
 
 on vans, 
 With fifty other different plans. 
 The very high pressure in fact of 
 
 pressing. 
 It needs to persuade one to purchase 
 
 a blessing I 
 Whether the Soothing American 
 
 Syrup, 
 A Safety Hat, or a Safety Stirrup,— 
 Infallible Pills for the human frame, 
 Or Rowland's O-don't-O (an ominous 
 name !) 391 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 607 
 
 A Doudney's suit which the shape so 
 
 hits 
 That it beats all others into fits ; 
 A Mechi's Razor for beards unshorn, 
 Or a Ghost-of-a-Whisper-Catching 
 
 Horn! 
 
 ' Try it again, Ma'am, only try ! ' 
 Was still the voluble Pedlar's cry ; 
 ■ It 's a great privation, there 's no 
 
 dispute, 
 To live like the dumb unsociable 
 
 brute, 399 
 
 And hear no more of the pro and con, 
 And how Society 's going on. 
 Than Murabo Jumbo or Prester John, 
 And all for want of this Sine Quk 
 
 Non • 
 Whereas with a horn that never 
 . ofiends, 
 You may join the genteelest party 
 
 that is. 
 And enjoy all the scandal, and gossip, 
 
 and quiz, 
 And be certain to hear, of your 
 
 absent friends — 
 Not that elegant ladies, in fact. 
 In genteel society ever detract. 
 Or lend a brush when a friend is 
 
 black'd, . 410 
 
 A.t least as a mere malicious act, 
 But only talk scandal for fear some 
 
 fool 
 Should think they were bred at 
 
 Charity-Schooli. 
 Or, maybe,' you like a little flirta- 
 tion. 
 Which even the mopt Don Juanish 
 
 rake 
 Would surely object to undertake 
 At the same high pitch as an alter- 
 , cation. 
 
 It 's not for me, of course, to judge 
 How much a Deaf Lady ought to 
 
 .'begrudge, ^ 
 But half-a-guinea seems no ' great 
 matter — 420 
 
 Letting alone more rational patter — 
 Only to hear a parrot chatter : 
 
 Not to mention that feather'd wit, 
 The Starling, who speaks when his 
 
 tongue is slit ; 
 The Pies and Jays that utter words. 
 And other Dicky Gossips of birds. 
 That talk with as much good sense 
 
 • and decorum. 
 As many Beaks who belong to the 
 
 Quorum. 
 
 ' Try it — buy it — say ten and six — 
 The lowest price a niiser could fix ! 430 
 I don't pretend with horns of mine. 
 Like some in the advertising line. 
 To "magnify sounds" on such marvel- 
 lous scales. 
 That the Sounds of a Cod sebm as big 
 
 as a Whale's ; 
 But popular rumours, right or wrong, 
 Charity Sermons, short or long, — 
 Lecture, Speech, Concerto, or Song, 
 All noises and voices, feeble or strong. 
 From the hum of a gnat to the clash 
 
 of a gong. 
 This tube will deliver distinct and 
 clear \ 440 
 
 Or supposing by chance 
 You wish to dance. 
 Why, it 's putting a Horn-pipe into 
 your ear ! 
 
 ' Try it — buy it ! 
 Buy it — try it !' 
 The last New Patent, and nothing 
 comes nigh it. 
 For guiding sounds to their proper 
 tunnel ! 
 Only try till the end of June, 
 And if you and the Trumpet are out 
 of tune 
 I'll turn it gratis into a Funnel ! ' 450 
 In short, the Pedlar so beset her, — 
 Lord Bacon couldn't have gammon'd 
 
 her better, — 
 With flatteries pliimp and indirect. 
 And plied his tongue with such effect, 
 A tongue that could almost have 
 
 butter'd a crumpet, — 
 The deaf Old Woman bought the 
 Trumpet. 
 
6o8 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 The Pedlar was gone. With the 
 
 Horn's assistance, 
 She heard his steps die away in the 
 
 distance ; 
 And then she heard the tick of the 
 
 clock, 
 The purring of Puss, and the snoring 
 
 of Shock ; 46a 
 
 And she purposely dropp'd a pin that 
 
 was little, 
 And heard it fall as plain as a skittle ! 
 
 'Twas a wonderful Horn, to be but 
 
 just ! 
 Nor meant to gather dust, must and 
 
 rust ; 
 So in half a jiffy, or less than that. 
 In her scarlet cloak and her steeple- 
 hat. 
 Like old Dame Trot, but without her 
 
 Cat, 
 The Gossip was hunting all Tringham 
 
 thorough — 
 As if she meant to canvass the 
 
 Borough, 
 Trumpet in hand, or up to the 
 
 cavity, 470 
 
 And sure, had the Horn been one of 
 
 those 
 The wild Rhinoceros wears onhisnose, 
 It couldn't have ripp'd up more 
 
 depravity ! 
 
 Depravity ! Mercy shield her ears ! 
 'Twas plain enough that her village 
 
 peers 
 In the ways of vice were no raw 
 
 beginners : 
 For whenever she rais'd the tube to 
 
 her drum 
 Such sounds were transmitted as only 
 
 come 
 From the very Brass Band of human 
 
 Sinners ! 
 Ribald jest and blasphemous curse 480 
 (Bunyan never vented worse). 
 With all those weeds, not flowers, of 
 
 speech 
 Which the Seven Dialecticians teach ; 
 
 Filthy Conjunctions, and dissolute 
 
 Nouns, 
 And Particles pick'd from the Kennels 
 
 of towns. 
 With Irregular Verbs for irregular jobs. 
 Chiefly Active in rows and mobs, 
 Picking Possessive Pronouns' fobs ; 
 And Interjections as bad as a blight, 
 Or an Eastern blast, to the blood and 
 the sight — 490 
 
 Fanciful phrases for crime and sin. 
 And smacking of vulgar lips where gin. 
 Garlic, tobacco, and ofials go in — 
 A jargon so truly adapted, in fact. 
 To each thievish, obscene, and fero- 
 cious act. 
 So fit for the brute with the human 
 
 shape. 
 Savage Baboon, or libidinous Ape, 
 From their ugly mouths it will 
 
 certainly come, . 
 Should they ever get weary of sham- 
 ming dumb ! ' 
 
 Alas ! for the voice of Virtue and 
 
 Truth, 500 
 
 And the sweet little innocent prattle 
 
 of Youth ! 
 The smallest urchin whose tongue 
 
 could tang, 
 Shock'd the Dame with u. volley of 
 
 slang. 
 Fit for Fagin's juvenile gang ; 
 While the charity chap. 
 With his muffin-cap. 
 His crimson coat, and his badge so 
 garish. 
 Playing at dumps, or pitch in the hole, 
 Curs'd his eyes, limbs, body and soul. 
 As if they didn't belong to the 
 Parish ! jio 
 
 'Twas awful to hear, as she went along, , 
 The wicked words of the popular song ; ' 
 Or supposing she listened — as, Gos* \ 
 sips will — , 
 
 At a door ajar, or a window agape. 
 To catch the sounds they allowed to 
 escape. 
 Those sounds belonged to Depra- 
 vity stm ! 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 609 
 
 The dark allusion, — or bolder brag 
 Of the dexterous ' dodge,' and the lots 
 
 of ' swag,' 
 The plunder'd house — or the stolen 
 
 nag— 519 
 
 The blazing rick, or the darker crime, 
 That quench'd the spark before its 
 
 time — 
 The wanton speech of -the wife 
 
 immoral — 
 The noise of drunken or deadly 
 
 quarrel, 
 With savage menace which threaten 'd 
 
 the life. 
 Till the heart seem'd merely a strop 
 
 for ' the Knife ' ; 
 The human liver, no better than that 
 Which is sliced and thrown to an old 
 
 woman's cat ; 
 And the head, so useful for shaking 
 
 and nodding. 
 To be punch'd into holes, like a 
 
 shocking bad hat, 
 That is only fit to be punch'd into 
 
 wadding ! 
 
 530 
 
 In short, wherever she turn'd the Horn 
 To the highly-bred, or the lowly- 
 born, — 
 The working man, who looked over 
 
 the hedge — 
 Or the Mother nursing her infant 
 
 pledge — 
 The sober Quaker, averse to 
 
 quarrels — 
 Or the. Governess pacing the village 
 
 thro'. 
 With her twelve Young Ladies, two 
 
 and two. 
 Looking, as such young ladies do, 
 Truss'd by Decorum and stufi'd 
 
 with Morals — S3 9 
 
 Whether she listen'd to Hob or Bob, 
 Nob or Snob, the Squire on his cob. 
 Or Tfiid'ge and his ass at a tinkering 
 
 job, — 
 To the Saint who expounded at Little 
 
 Zion — 
 Or the Sinner who kept the Golden 
 
 Lion — 
 
 The man teetotally wean'd from 
 liquor — 
 
 The Beadle, the Clerk, or the Rever- 
 end Vicar — 
 
 Nay, the very Pie in its cage of 
 wicker, — 
 
 She gather'd such meanings, double 
 or single, * 
 
 That, like the bell 
 
 With ' muffins to sell,' 550 
 
 Her ear was kept in a constant tingle ! 
 
 But this was nought to the tales of 
 
 shame. 
 The constant runnings of evil fame. 
 Foul, and dirty, and black as ink. 
 That her ancient Cronies, with nod 
 
 and wink, 
 Pour'd in her horn like slops in a sink ; 
 While sitting in conclave, as gossips 
 
 do. 
 With their Hyson or Howqua, black 
 
 or green, 
 And not a little of feline spleen 559 
 Lapp'd up in 'Catty Packages,' too, 
 To give a zest to the sipping and 
 
 supping ; 
 For still, by some invisible tether, 
 Scandal and Tea are link'd together. 
 As surely as Scarification and Cup- 
 ping- 
 Yet never since Scandal drank Bohea, 
 Or sloe, or whatever it happen 'd to 
 
 be, — 
 
 For some grocerly thieves 
 Turn over new leaves. 
 Without much amending their lives or 
 
 their tea — 
 No, never since cup was fill'd or 
 
 stirr'd, 570 
 
 Were such vile and horrible anecdotes 
 
 heard. 
 As blacken'd their neighbours of 
 
 either gender. 
 Especially that which is call'd the 
 
 Tender, 
 But instead of the softness we fancy 
 
 therewith. 
 Was harden 'd in vice as the vice of a 
 
 smith. 
 
6io 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 Women ! — the wretches had soil'd 
 and marr'd 
 Whatever to womanly nature be- 
 longs, 
 For the marriage-tie they had no 
 
 regard — 
 Nay, sped their mates to the Sexton's 
 yard, 
 (Like Madame Laffarge, with poi- 
 sonous pinches 58a 
 
 Cutting off her L by inches) — 
 
 And as for drinking, they drank so 
 hard, 
 That they drank their flat-irons, 
 pokers, and tongs ! 
 
 The men ? — they fought and gambled 
 
 at fairs ; 
 And poached — and didn't respect grey 
 
 hairs — 
 Stole linen, money, plate, poultry, and 
 
 corses ; 
 And broke in houses as well as horses ; 
 Unfolded folds to kill their oWn 
 
 mutton ; 
 And would their own Mothers and 
 
 Wives for a button : — 589 
 
 But not to repeat the deeds they did, 
 Backsliding in spite of all moral skid. 
 If all were true that fell from the 
 
 tongue 
 There wasn't a villager, old or young. 
 But deserved to be whipt, imprison 'd, 
 
 or hung, 
 Or sent on those travels which nobody 
 
 hurries 
 To publish at Colburn's, or Long- 
 man's, or Murray's. 
 
 Meanwhile the Trumpet, con amove. 
 Transmitted each vile diabolical story. 
 And gave the least whisper of slips 
 
 and falls 
 As that Gallery does in the Dome of 
 
 St. Paul's, 60a 
 
 Which, as all the world knows by 
 
 practice or print. 
 Is famous for making the most of a 
 
 hint. 
 
 Not a murmur of shame, 
 Or buzz of blame. 
 Not a flying report that flew at a 
 
 name, 
 Not a. plausible gloss, or significant 
 
 note. 
 Not a word in the scandalous circles 
 
 afloat. 
 From the. beam in the eye to dimi^ 
 
 nutive mote. 
 But vortex-like that tube of tin 
 Suck'd the censorious particle in : 6ia 
 And, truth to tell, for as willing an 
 organ , ; 
 
 As ever listened to serpent hiss. 
 Nor took the viperous sound amiss. 
 On, the snaky head of an ancient 
 Gorgon I 
 
 The Dame, it is true, would mutter 
 
 ' Shocking ! ' 
 Andgive her head a sorrowful rocking; 
 And make a clucking with palate and 
 
 tongue. 
 Like the call of Partlet to gather her 
 
 young,— 
 A sound when human that always 
 
 proclaims £19 
 
 At least a thousand pities and shames; 
 
 But still the darker the tale of sin, 
 
 Like certain folks when calamities 
 
 burst. 
 Who find a coinfort in ' hearing the 
 
 worst ' — 
 The further she poked the Trumpet 
 
 in. 
 
 Nay, worse, whatever she heard, she 
 spread 
 East and West, and North and 
 South, 
 Like the ball which, according to 
 Captain Z, 
 Went in at his ear and came out at 
 his mouth. 
 
 What wonder, between the Horn and 
 
 the Dame, 
 Such mischief was made wherever 
 
 they came, 63a 
 
 That the parish of Tringham was all 
 
 in a flame ? 
 
A iTALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 6ii 
 
 For although it requires such loud 
 discharges, 
 Such peals of thunder as rumbled at 
 
 Lear, 
 To turn the smallest of table-beer, 
 A little whisper breathed into the ear 
 Will sour a temper ' as sour as 
 varges." 
 In fact, such very ill blood there grew, 
 From this private circulation of 
 stories. 
 That the nearest neighbours the 
 
 village through, 
 Look'd at each other as yellow and 
 blue, 640 
 
 As any electioneering crew 
 Wearing the colours of Whigs and 
 Tories. 
 
 Ah ! well the Poet said, in sooth. 
 That ' whispering tongues can poison 
 
 Truth;' 
 Yea — like a dose of Oxalic Acid, 
 Wrench and convulse poor Peace, the 
 
 placid, I 
 
 And rack dear Love with internal 
 
 fuel. 
 Like arsenic pastry, or what is as 
 
 cruel. 
 Sugar of lead to sweeten gruel — 
 At least such torments began to wring 
 
 'em 650 
 
 From the very morn 
 When that mischievous Horn 
 Caught the whisper of tongues in 
 
 Tringham. 
 
 The Social Clubs dissolved in huffs. 
 And the Sons of Harmony came to 
 
 cuffs. 
 While feuds arose and family quarrels. 
 That discomposed the mechanics of 
 
 morals. 
 For screws were loose between brother 
 
 and brother, 
 While sisters fastened their nails on 
 
 each other ; 
 Such wrangle, and jangle, and miff, 
 
 and tiff, 66a 
 
 And spar, and jar, and breezes as stiff 
 As ever upset a friendship, or skiff ! 
 
 The plighted lovers who used to walk. 
 Refused to meet, and declined to talk; 
 And wish'd for (wo moons to reflect 
 
 the sun 
 That they mightn't look together on 
 
 one ; 
 While wedded affection ran so low, 
 That the oldest John Anderson 
 
 snubbed his Jo, 
 And instead of the toddle adown the 
 
 hill. 
 
 Hand in hand, 67a 
 
 As the song has plann'd, 
 Scratch'd her penniless out of his 
 
 will! 
 
 In short, to describe what came topass 
 
 In a true, tho' somewhat theatrical 
 
 way. 
 
 Instead of ' Love in a Village ' — alas I 
 
 The piece they perform 'd was ' The 
 
 Devil to Pay ! ' 
 
 However, as secrets are brought to 
 
 light. 
 And mischief comes home like chickens 
 
 at night ; 
 And rivers are track'd throughout 
 
 their course ; 
 And forgeries trac'd to their proper 
 
 source — 68a 
 
 And the sow that ought 
 By the ear is caught — • 
 And the sin to the sinful door is 
 
 brought ; 
 And the cat at last escapes from the 
 
 bag; 
 And the saddle is placed on the proper 
 
 nag ; 
 And the fog blows off, and the key is 
 
 found ; 
 And the faulty scent is picked out by 
 
 the hound ; 
 And the fact turns up like a worm 
 
 from the ground ; 
 And the matter gets wind to waft it 
 
 about ; 
 And a hint goes abroad and the mur- 
 der is out — 69a 
 
6l2 
 
 A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 And the riddle is guess'd and the 
 
 puzzle is known — 
 So the truth was sniff'd, and the 
 
 Trumpet was blown I 
 
 ****** 
 
 ****** 
 'Tis a day in November — a day of fog — 
 But the Tringham people are all agog, 
 Fathers, Mothers, and Mothers' 
 
 Sons, 
 With sticks, and staves, and swords, 
 
 and guns, 
 As if in pursuit of a rabid dog — 
 But their voices — raised to the highest 
 
 pitch. 
 Declare that the game is a Witch ! — a 
 
 Witch !— 
 
 Over the Green, and along by the 
 
 George, 700 
 
 Past the Stocks, and the Church, and 
 
 the Forge, 
 And round the Pound, and skirting 
 
 the Pond, 
 Till they come to the whitewash'd 
 
 cottage beyond. 
 And there at the door they muster 
 
 and cluster, 
 And thump, and kick, arid bellow, and 
 
 bluster, 
 Enough to put Old Nick in a fluster ! 
 A noise, indeed, so loud and long. 
 And mix'd with expressions so very 
 
 strong. 
 That supposing according to popular 
 
 fame 
 ' Wise Woman ' and Witch to be the 
 
 same, 710 
 
 No Hag with a broom would unwisely 
 
 stop. 
 But up and away through the chim- 
 ney-top ; 
 Whereas the moment they burst the 
 
 door. 
 Planted fast on her sanded floor. 
 With her Trumpet up to her organ of 
 
 hearing, 
 Lo and behold ! Dame Eleanor 
 
 Spearing I 
 
 Oh then arises the fearful shout ! 
 
 Bawl'd and scream'd and bandied 
 
 about, 
 ' Seize her! Drag the old Jezebel out!' 
 While the Beadle, the foremost of all 
 
 the band, 720 
 
 Snatches the Horn from her trembhng 
 
 hand. 
 And after a pause of doubt and fear. 
 Puts it up to his sharpest ear. 
 
 ' Now silence — silence — one and all ! ' 
 For the Clerk is quoting from Holy 
 Paul ! 
 
 But before he rehearses 
 A couple of verses. 
 The Beadle lets the Trumpet fall : 
 For instead of the words so pious and 
 
 humble. 
 He hears a supernatural grumble ! 730 
 
 Enough, enough, and more than 
 
 enough ! — 
 Twenty impatient hands, and rough, 
 By arm, and leg, and neck, and scruff. 
 Apron, kerchief, sown of stuff. 
 Cap, and pinner, sleeve, and cuff, 
 Are clutching the Witch wherever 
 
 they can. 
 With the spite of Woman and fury of 
 
 Man. 
 And then — but first they kill her cat, 
 And murder herdog on theverymat — 
 And crush the infernal Trumpet flat — 
 And then they hurry her through the 
 
 door 741 
 
 She never, never will enter more. 
 Away ! away ! down the dusty lane 
 They pull her, and haul her, with 
 
 might and main — 
 And happy the hawbuck, Tom or 
 
 Harry, 
 Dandie, or Sandy, Jerry or Larry, 
 Who happens to ' get a leg to carry ! ' 
 And happy the foot that can give her 
 
 a kick ; 
 And happy the hand that can find a 
 
 brick ; 749 
 
 And happy the fingers that hold a stick, 
 Knife to cut, or pin to prick ; 
 And happy the Boy who can lend her 
 
 a lick ; 
 
A TALE OF A TRUMPET 
 
 613 
 
 Nay, happy the Urchin, Charity-bred, 
 Who can shy very nigh to her wicked 
 old head I 
 
 Alas ! to think how people's creeds 
 Are contradicted by people's deeds ! 
 But though the wishes that Witches 
 
 utter 
 Can play the most diabolical rigs ; 
 Send styes in the eye — and measle the 
 
 pigs- 
 Grease horses' heels — and spoil the 
 
 butter — 7«o 
 
 Smut and mildew the corn on the 
 
 stalk, — 
 And turn new milk to water and 
 
 chalk, — 
 Blight apples — and give the chickens 
 
 the pip — 
 And cramp the stomach — and cripple 
 
 the hip — 
 And waste the body — and addle the 
 
 And give a Baby bandy legs — 
 
 Or freeze the blood with such wicked 
 
 chills 
 That the teeth must chatter like 
 
 Harry Gill's : — 
 Though in common belief a Witch's 
 
 curse 
 Involves all these horrible things, and 
 
 worse, 770 
 
 As ignorant bumpkins all profess. 
 No Bumpkin makes a poke the less 
 At the back or the ribs of old Eleanor 
 
 S., 
 As if she were only a sack of barley ; 
 Or gives her credit for greater might 
 Than the Powers of Darkness confer 
 
 at night 
 On that other old woman, the 
 
 parish Charley ! 
 
 Ay, now 's the time for a witch to call 
 Onher ImpsandSucklingsoneand all — 
 Newes, Pyewacket, or I Peck in the 
 
 Crown, 780 
 
 (As Matthew Hopkins has handed 
 
 them down) 
 Dick, andWillet, and Sugar-and-Sack, 
 Greedy Grizel, Jamara the Black, 
 
 Vinegar Tomand the rest of the pack — 
 Aye, now 's the nick for her friend Old 
 
 Harry 
 To come ' with his tail ' like the bold 
 
 Glengarry, 
 And drive her foes from their savage 
 
 job 
 As a mad Black Bullock would scatter 
 
 a mob : — 
 But no such matter is down in the 
 
 bond ; 789 
 
 And spite of her cries that never cease. 
 But scare the ducks and astonish the 
 
 geese , 
 TheDameis dragg'd to the fatal pond ! 
 And now they come to the water's 
 
 brim. 
 And in they bundle her, sink or swim. 
 Though it 's twenty to one that the 
 
 wretch must drown, 
 With twenty sticks to hold her down ; 
 Including the help to the self same end. 
 Which a travelling Pedlar stops to 
 
 lend. — 
 A Pedlar ! — Yes ! — the same ! — the 
 
 same ! 
 Who sold the Horn to the drowning 
 
 Dame ; 800 
 
 And now is foremost amid the stir. 
 With a token only reveal'd to her ; 
 A token that makes her shudder and 
 
 shriek. 
 And point with her finger — and strive 
 
 to speak — 
 But before she can utter the name of 
 
 the Devil, 
 Her head is under the water's level ! 
 
 MORAL 
 
 There are folks about Town — to name 
 
 no names — 
 Who much resemble that deafest of 
 
 Dames ; 
 And over their tea, and muffins, and 
 
 crumpets. 
 Circulate many a scandalous word, 810 
 And whisper tales they could only 
 
 have heard 
 Through some such Diabolical 
 
 Trumpets. 
 
6i4 
 
 A BULL 
 
 One day, no matter where or when, 
 Except 'twas after some Hibernian 
 
 revel, 
 For why ? an Irishman is ready then 
 
 ' To play the Devil '— • 
 A Pat, whose surname has escaped the 
 
 Bards, 
 Agreed to play with Nick a game at 
 
 Cards. 
 
 The stake, the same that the old 
 Source of Sin 
 
 From German Faustus and his Ger- 
 man cousins 
 
 Had won by dozens ; 
 The only one in fact he cares a pin lo 
 To win. 
 
 By luck or roguery of course Old Nick 
 
 Won ev'ry trick ; 
 The score was full, the last turn-up 
 had done it — 
 
 ' Your soul — I've won it ! ' 
 
 ' It 's true for you I've lost that same,' 
 Said Pat a little hazy in his wits — 
 ' My soul is yours — but come, another 
 game-^ 
 Double, or quits 1 ' 
 
 A REFLECTION 
 
 When Eve upon the first of Men 
 The apple press'd with specious cant 
 
 Oh ! what a thousand pities then 
 That Adam was not Adamant I 
 
 ON A ROYAL DEMISE 
 
 How Monarchs die is easily explain'd, 
 
 And thus it might upon the Tomb be chisel'd, 
 
 ' As long as George the Fourth could reign he reign'd, 
 And then he mizzled.' 
 
 'UP THE RHINE' 
 
 Why, Tourist, why 
 
 With Passport have to do ? 
 Pr'ythee stay at home and pass 
 
 The Port and Sherry too. 
 
 Why, Tourist, why 
 
 Embark for Rotterdam ? 
 Pr'ythee stay at home and take 
 
 Thy Hollands in a dram. 
 
 Why, Tourist, why 
 
 To foreign climes repair ? 
 
 Pr'ythee take thy German Flute, 
 And breathe a German air. 
 
 Why, Tourist, why 
 
 The Seven Mountains view? 
 Any one at home can tint 
 
 A hill with Prussian Blue. 
 
 Why, Tourist, why 
 
 To old Colonia's walls ? 
 
 Sure, to see a Wrenish Dome, 
 One needn't leave St. Paul s. 
 
 THE PURSUIT OF LETTERS 
 
 The Germans for Learning enjoy great repute ; 
 But the English make Letters still more a pursuit ; 
 For a Cockney will go from the banks of the Thames 
 To Cologne for an O and to Nassau for Ms. 
 
6iS 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 After such years of dissension and strife, 
 Some wonder that Peter should weep for his wife : 
 But his tears on her grave are nothing surprising, — 
 He 's laying her dust, for fear of its rising. 
 
 ON A NATIVE SINGER 
 
 (AFTER HEARING MISS ADELAIDE KEMBLE) 
 
 As sweet as the Bird that by calm Bendemeer 
 Pours such rich modulations of tone — 
 
 As potent, as tender, as brilliant, as clear — 
 Still her Voice has a charm of its own. 
 
 For lo ! like the skylark, when after its song 
 It drops down to its nest from above. 
 
 She reminds us her home and her music belong 
 To the very same soil that we love. 
 
 TO C. DICKENS, ESQ. 
 
 ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR AMERICA 
 
 Pshaw ! away with leaf and berry. 
 And the sober-sided cup ! 
 Bring a goblet, and bright sherry, 
 And a bumper fill me up 1 
 Though a pledge I had to shiver, 
 And the longest ever was ! 
 Ere his vessel leaves the river 
 I will drink a health to Boz ! 
 
 Here 's success to all his antics, 
 Since it pleases him to roam, i 
 
 And to paddle o'er Atlantics 
 After such a sale at home ! — 
 May he shun all rocks whatever, 
 And each shallow sand. that lurks, 
 And his Passage be as clever 
 As the best among his works. 
 31 Deer. 1 841 T. Hood. 
 
 NIGHT-SONG— WRITTEN AT SEA 
 
 'Tis night — my bark is on the 
 ocean. 
 No sound I hear, no sight I see. 
 Not e'en the darkened waves whose 
 motion 
 Still bears me, Fanny ! far from 
 thee ; — 
 But from the misty skies are gleam- 
 ing 
 Two smiling stars that look, my 
 love, 
 As if thine eyes, though veiled, were 
 beaming 
 Benignly on me from above. 
 
 Good-night and bles!; thee, Fanny 
 
 dearest ! 9 
 
 Nor let the sound disturb thy sleep, 
 
 If when the midnight wind thou 
 
 hearest. 
 
 Thy thoughts are on the distant 
 
 deep. 
 
 Thy lover there is safe and fearless. 
 For heaven still guards and guides 
 his track. 
 Nor can his dreaming heart be cheer- 
 less, 
 For still to thee 'tis wafted back. 
 
6i6 
 
 NIGHT-SONG— WRITTEN AT SEA 
 
 'Tis sweet on the benighted billow 
 To trust in Him whom all adore ; 
 "Tis sweet to think that from her 
 pillow 
 Her prayers for me shall Fanny- 
 pour. «<> 
 
 The wind, self-luUaWed, is dozing, 
 The winking stars withdraw their 
 
 light, 
 Fanny ! methinks thine eyes »re 
 
 closing, 
 Bless thee, my love ! Good night, 
 
 good night 1 
 
 THE ELM TREE 
 
 A DREAM IN THE WOODS 
 
 ' And ihis our life, exempt from public haunt, 
 Finds tongues in trees.' — As YQuLiktJt. 
 
 'TwAS in a shady Avenue, 
 Where lofty Elms abound — 
 And from a tree 
 There came to me 
 A sad and solemn sound. 
 That sometimes murmur'd overhead, 
 And sometimes underground. 
 
 Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh, 
 Amid the boughs to moan ; 
 
 It mutter'd in the stem, and then lo 
 The roots took up the tone ; 
 
 As if beneath the dewy grass 
 The Dead began to groan. 
 
 No breeze there was to stir the leaves ; 
 
 No bolts that tempests launch. 
 To rend the trunk or rugged bark ; 
 
 No gale to bend the branch ; 
 No quake of earth to heave the roots. 
 
 That stood so stiff and staunch. 
 
 No bird was preening up aloft, 20 
 
 To rustle with its wing ; 
 No squirrel, in its sport or fear. 
 From bough to bough to spring ; 
 The solid bole 
 Had ne'er a hole 
 To hide a living thing 1 
 
 No scooping hollow cell to lodge 
 A furtive beast or fowl. 
 The marten, bat. 
 Or forest cat 30 
 
 That nightly loves to prowl, 
 Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud 
 The moping, snoring owl. 
 
 But still the sound was in my ear, 
 
 A sad and solemn sound. 
 That sometimes murmur'd overhead. 
 
 And sometimes underground — 
 'Twas in a shady Avenue 
 
 Where lofty Elms abound. 
 
 O hath the Dryad still a tongue 40 
 
 In this- ungenial clime ? 
 Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice 
 
 As in the classic prime — 
 To make the forest vohible, 
 
 As in the olden time ? 
 
 The olden time is dead and gone ; 
 
 Its years have fiU'd their sum — 
 And e'en in Greece — her native 
 Greece — 
 
 The Sylvan Nymph is dumb — 
 From ash, and beech, and aged oak, 50 
 
 No classic whispers come. 
 
THE ELMiTREE 
 
 617 
 
 From Poplar, Pine, and drooping 
 
 Birch, 
 ■ And fragrant Linded Trees ; 
 No living sound 
 E'er hovers round, 
 Unless the vagrant breeze. 
 The music of the merry bird. 
 Or hum of busy bees. 
 
 But busy bees forsake the Elm 
 That bears no bloom aloft — • 60 
 
 The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush. 
 The Blackbird in the croft ; 
 
 And among the firs the brooding Dove, 
 That else might murmur soft. 
 
 Yet still I heard that solemn sound. 
 
 And sad it was to boot. 
 From ev'ry overhanging bough, 
 
 And each minuter shoot ; 
 From rugged trunk and mossy rind. 
 
 And from the twisted root. 70 
 
 From these, — a melancholy moan ; 
 
 From those,, — a dreary sigh ; 
 As if the boughs were wintry bare. 
 
 And wild-winds sweeping by-^ 
 Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud 
 
 Was steadfast in the sky. 
 
 No sign or touch of stirring air 
 Could either sense observe — 
 
 The zephyr had not breath enough 
 The thistle-down to swerve, 80 
 
 Or force the filmy gossamers 
 To take another curve. 
 
 In still and silent slumber hush'd 
 
 AH Nature seem'd to be : 
 From heaven above, or earth beneath. 
 
 No whisper came to me — 
 'Except the solemn sound and sad 
 
 From that Mysterious Tree ! 
 
 A hollow, hollow, hollow sound, 
 ■' As is that dreamy roar 90 
 
 When distant billows boil and bound 
 '. Along a shingly shore — 
 But the ocean brim was far aloof, 
 A hundred miles or more. 
 
 No murmur of the gusty sea. 
 
 No tumult of the beach. 
 However they may foam and fret. 
 
 The bounded sense could reach — 
 Methoilght the trees in mystic tongue 
 
 Were talking each to each ! — 100 
 
 Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales 
 Of greenwood love or guilt, 
 Of whisper'd vows 
 Beneath theiir boughs ; 
 Or blood obscurely spilt ; 
 Or of that near-hand Mansion House 
 A Royal Tudor built. 
 
 Perchance, of booty won or shared 
 Beneath the starry cope — • 
 
 Or where the suicidal wretch 110 
 
 Hung up the fatal rope ; 
 
 Or Beauty kept an evil tryste, 
 Insnared by Love and Hope. 
 
 Of graveSj perchance,untimely scoop'd 
 
 At midnight dark and dank — 
 And what is underneath the sod 
 Whereon the grass is rank — 
 Of old intrigues. 
 And privy leagues, 
 Tradition leaves in blank. 120 
 
 Of traitor lips that mutter'd plots — 
 Of Kin who fought and fell— ' 
 
 God knows the undiscover'd schemes. 
 The arts and acts of Hell, 
 
 Perform'd long generations since. 
 If trees had tongues to tell I 
 
 With wary eyes, and ears alert, 
 
 As one who walks afraid, 
 I wander'd down the dappled path 
 
 Of mingled light and shade — 130 
 Now sweetly gleam'd that arch of blue 
 
 Beyond the green arcade ! 
 
 How cheerly shone the glimpse of 
 Heav'n 
 Beyond that verdant aisle ! 
 AH overarch'd with lofty elms, 
 
 That quench'd the light, the while, 
 As dim and chill 
 As serves to fill 
 Some old Cathedral pile ! 139 
 
 X3 
 
6i8 
 
 THE ELM TREE 
 
 And many a gnarled trunk was there, 
 That ages long had stood, 
 
 Till Time had wrought ' them into 
 shapes 
 Like Pan's fantastic brood 5 
 
 Or still more foul and hideous forms 
 That Pagans carve in wood ! 
 
 A crouching Satyr lurking here — 
 And there a Goblin grini-r- 
 
 As staring full of demon life 
 As Gothic sculptor's whim — 
 
 A marvel it had scarcely been 150 
 
 To hear a voice from him ! 
 
 Some whisper from that horrid mouth 
 Of strange', unearthly tone ; 
 
 Or wild infernal laiigh, to chill 
 One's marrow in the bone. 
 
 But no it grins like rigid Death, 
 
 And silent as a stone ! 
 
 As silent as its fellows be, 
 . For all is ihute with them — 
 The branch that climbs the leafy 
 roof — 160 
 
 The rough and mossy stem — 
 The crooked root. 
 And tender shoot. 
 Where hangs the dewy gem. 
 
 One-mystic Tree alone there is. 
 Of sad and solemn sound — 
 
 That sometimes murmurs overhead. 
 And sometimes underground — 
 
 In all that shady Avenue, 
 Where lofty Elms abound. 170 
 
 Part IL 
 The Scene is changed ! No green 
 Arcade, 
 No Trees all ranged a-row — 
 But acatter'd like a beaten host. 
 
 Dispersing to and fro ; 
 With here and there a sylvan, corse. 
 That fell before the foe. 
 
 The Foe that down in yonder dell 
 
 Pursues his daily toil ; 
 As witness many a prostrate trunk, 
 
 Bereft of leafy spoil, 1 80 
 
 Hard by its wooden stump, whereon 
 
 The adder loves to coil. 
 
 Alone he works — his ringing blows 
 Have banish'd bird and beast ; 
 
 The Hind and Fawn have canter'd ofi 
 A hundred yards at least ; 
 
 And on the maple's lofty top. 
 The linnet's song has ceased. : 
 
 No eye his labour overlooks. 
 
 Or when he takes his rest ; 190 
 
 Except the timid thrush that peeps 
 Above her secret nest. 
 
 Forbid by love to leave the young , 
 Beneath her speckled breast. 
 
 The Woodman's heart is in his work, 
 
 His axe is sharp and good : 
 With sturdy arm and steady aim 
 He smites the gaping wood ; 
 From distant rocks 
 His lusty knocks 200 
 
 Re-echo many a rood. 
 
 His axe is keen, his arm is strong ; 
 
 The muscles serve him well ; 
 His years have reach'd an extra span, 
 
 The number none can tell ; 
 But still his lifelong task has been 
 
 The Timber Tree to fell. 
 
 ThroughSummer 'sparching sultriness, 
 And Winter's freezing cold. 
 
 From sapling youth aio 
 To virile growth. 
 And Age's rigid moiild, 
 His energetic axe hath rung 
 Within that Forest old. 
 
 Aloft, upon his poising steel 
 The vivid sunbeatns glance — 
 
 About his head and round his feet 
 The forest shadows dance ; 
 
 And bounding from his russet coat 
 The acorn drops askance. 2:0 
 
 His face is like a Druid's face, 
 With wrinkles furrowed deep, 
 
 And tann 'd by scorching suns as brown 
 As corn that 's ripe to reap ; 
 
 But the hair on brow, and cheek, and 
 chin. 
 Is white as wool of sheep. 
 
THE ELM TREE 
 
 619 
 
 His frame is like a giant's frame ; 
 
 His legs are long and stark ; 
 His arms like limbs of knotted yew ; 
 His hands like rugged bark ; 230 
 So he felleth still 
 With right good will, 
 As if to build an Ark I 
 
 Oh I well within His fatal path 
 The fearful Tree might quake 
 Through every fibre, twig, and leaf, 
 With iaspen tremour shake ; 
 
 Through trunk and root. 
 And branch and shoot, 
 A low complaining make ! 240 
 
 Oh ! well to Him the Tree might 
 breathe 
 
 A sad and solemn sound, 
 A sigh that murmur'd overhead, 
 
 And groans from underground ; 
 As in that shady Avenue 
 
 Where lofty Elms abound I 
 
 But calm and mute the Maple stands. 
 The Plane, the Ash, the Fir, 
 
 The Elm, the Beech, the drooping 
 Birch, 
 Without the least demur ; 250 
 
 And e'en the Aspen's hoary leaf 
 Makes no unusual stir. 
 
 The Pines — those, old gigantic Pines, 
 That writhe — ^recalling soon 
 
 ThefamousHuman Group that writhes 
 With Snakes in wild festoon — 
 
 In ramous wrestlings interlaced 
 A Forest Laocoon — 
 
 Like Titans of primeval girth 
 
 By tortures overcome, 260 
 
 Their brown enormous limbs they 
 twine 
 Bedew'd with tears of gum — 
 
 Fierce agonies that ought to yell, 
 But, like the marble, dumb. 
 
 Nay, yonder blasted Elm that stands 
 
 So like a man of sin. 
 Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad 
 
 To feel the Worm within — 
 For all that gesture, so intense. 
 
 It makes no sort of din I 27a 
 
 An universal silence reigns 
 
 In rugged bark or peel. 
 Except that very trunk which rings 
 
 Beneath the biting steel — 
 Meanwhile the Woodman plies his axe 
 
 With unrelenting zeal ! 
 
 No rustic song is on his tongue. 
 
 No whistle on his lips ; 
 But with a quiet thoiightfulness 
 
 His trusty tool he igfips, 280 
 
 And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking 
 out 
 
 The bright and flying chips. ■ 
 
 Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint 
 He spreads the fatal gash ; 
 
 Till lo ! the remnant fibres rend. 
 With harsh and sudden creish. 
 
 And on the dull resounding turf 
 The jarring branches lash ! 
 
 Oh ! now the Forest Trees may sigh. 
 The Ash, the Poplar tall, 290 
 
 The Elm, the Birch, the drooping 
 Beech, 
 The Aspens — one and all. 
 With solemn groan 
 And hollow moan 
 Lament a comrade's fall ! 
 
 A goodly Elm, of noble birth, 
 That, thrice the human span — 
 
 While on their variegated course 
 The constant Seasons ran — 299 
 
 Through gale, and hail, aiid fiery bolt. 
 Had stood erect as Man. 
 
 But now, Uke Mortal Man himself, / 
 Struck down by hand of God, 
 
 Or heathen Idol tumbled prone 
 Beneath th' Eternal's nod. 
 
 In all its giant bulk and length 
 It lies along the sod ! — 
 
 Ay, now the Forest Trees may grieve 
 And make a common moan 
 
 Around that patriarchal trunk 3«o 
 
 So newly overthrown ; 
 
 And with a murmur recognize 
 A doom to be their own ! 
 
620 
 
 THE ELM TREE 
 
 The Echo sleeps : the idle axe, 
 A disregarded tool, ' 
 
 Lies crushing with its passive weight 
 The toad's reputed stool — 
 
 The Woodman wipes his dewy brow 
 Within the shadows cool. 319 
 
 No Zephyr stirs : the ear may catch 
 
 The smallest insect-hum ; 
 But on the disappointed sense 
 
 No mystic whispers come ; 
 No tone of sylvan sympathy. 
 
 The Forest Trees are dumb. 
 
 No leafy noise, nor inward voice,' 
 
 No sad and solemn sound. 
 That sometimes murmurs overhead, 
 
 And sometimes underground ; 
 As in that shady Avenue, 330 
 
 Where lofty Elms abound ! 
 
 Parx III. 
 The deed is done : the Tree is low 
 
 That stood so long and firm ; 
 The Woodman and his axe are gone, 
 
 His toil has found its term ; 
 And where he wrought the speckled 
 Thrush 
 Securely hunts the worm. 
 
 The Cony from the sandy bank 
 
 Has run a rapid race, 
 Through thistle, bent, and tangled 
 fern, 340 
 
 To seek the open space ; 
 And on its haunches sits erect 
 
 To clean its furry face. 
 
 The dappled Fawn is close at hand. 
 
 The Hind is browsing near,— 
 And on the Larch's lowest bough 
 The Ousel whistles clear ; 
 But checks the note 
 Within its throat. 
 As choked with sudden fear ! 330 
 
 With sudden fear her wormy quest 
 The thrush abruptly quits — 
 
 Through thistle, bent, and tangled 
 fern 
 The startled Cony flits ; 
 
 And on the Larch's lowest bough 
 No more the Ousel sits. 
 
 With sudden fear 
 The dappled Deer 
 Effect a swift escape ; 359 
 
 But well might bolder creatures start, 
 
 And fly, or stand agape. 
 With rising hair, and curdled blood, 
 To see so grim a Shape ! 
 
 The very sky turns pale above ; 
 
 The earth grows dark beneath ; , 
 The human "Terror thrills with cold. 
 
 And draws a shorter breath — 
 An universal panjic owns 
 
 The dread approach of DEATH ! 
 
 With silent pace, as shadows come. 
 And dark as shadows be, 37' 
 
 The grisly Phantom takes his stand 
 Beside the fallen Tree, 
 
 And scans it with his gloomy eyes. 
 And laughs with, horrid glee — 
 
 A dreary laugh and desolate. 
 Where mirth is void and null. 
 
 As hollow as its echo sounds 
 Within the hollow skull — 
 
 ' Whoever laid this tree along, 380 
 His hatchet was not dull ! 
 
 ' The human arm and human tool 
 
 Have done their duty well ! 
 But after sound of ringing axe 
 Must sound the ringing knell ; 
 When Elm or Oak 
 Have felt the stroke 
 My turn it is to fell ! 
 
 ' No passive unregarded tree, 
 
 A senseless thing of wood, 390 
 
 ^ Wherein the sluggish sap ascends 
 To swell the vernal bud — 
 But conscious, moving, breathing 
 trunks 
 That throb with living blood ! 
 
 ' No forest Monarch yearly clad 
 
 In mantle green or brown ; 
 That unrecorded lives, and falls 
 
 By hand of rustic clown- 
 But Kings who don the purple robe, 
 And wear the jewelled crown. 400 
 
THE ELM TREE 
 
 621 
 
 ' Ah ! little recks the Royal mind, 
 
 Within his Banquet Hall, 
 While tapers shine and Music breathes 
 
 And Beauty leads the Ball,— 
 He little recks, the oaken plank 
 
 Shall be his palace wall ! 
 
 ' Ah, little dreams the haughty Peer, 
 The while his Falcon flies — 
 
 Or on the blood-bedabbled turf 
 The antler'd quarry dies — 410 
 
 That in his own ancestral Park 
 The narrow dwelling lies ! 
 
 ' But haughty Peer and mighty King 
 One doom shall overwhelm ! 
 The oaken cell 
 Shall lodge him well 
 Whose sceptre ruled a realm — 
 While he who never knew a home. 
 Shall find it in the Elm ! 419 
 
 ' The tatter'd, lean, dejected wretch. 
 Who begs from door to door, 
 
 And dies within the cressy ditch. 
 Or on the barren moor. 
 
 The friendly Elm shall lodge and 
 clothe 
 That houseless man, and poor ! 
 
 ' Yea, this recumbent rugged trunk, 
 That lies so long and prone, 
 
 With many a fallen acorn-cup, 
 And mast, and firry cone — 429 
 
 This rugged trunk shall hold its share 
 Of mortal flesh and bone ! 
 
 ' A Miser hoarding heaps of gold, 
 But pale with ague-fears — 
 
 A Wife lamenting love's decay. 
 With secret cruel tears, 
 
 DistilUng bitter, bitter drpps 
 From sweets of former years— 
 
 ' A Man within whose gloomy mind. 
 
 Offence had darkly sunk. 
 Who out of fierce Revenge's cup 440 
 
 Hath madly, darkly drunk — 
 Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep 
 
 Within this very trunk ! 
 
 ' This massy trunk that lies along, 
 And many more must fall — 
 For the very knave 
 Who digs the grave. 
 The man who spreads the pall, 
 And he who tolls the funeral bell, 
 The Elm shall have them all ! 450 
 
 ' The tall abounding Elm that grows 
 In hedgerows up and down ; 
 
 In field and forest, copse and park, 
 And in the peopled town, 
 
 With colonies of noisy rooks 
 That nestle on its crown. 
 
 ' And well th' abounding Elm may 
 grow 
 
 In field and hedge so rife, 
 In forest, copse, and wooded park. 
 
 And mid the city's strife, 460 
 
 For, every hour that passes by. 
 
 Shall end a human life I ' 
 
 The Phantom ends: the shade is gone ; 
 
 The sky is clear and bright ; 
 On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree, 
 
 There glows a ruddy light ; 
 And bounding through the golden fern 
 
 The Rabbit comes to bite. 
 
 The Thrush's mate beside her sits 
 And pipes a merry lay ; 470 
 
 The Dove is in the evergreens ; 
 And on the Larch's spray 
 
 The Fly-bird flutters up and down. 
 To catch its tiny prey. 
 
 The gentle Hind and dappled Fawn 
 Are coming up the glade ; 
 
 Each harmless furr'd and feather'd 
 thing 
 Is glad, and not afraid — 
 
 But on my sadden'd spirit still 
 
 The Shadow leaves a shade. 480 
 
 A secret, vague prophetic gloom. 
 As though by certain mark 
 
 I knew the fore-appointed Tree, 
 Within whose rugged bark 
 
 This warm and living frame shall find 
 Its narrow house and dark. 
 
622 THE ELM TREE 
 
 That mystic Tree which breathed to me 
 
 A sad and solemn sound, 
 That sometimes murmur'd overhead 
 
 And sometimes underground ; 490 
 Within that shady Avenue 
 Where lofty Elms abound. 
 
 RONDEAU 
 
 Tp-DAY it is my natal day, 
 And threescore years have pass'd away, 
 While Time has turn'd to silver grey 
 My hairs. 
 
 Pursuing pleasure, love, and fun, 
 A longish course I've had to run. 
 And, thanks to Fortune, I have won 
 My hares. 
 
 But now, exhausted in the race, 
 No longer I can go the pace. 
 And others must take up the chase — 
 My heirs ! 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 ON A CERTAIN HERO AND HEROINE 
 
 In raising names to noble rank 
 
 Not always true desert prevails ; 
 But Honour's self may take delight 
 
 In hoisting such top-gallant Sales ! 
 
 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE HAYMARKET THEATRE 
 
 AUGUST 2, 1843, BY MRS. WARNER 
 
 Hush ! not a sound ! no whisper ! no demur ! 
 
 No restless motion ! no intrusive stir ! 
 
 But with staid presence, and a quiet breath, 
 
 One solemn moment dedicate to death ! [A Pause, 
 
 For now no fancied miseries bespeak 
 
 The panting bosom and the wetted cheek ; 
 
 No fabled tempest, or dramatic wreck, 
 
 Nor royal sire washed from the mimic deck. 
 
 And dirged by sea nymphs in his briny grave : — 
 
 Alas ! deep, deep beneath the sullen wave — 10 
 
 His heart, once warm and throbbing as your own, 
 
 Now cold and senseless as the shingle-stone ! 
 
 His lips— so eloquent ! — choked up with sand i 
 
 The bright eye glazed, and the impressive hand 
 
ADDRESS 623 
 
 Idly entangled in the ocean weed — 
 
 Full fathom five, A FATHER lies indeed ! 
 
 Yes, where the foaming billows roam the while 
 
 Around the rocky Ferns and Holy Isle, 
 
 Deaf to their roar, as to the dear applause 
 
 That greets deserving in the Drama's cause — 20 
 
 Blind to the horrors that appal the bold — 
 
 To all he hoped, or fear'd, or prized, of old. 
 
 To love — and love's deep agony — a-cold ! 
 
 He who could move the passions — mov.'d by none, 
 
 Drifts an unconscious corse ! — Poor Elton's race is run I 
 
 Mourn for the dead ! Yet not alone for him, 
 
 O'er whom the cormorant and gannet swim ; 
 
 Weep for the dead ! yet do not merely weep 
 
 For him who slumbers in the oozy deep : 
 
 But, like Grace Darling, in her little boat, 30 
 
 Stretch forth a saving hand to those who float, — 
 
 The Orphan Seven ! so prematurely hurl'd 
 
 Amidst the surges of this stormy world, 
 
 And struggling — save your pity take their part — 
 
 With breakers huge enough to break the heart 1 
 
 SONNET 
 
 My heart is sick with longing, tho' I feed 
 
 On hope. Time goes with such a heavy pace 
 
 That neither gives nor takes from thy embrace, 
 
 As if he slept, forgetting his old speed : 
 
 For as in siinshine only we can read 
 
 The march of minutes on the dial's face ; 
 
 So in the shadows of this lonely place, 
 
 There is no love, and time is dead indeed ! 
 
 But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart. 
 
 Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies. 
 
 It seems we only meet to tear apart. 
 
 With aching hands, and Ungering of eyes — 
 
 Alas ! alas ! that we miist learn hours' flight. 
 
 By the same light of love that makes them bright I 
 
 A DROP OF GIN 
 
 Gin ! Gin ! a Drop of Gin ! 
 What magnified Monsters circle there- 
 in ! 
 Ragged, and stained with filth 
 
 and mud, 
 Some plague-spotted, and some 
 with blood 1 
 
 Shapes of Misery, Shame, and Sin I 
 Figures that make us loathe and 
 
 tremble. 
 Creatures scarce human that 
 more resemble 
 Broods of diabolical kin, 
 Ghoule and Vampyre, Demon and Jin 1 
 
624 
 
 A DROP OF GIN 
 
 Gin ! Gin ! a Drop of Gin ! lo 
 
 Thedramof Satan! the liquor o£ Sin!— 
 Distill'd from the fell 
 Alembics of Hell, 
 By Guilt and Death, his own brother 
 and twin I 
 That man might fall . 
 Still lower than all 
 The meanest creatures with scale and 
 
 fin. 
 But hold — we are neither Barebones 
 nor Prynne, 
 Who lash'd with such rage 
 The sins of the age ; 20 
 
 Then, instead of making too much of 
 din, 
 Let Anger be mute, 
 And sweet Mercy dilute. 
 With a drop of Pity, the Drop of Gin ! 
 
 Gin ! Gin ! a Drop of Gin ! — 
 When darkly Adversity's day 's set in, 
 And the friends and peers 
 Of earlier years 
 Prove warm without, but cold 
 within, — 
 And cannot retrace 30 
 
 A familiar face 
 That 's steep'd in poverty up to the 
 
 chin ; — 
 But snub, neglect, cold-shoulder, and 
 
 cut 
 The ragged pauper, misfortune's butt. 
 Hardly acknowledg'd by kith and kin. 
 Because, poor rat ! 
 He has no cravat ; 
 A seedy coat, and a hole in that ! — 
 No sole to his shoe, and no brim to his 
 
 hat ; 
 Nor a change of linen — except his 
 skin ; — 40 
 
 No gloves — no vest. 
 Either second or best ; 
 And what is worse than all the rest. 
 No light heart, tho' his breeches are 
 thin,— 
 
 While Time elopes ' 
 With all golden hopes, 
 And even with those. of pewter and 
 tin,: — 
 The brightest dreams. 
 And the best of schemes. 
 All knocked down, like a wicket by 
 Mynn, — 50 
 
 Each castle in air 
 Seized by Giant Despair, 
 No prospect in life worth a minikin 
 pin, — 
 No credit — no cash, 
 No cold mutton to hash. 
 No bread — not even potatoes to 
 mash \ 
 No coal in the cellar, no wine in the 
 binn, — 
 Smash'd, broken to bits, 
 With judgments and writs. 
 Bonds, bills, and cognovits distracting 
 the wits, 60 
 
 In the webs that the spiders of 
 Chancery spin, — 
 Till weary of life, its worry and 
 
 strife. 
 Black visions are rife of a razor, 
 a knife. 
 Of poison — a rope — ' louping over a 
 linn.'— 
 
 Gin ! Gin ! a Drop of Gin ! 
 Oh ! then its tremendous temptations 
 begin, 
 To take, alas I 
 To the fatal glass, — 
 And happy the wretch that it does not 
 win 
 To change the black hue 70 
 
 Of his ruin to blue — 
 While Angels sorrow, and Demons 
 grin— 
 And lose the rheumatic 
 Chill of his attic 
 By plunging into the Palace of Gin I 
 
62 S 
 
 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT 
 
 With fipgers weary and worn, . 
 
 With eyelids heavy and red, ' 
 A Woman sat, in unwonjanly rags, 
 
 Plying her needle and thread — '■ 
 . , Stitch ! stitch ! stitch 1 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
 And still with a voice of dolorous 
 
 pitch 
 She sang the ' Soiig of tlie Shift ! ' ' 
 
 ' Work ! workl < work ! 
 
 While the cock is crowing aloof ! lo 
 
 And work — work^-work, 
 Till the stars shine through the roof I 
 It 's.O ! to be a slave ; i 
 
 Along with the barbarous Turk, 
 Wherewomanhas never a soul toSave, 
 
 If this is Christian work ! 
 
 ' Work — work — work 
 
 Till the brain begins to swim ; 
 
 Work — work-^— work 
 Till the eyes are heavy and dim ! 20 
 Seam, and gusset, and band, 
 
 Band, and gusset, and seam, . 
 Till over the buttons I fall asleep, 
 
 And sew them on in a dream I 
 
 ' O ! Men with Sisters dear ! 
 
 O ! Men ! with Mothers and Wives ! 
 It is not linen you're wearing out. 
 
 But human creatures' lives ! 
 Stitch — stitch — stitch. 
 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 30 
 Sewing at once, with a double thread, 
 
 A Shroud as well as a Shirt. 
 
 ' But why do I talk of Death ? 
 
 That Phantom of grisly bone, 
 I hardly fear his terrible shape. 
 
 It seems so like my own — 
 
 It seems so like my own. 
 
 Because of the fasts I keep, 
 Oh ! God ! that bread should be so 
 dear, • • 
 
 And flesh and blood so cheap ! 40 
 
 ' Work — work — work I 
 
 My labour never flags ; 
 A,nd what are its wages ? A bed of 
 straw, 
 
 A crust pf bread-^ajid rags. , 
 That shatter'd roof,— and this naked 
 floor — 
 
 A t^ble — a broken chair — 
 And a wall so blank, iny shadow I thank 
 
 For sometimes falling there ! 
 
 ' Work — work — ^work 1 
 
 From weary chime to chime, 50 
 
 Work — work — work — 
 As prisoners work for crime, ! . , , 
 
 Band, and, gusset, and seam, 
 
 Seam, and gusset, and bandj 
 Till the heart is sick, and th? brain 
 benumb'd, 
 
 As well as the weary hand. 
 
 ' Work — work^work. 
 
 In the dull December light, 
 
 And work — work — ^work, ■ 59 
 When the weather is warm and bright^-' 
 While underneath the eaves 
 
 The brooding swallows cling 
 As if to show me their sunny backs 
 
 And twit me with the spring. 
 
 ' Oh ! but to breathe the breath 
 
 Of the cowslip and primrose sweet 
 
 With the sky above my head. 
 And the grass beneath my feet, 
 For only one short hour 
 
 To feel as I used to feel, 70 
 
 Before I knew the woes of want 
 
 And the walk that costs a meal ! 
 
 ' Oh but for one short hour ! • 
 
 A respite however brief ! 
 No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, 
 
 But only time for Grief ! 
 A little weeping would ease my heart; 
 
 But in their briny bed 
 My tears must stop> for every drop 
 
 Hinders needle and thread ! ' 80 
 
626 
 
 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT 
 
 [Seam, and gusset, and band. 
 Band, and gusset, and seam. 
 
 Work, work, work, 
 Like the Engine that works by 
 
 Steam ! 
 A mere machine of iron and wood 
 
 That toils for Mammon's sake — 
 Without a brain to ponder and 
 craze 
 
 Or a heart to feel^-aild break !] • 
 
 With fingers weary and worn, 
 
 With eyelids heavy and red, 90 
 A Woman sate in unwomanly rags. 
 
 Plying her needle and thread — 
 Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! 
 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
 And still with avoiceof dolorouspitch, 
 Would that its tone could reach the 
 Rich !— 
 
 She sang this ' Song of the Shirt ! ' 
 
 THE PAUPER'S CHRISTMAS CAROL 
 
 Full of drink and full of meat, 
 On our Saviour's natal day, 
 Charity's perennial treat ; 
 Thus I heard a Pauper say : — 
 ' Ought not I to dance and sing 
 Thus supplied with famous cheer ? 
 
 Heigho ! 
 
 I hardly know — 
 Christmas comes but once a year 1 
 
 ' After labour's long turmoil, 10 
 
 Sorry fare and frequent fast, 
 Two-and-fifty weeks of toil, 
 Pudding-time is come at last ! 
 But are raisins high or low. 
 Flour and suet cheap or dear ? 
 
 Heigho 1 
 
 I hardly know — 
 Christmas comes but once a year. 
 
 ' Fed upon the coarsest fare 
 
 Three hundr'ed days and sixty- four 20 
 
 But for one on viands rare. 
 
 Just as if I wasn't poor ! 
 
 Ought not I to bless my stars. 
 
 Warden, clerk, and overseer ? 
 
 Heigho ! 
 
 I hardly know — 
 Christmas comes but once a year. 
 
 ' Treated like a welcome guest, 
 One of Nature's social chain, 
 Seated, tended on, and press'd — 30 
 But when shall I be press'd again. 
 
 Twice to pudding, thrice to beef, 
 A dozen times to ale and beer ? 
 
 Heigho ! 
 
 I hardly know, 
 Christmas comes but once a year. 
 
 ' Come to-morrow how it will ; 
 Diet scant and usage rough,. 
 Hunger once has had its fill. 
 Thirst for once has had enough, 40 
 But shall I ever dine again ? 
 Or see another feast appear ? 
 
 Heigho ! 
 
 I only know 
 Christmas comes but once a year. 
 
 ' Frozen cares begin to melt, 
 Hopes revive and spirits flow — 
 Feeling as I have not felt 
 Since a dozen months ago — 
 Glad enough to sing a song — 30 
 
 To-morrow shall I volunteer ? 
 
 Heigho ! 
 
 I hardly know — 
 Christmas comes but once a year. 
 
 ' Bright and blessed is the time. 
 
 Sorrows end and joys begin. 
 
 While the bells with merry chime 
 
 Ring the Day of Plenty in ! 
 
 But the happy tide to hail, 
 
 With a sigh or with a tear, <a 
 
 Heigho ! 
 
 I hardly know — 
 Christmas comes but once a year ! ' 
 
 » The stanza in brackets was omitted wlien the ' Song ' was originally publishe<l. 
 
627 
 THE IVTARY 
 
 A SEA-SIDE SKETCH 
 
 Lov'ST thou not, Alice, with the early tide 
 
 To see the hardy Fisher hoist his mast, 
 
 And stretch his sail towards the ocean wide, — 
 
 Like God's own beadsman going forth to cast 
 
 His net into the deep, which doth provide 
 
 Enormous bounties, hidden in its vast 
 
 Bosom like Charity's, for all who seek 
 
 And take its gracious. boon thankful and meek ? 
 
 The sea is bright with morning, — but the dark 
 
 Seems still to linger on his bro^d black sait, to 
 
 For it is early hoisted, like a mark 
 
 For the low sun to shoot at with his pale 
 
 And levpl beams : — All round the shadowy bark 
 
 The green wave glimmers, and the gentle gale 
 
 Swells in her canvas, till the waters show 
 
 The keel's new speed, and whiten at the bow. 
 
 Then look abaft — (for thou canst understand 
 
 That phrase) — and there he sitteth at the stern, 
 
 Grasping the tiller in his broad brown hand. 
 
 The hardy Fisherman. Thou may'st discern 20 
 
 Ten fathoms off the wrinkles in the tann'd 
 
 And honest countenance that he will turn 
 
 To look upon us, with a quiet gaze — 
 
 As we are passing on our several ways. 
 
 So, some ten days ago, on such a morn. 
 
 The Mary, like a seamew, sought, her spoil 
 
 Amongst the finny race : 'twas when the corn 
 
 Woo'd the sharp sickle, and the golden toil 
 
 Summon'd all rustic hands to fill the horn 
 
 Of Ceres to the brim, that brave turmoil 30 
 
 Was at the prime, and Woodgate went to reap 
 
 His harvest too, upon the broad blue deep. 
 
 His mast was up, his anchor heaved aboard, 
 
 His mainsail stretching in the first gray gleams 
 
 Of morning, for the wind. Ben's eye was stored 
 
 With fishes — fishes swam in all his dreams. 
 
 And all the goodly east seem'd but a hoard 
 
 Of silvery fishes, that in shoals and streams 
 
 Groped into the deep dusk that fiU'd the sky. 
 
 For him to catch in meshes of his eye. ^o 
 
628 THE MARY 
 
 For Ben had the true sailor's sanguine heart, 
 
 And saw the future with a boy's brave thought, 
 
 No doubts, nor faint misgivings , had a part 
 
 In his bright visions — ay, before he caught 
 
 His fish, he sold them in the scaly mart, 
 
 And summ'd the net proceeds. This should have brought 
 
 Despair upon him when his hopes were foil'd. 
 
 But though one crop. was marr'd^ again he toil'd 
 
 And sow'd his seed afresh. — Matty foul blights 
 
 Perish'd his hardwOn gains— ^yet he had plann'd 50 
 
 No schemes of too extravagant delights — 
 
 No goodly houses on the Goodwin sand — 
 
 But a small humble home, and loving nights. 
 
 Such as his honest heart and earnest hand 
 
 Might fairly purchase. Were these hopes too airy ? 
 
 Such as, they were, they rested on thee, Mary. 
 
 She was the prize of ;many a toilsome year. 
 
 And hardwon wages, on the perilous sea — 
 
 Of savings ever since the shipboy's tear 
 
 Was shed for home, that lay beyond the lee ; — 60 
 
 She was purveyor for his other dear 
 
 Mary, and for the infant yet to be 
 
 Fruit of their married loves. These made him dote 
 
 Upon the homely beauties of his boat. 
 
 Whose pitch black hull roll'd darkly on the wave. 
 
 No gayer than one single stripe of blue 
 
 Could make her swarthy sides. She seem'd a slave, 
 
 A negro aimong boats — that only knew 
 
 Hardship and rugged toil— no pennons brave 
 
 Flaunted upon the mast — biit oft a few 70 
 
 Dark dripping jackets flutter'd to the air, 
 
 Ensigns of hardihood and toilsome care. 
 
 And when she ventured for the deep, she spread 
 
 A tawny sail against the sunbright sky, 
 
 Dark as a cloud that journeys overhead — 
 
 But then those tawny wings were stretch'd to fly 
 
 Across the wide sea desert for the bread 
 
 Of babes and mothers — many an anxious eye 
 
 Dwelt on her course, and many a fervent pray'r 
 
 Invoked the Heavens to protect and spare. 80 
 
 Where is she now ? The secrets of the deep 
 Are dark and hidden from the human ken ; 
 Only the sea-bird saw the surges sweep 
 Over the bark of the devoted Ben, — 
 Meanwhile a widow sobs and orphans weep. 
 And sighs are heard from weatherbeaten men. 
 Dark sunburnt men^ uncouth and rude and hairy. 
 While loungers idly ask, ' Where is the Mary ? ' 
 
629 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 A ROMANCE 
 
 *A jolly place, said hi:, in times of old, , • 
 But something ails it now; the'spot is curst' 
 
 — Harttrap Wetl^ by Woydsworth. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 Some dreams . we have are nothing 
 
 else but dreams, 
 Unnatural, and full of cpntradictions:; 
 Yet others of our most romantic 
 
 schemes , 
 
 Are something more than fictions. 
 
 It might be only on enchanted ground ; 
 It might be merely by a thoiight's ex- 
 pansion ; 
 But in the spirit, or the flesh, I found 
 An old deserted Mansion. 
 
 Aresidence forwoman, child, and man, 
 A dwelling-place, — and yet no habita,- 
 
 tioti ; 10 
 
 A House, — but under some prodigious 
 
 ban 
 Of excommunication. 
 
 Unhinged the iron gates half open 
 
 hung, ■ 
 Jarr'd by the gusty gales of many 
 
 winters. 
 That from its crumbled pedestal had 
 
 flung 
 One marble globe in splinters. 
 
 No dog was at the threshold, great or 
 
 small ; 
 No pigeon on the roof — -no household 
 
 creature — 
 No cat demnrelydozing on the wall- 
 Not one domestic feature. 20 
 
 No human figure stirr'd, to go or come, 
 No face look'd forth from shut Or opeil 
 
 casement ;" 
 No chimney smoked — there was no 
 
 sign of Home 
 From parapet to basement. 
 
 With shatter'd panes the grassy court 
 
 was starr'd ; 
 The time-worn coping-stone had 
 
 tumbled after ! 
 And thro' the ragged roof the sky 
 
 shone, barr'd 
 With naked beam and rafter. 
 
 O'er all there hung a shadow and a 
 fear ; . ■ 29 
 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain:as whisper intheear, 
 The place is Haunted 1 
 
 The flow'r grew wild and rankly as 
 
 the weed, 
 Roses with thistles struggled for espial. 
 And vagrant plants ofi parasitic breed 
 Had overgrown the Dial. 
 
 But gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm. 
 No heart was there to heed the hour's 
 
 duration ; 
 All times and tides were lost in one 
 
 long term 
 Of stagnant desolation. .. 4° 
 
 The wren had built within the Porch, 
 
 she found 
 Its quiet loneliness so sure and 
 
 thorough ; 
 And on the lawn, — within its turfy 
 
 mound, — 
 The rabbit, made its burrow." - 
 
 The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted 
 
 thro' 
 The shrubby clumps,' and frisk'd, and 
 
 sat, and vanish'd, 
 But leisurely and bold, as if he knew 
 His enemy was baniBh'd. 
 
630 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 The wary crow, — the pheasant from 
 
 the woods — 
 LuU'd by the still and everlasting 
 
 sameness, S" 
 
 Close to the Mansion, like domestic 
 
 broods, 
 Fed with a ' shocking tameness.' 
 
 The coot was swimming in the reedy 
 pond, , 
 
 Beside the water-hen, so soon at- 
 frighted ; 
 
 And in the weedy moat the heron, fond 
 
 Of solitude, alighted. 
 
 The moping heron, motionless and stiff, 
 That on a stone, as silently and stilly. 
 Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if 
 To guard the water-lily. 60 
 
 No sound was heard except, from far 
 
 away. 
 The ringing of the Whitwall's shrilly 
 
 laughter. 
 Or, now and then, the chatter of the 
 
 jay, 
 That Echo murmur'd after. 
 
 But Echo never mock'd the human 
 
 tongue ; 
 Some' weighty crime, that Heaven 
 
 could not pardon, 
 A secret curse on that old Building 
 
 hung. 
 And its deserted Garden. 
 
 The beds were all untouch'd by hand 
 
 or tool ; 
 No footstep mark'd the damp and 
 
 mossy gravel, 70 
 
 Each walk as green as is the mantled 
 
 pool. 
 For want of human travel. 
 
 The vine unprun'd, and the neglected 
 
 peach. 
 Droop 'd from the wall with which 
 
 they used to grapple ; 
 And onthecanker'd tree.ineasyreach, 
 Rotted the golden apple. 
 
 But awfully the truant shunn'd the 
 
 ground, ^ 
 The vagrant kept aloof, and daring 
 
 Poacher, 
 In spite of gaps that thro' the fences 
 
 round 
 Invited the encroacher. 80 
 
 For over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is Haunted 1 
 
 The peir and quince lay squander'd 
 
 on the grass ; 
 The mould was purple with unheeded 
 
 showers 
 Of bloomy plums — a Wilderness it was 
 Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers ! 
 
 The marigold amidst the nettles blew, 
 The gourd ethbraced the rose bush in 
 
 its ramble. 90 
 
 The thistle and the stock together 
 
 grew. 
 The holly-hock and bramble. 
 
 The bear-bine with the lilac interlaced. 
 The sturdy bur-dock choked its 
 
 slender neighbour, 
 Thespicypink. AU tokens were effac'd 
 Of human care and labour. 
 
 The very yew Formality had train'd 
 To such a rigid pyramidal stature. 
 For want of trimming had almost 
 
 regain 'd 
 The raggedness of nature. 100 
 
 The Fountain was a-dry-^neglect and 
 
 time 
 Had marr'd the work of artisan and 
 
 mason. 
 And efts and croaking frogs, begot of 
 
 slime, 
 Sprawl'd in the ruin'd bason. 
 
 The Statue, fallen from its marble base , 
 Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage 
 
 rotten, 
 Lay like the Idol of some bygone race, 
 Its name and rites forgotten. 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 631 
 
 On ev'ry side the aspect was the same, 
 All ruin'd, desolate, forlorn, and 
 
 savage : ,110 
 
 No hand or foot within the precinct 
 
 came 
 To rectify or ravage. 
 
 For over all there hung a. cloud of fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said as plain as whisper in the ear. 
 The place is Haunted 1 
 
 Part II. 
 
 0, very gloomy is the House of Woe, 
 Where tears are falling while the bell 
 
 is kneUing, 
 With all the dark solemnities which 
 
 show 
 That Death is in the dwelling f 120 
 
 O very, very dreary is the room 
 Where Love, domestic Love^ no longer 
 
 nestles. 
 But smitten by the common stroke of 
 
 doom, 
 The Corpse lies on the trestles ! 
 
 But House of Woe, and hearse, and 
 
 sable pall. 
 The narrow home of the departed 
 
 mortal. 
 Ne'er look'd sogldomy as thatGhostly 
 
 Hall, 
 With its deserted portal ! 
 
 The centipede along the threshold 
 
 crept. 
 The cobweb hung across in mazy 
 
 ^ngle, 130 
 
 And in its winding;7sheet the maggot 
 
 slept. 
 At every nook and angle. 
 
 The keyhole lodged the earwig and 
 her brood. 
 
 The emmets of the steps had old pos- 
 session. 
 
 And march'd in searph of their diurnal 
 food 
 
 In undisturbed procession. 
 
 As undisturb'd as the prehensile celt 
 Of moth or maggot, or the spider's 
 
 tissue, 
 For never foot upon that threshold f ell , 
 To enter or to issue. 140 
 
 O'er all there hung the shadow of a 
 
 fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the 
 
 ear. 
 The place is Haunted I 
 
 Howbeit, the door I pushed — or so I 
 
 dream 'd — 
 Which slovfly, slowly gaped, — the 
 
 hinges creaking 
 With such a rusty eloquence, it seem'd 
 That Time himself was speaking. 
 
 But Time was dumb within that 
 Mansion old, 149 
 
 Or left his tale to the heraldic banners. 
 
 That hung from the corroded walls, 
 and told 
 
 Of former men and manners : — 
 
 Those tatter'd flags, that with the 
 
 open'd door, 
 Seem'd the old wave of battle to 
 
 remember. 
 While fallen fragments danced upon 
 
 the floor. 
 Like dead leaves in Deceinber. 
 
 The startled bats flew out — bird after 
 
 bird— 
 The scree8h-owl overhead began to 
 
 flutter. 
 And seem'd to mock the cry that she 
 
 had heard 
 Some dying victim utter I 160 
 
 A shriek that echo'd from the joisted 
 
 roof. 
 And up the stair, and further still and 
 
 further. 
 Till in some ringing chamber far aloof 
 It ceased its tale of murther I 
 
632 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 Meanwhile: the rusty armour rattled 
 
 round, 
 The banner shudder'd, and the ragged 
 
 streamer ; ; ■ 
 
 All things the horrid tenor of th« 
 
 sound 
 Acknowledged with a tremor.' 
 
 The antlers, where the helmet hung 
 
 and belt, 
 Stirr'd as the tempest stirs the forest 
 
 branches, ; ,170 
 
 Or as the stag had trembled when he 
 
 felt 
 The blood-hound at his haunches. 
 
 The window jingled in its crumbled 
 
 frame, 
 And thro' its many gaps of destitution 
 Dolorous moans and hollow sighings 
 
 came. 
 Like those of dissolution. 
 
 The wood-louse dropped and rolled 
 
 into a ball, 
 Touch'd by some impulse occult or 
 
 mechanic ; • ..;■.■:. 
 
 And nameless beetles ran along the 
 
 wall ■■ , , ■ 
 
 In universal panic. 180 
 
 The subtle spider, that from overhead 
 Hung like a spy on huma,n guilt and 
 
 error. 
 Suddenly turn'd, and up its slender 
 
 thread 
 Ran with a nimble terror. 
 
 The very stains and fractures on the 
 
 wall 
 Assuming features solemn and terrific. 
 Hinted some tragedy of that old Hall, 
 Lock'd up in Hieroglyphic. 
 
 Some tale that might, perchance, have 
 
 solved the doubt, 
 Wherefore amongst those flags so dull 
 
 and livid, ,,0 
 
 The banner of the Bloody Hand shone 
 
 out 
 So ominously vivid. 
 
 Some key to that inscrutable appeal. 
 Which made . the very frame of 
 
 Nature quiver ; 
 And every thrilling nerve and fibre 
 
 feel 
 So ague-like a shiver. 
 
 For over all there hung a clpud of fear, 
 A sense of mystery the: spirit daunted, 
 Apd said, as plain as whisper in. the 
 
 ear, 
 The place is Haunted ! 200 
 
 If but a rat had lingered in the house, 
 To lure the thought into a social 
 
 channel ! - 
 But not a rat remain'd,'or tiny mouse. 
 To squeak behind the panel. 
 
 Huge drops roll'd down the walls, as 
 
 if they wept ; 
 And where the cricket used to chirp so 
 
 shrilly. 
 The toad was squatting, and the 
 
 lizard crept 
 On that-damp hearth and chilly. 
 
 For years no cheerful blaze had 
 sparkled there, ■ ' {'■ 
 
 Or glanc'd on coat of buff or knighfly 
 metal ; 210 
 
 The slug was crawling on the vacant 
 chair, — 
 
 The snai| upon the settle., 
 
 The floor was redolent of mould and 
 
 must. 
 The fungus in the rotten seams had 
 
 quicken'd ; 
 While on the oaken table coats of dust 
 Perennially had thicken 'd. 
 
 Nomark of leathern jack ormetalcan. 
 No cup— no horn — no hospitable 
 
 , token — 
 All social ties between that board and 
 
 Man 
 Had long ago been broken. 220 
 
 There was so foul a rumour in the air, 
 Theshadowof a Presence soatrocious; 
 No human creature could have 
 
 feasted there. 
 Even the most ferocious. 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 633 
 
 For over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the 
 
 ear. 
 The place is Haunted ! 
 
 Part IH. 
 
 'Tis hard for human actions to ac- 
 count, 
 
 Whether from reason or from impulse 
 only — 230 
 
 But some internal prompting bade me 
 mount 
 
 The gloomy stairs and lonely. 
 
 Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and 
 
 damp, and cold, 
 With odours as from bones and relics 
 
 carnal, 
 Deprived of rite, and consecrated 
 
 mould. 
 The chapel vault, or charnel. 
 
 Those dreary stairs, where with the 
 
 sounding stress 
 Of ev'ry step so many echoes blended. 
 The mind, with dark misgivings,fear'd 
 
 to guess 
 How many feet ascended. 240 
 
 The tempest with its spoils had drifted 
 
 in. 
 Till each unwholesome stone was 
 
 darkly spotted. 
 As thickly as the leopard's dappled 
 
 skin. 
 With leaves that rankly rotted. 
 
 The air was thick — and in the upper 
 
 gloom 
 The bat — or something in its shape — 
 
 was winging. 
 And on the wall, as chilly as a tomb, 
 The Death's Head moth was clinging. 
 
 That mystic moth, which, with a 
 sense profound 249 
 
 Of all unholy presence, augurs truly ; 
 
 And with a grim significance flits 
 round 
 
 The taper burning bluely. 
 
 Such omens in the place there seem'd 
 
 to be. 
 At ev'ry crooked turn, or on the 
 
 landing. 
 The straining eyeball was prepared to 
 
 see 
 Some Apparition standing. 
 
 For over all there hung a cloud of fear, . 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the 
 
 ear. 
 The place is Haunted ! 260 
 
 Yet no portentous Shape the sight 
 amaz'd ; ■ , 
 
 Each object plain, and tangible, and 
 valid ; 
 
 But from their tarnish'd frames dark 
 Figures gaz'd. 
 
 And Faces spectre-pallid. 
 
 Not merely with the mimic life that 
 lies 
 
 Within the compass of Art's simula- 
 tion ; 
 
 Their souls were looking thro' their 
 painted eyes 
 
 With awful speculation. 
 
 On every lip a speechless horror dwelt; 
 On ev'ry brow theburthen of affliction; 
 The old Ancestral Spirits knew and 
 felt 271 
 
 The House's malediction. 
 
 Such earnest woe their features over- 
 cast. 
 
 They plight have stirr'd, or sigh'd, or 
 wept, or spoken ; 
 
 But, save the hollow moaning of the 
 blast. 
 
 The stillness was unbroken. 
 
 No other sound or stir of life was there, 
 Except my steps in solitary clamber. 
 From flight to flight, from humid 
 
 stair to stair. 
 From chamber into chamber. 280 
 
634 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 Deserted rooms of luxury and state, 
 
 That old magnificence had richly fur- 
 nish 'd 
 
 With pictures, cabinets of ancient 
 date, 
 
 And carvings gilt and burnish'd. 
 
 Rich hangings, storied by the needle's 
 
 art, 
 With scripture history, or classic fable; 
 But all had faded, save one ragged 
 
 part. 
 Where Cain was sla,ying Abel. 
 
 The silent waste of mildew and the 
 
 moth 
 Had marr'd the tissue with a partial 
 
 ravage ; 290 
 
 But undecaying frown'd upon the 
 
 cloth 
 Each feature stern and savage. 
 
 The sky was pale ; the cloud a thing 
 
 of doubt ; . 
 
 Some hues were fresh, and some 
 
 decay'd and duller ; 
 But still the BLOODY HAND shone 
 
 strangely out 
 With vehemence of colour ! 
 
 The BLOODY HAND that with a 
 
 lurid stain 
 Shone on the dusty floor, a dismal 
 
 token, 
 Projectetifrom the casement's painted 
 
 pane. 
 Where all beside was broken. 300 
 
 The BLOODY HAND significant of 
 
 crime. 
 That glaring on the old heraldic banner. 
 Had kept its crimson unimpair'd by 
 
 time. 
 In such a wondrous manner ! 
 
 O'er all there hung the shadow of a 
 
 fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the 
 
 ear, 
 The place is Haunted 1 
 
 The Death Watch tick'd behind th6 
 panel'd oak, 309 
 
 Inexplicable- tremors shook the arras,. 
 
 And echoes strange and mystical 
 awoke. 
 
 The fancy to embarrass. 
 
 Prophetic hints that filled the soul 
 with dread, 
 
 But thro' one gloomy entrance point- 
 ing mostly. 
 
 The while some secret inspiration said 
 
 That Chamber is the Ghostly ! 
 
 Across the door no gossamer festoon 
 Swung pendulous — no web — no dusty 
 
 fringes. 
 No silky chrysalis or white cocoon 
 About its nooks and hinges. 320 
 
 The spider shunn'd the interdicted 
 
 room, 
 The moth, the beetle, and the fly were 
 
 banish'd, 
 And where the sunbeam fell athwart 
 
 the glooin. 
 The very midge had vanish'd. 
 
 One lonely ray that glanc'd upon a 
 
 Bed, 
 As if withawfulaim direct and certain, 
 To show the Bloody Hand in 
 
 burning red 
 Embroider'd on the curtain. 
 
 And yet no gory stain was on the 
 
 quilt — 
 The pillow in its place had slowly 
 
 rotted J 330 
 
 The floor alone retain 'd the trace of 
 
 guilt. 
 Those boards obscurely spotted. 
 
 Obscurely spotted to the door, and 
 thence 
 
 With mazy doubles to the grated case- 
 ment — 
 
 Oh what a tale they told of fear in- 
 tense. 
 
 Of horror and amazement I 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 635 
 
 What human creature in the dead of 
 
 night 
 Had coursed like hunted hare that 
 
 cruel distance ? 
 Had sought the door, the window in 
 
 his flight, 
 Striving for dear existence ? 340 
 
 What shrieking Spirit in that bloody 
 
 room 
 Its mortal frame had violently 
 
 quitted ? — 
 Across the sunbeam, with a sudden 
 
 gloom, 
 A ghostly Shadow flitted. 
 
 Across the sunbeam, and along the 
 
 wall, 
 But painted' on the air so very 
 
 dimly. 
 It hardly veil'd the tapestry at 
 
 all. 
 Or portrait frowning grimly. 
 
 O'er all there hung the shadow of a 
 fear, 349 
 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 
 And said, as plain as whisper in tHe 
 ear, 
 
 The place is Haunted ! 
 
 A DISCOVERY IN ASTRONOMY 
 
 One day — I had it from a hasty inouth,' 
 Accustom'd to make many blunders daily. 
 And therefore will not tiame, precisely. South, 
 
 Herschell, or Baily — 
 But one of those great men who watch the skies; 
 With all their rolling, winking eyes, 
 Was looking at that Orb whose ancient God 
 Was patron of the Ode, and Song, and Sonnet, 
 When thus he musing cried — ' It 's very odd 
 That no Astronomer of all the squad' 
 Can tell the nature of those spots upon it ! ' 
 
 ' Lord, master ! ' muttered John, a liveried elf, 
 ' To wonder so at spots upon the sun ! 
 I'll tell you what he 's done— 7 
 Freckled hisself I ' 
 
 A SONG FOR THE MILLION 
 
 ON wilhelm's method 
 
 There 's a music aloft in the air 
 
 As if Cherubs were hunjming a song, 
 
 Now it 's Jiigh, now it 's low, here and 
 
 there, 
 There 's a Harmony floating along 1 
 
 While the steeples are loud in their joy 
 To the tune of the bell's ring-a-ding. 
 Let us chime in a peal, one and all. 
 For we all should be able to sing 
 Hullahbaloo ! 
 
636 
 
 A SONG FOR THE MILLION 
 
 We are Chartists, Destructives and 
 rogues, 10 
 
 We are Radicals, Tories, and Whigs, 
 We are Churchmen, Dissenters, what 
 
 not. 
 We are asses, curs, monkeys and pigs, 
 But in spite of the slanderous names. 
 Partisans on each other will fling, 
 Tho' in concord we cannot agree, 
 Yet we all in a chorus may sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 We may not have a happy New Year, 
 Be perplex'd by all possible ills — 20 
 Find the bread and the meat very dear, 
 And be troubled with very hard bills — 
 Yet,likelinnets,cock-robins,and wrens, 
 Larks, and nightingales joyous in 
 
 Spring, 
 Or the finches saluting their hens, 
 Sure we all should be able to sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 We may have but a LilUput purse, 
 And the change in the purse very 
 
 small, 
 And our notes may not pass at the 
 
 Bank, 30 
 
 But they're current at Exeter Hall ! 
 Then a fig for foul weather and fogs ! 
 And whatever misfortune may bring. 
 If we go to the dogs — hke the dogs 
 In a pack we are able to sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 Though the coat may be worn with a 
 
 badge — 
 Or the kerchief no prize for a prig — ■ 
 Or the shirt never sent to the wash — 
 There 's the Gamut for little and big ! 
 O then come, rich and poor, young and 
 
 old, 41 
 
 For of course it 's a very fine thing, 
 Spite of Misery, Hunger and Cold, ; 
 That we all are so able to sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 There are Demons to worry the rich, 
 There are monsters to torture thepoor, 
 There 's the Worm that will gnaw at 
 
 the heart. 
 There 's the Wolf that will come to 
 
 the door I 
 
 We may even be short of the cash so 
 For the tax to a queen or a king. 
 And the broker may sell off our bed#, 
 But we still shall be able to sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 There 's Consumption to wither the 
 
 weak, 
 There are fevers that humble the 
 
 stout — 
 A disease may be rife with the young. 
 Or a pestilence walking about — 
 Desolation may visit our hives, 59 
 And old Death's metaphorical sting 
 May dispose of the dearest of wives, 
 But we all shall be able to sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 We may farm, at a very high rent. 
 And with guano manure an inch deep. 
 We may sow, whether broadcast or 
 
 driU, 
 And have only the whirlwind to reap ; 
 All our corn may be spoil'd in the ear, 
 And our barns be ignited by Swing, 
 And our sheep may die off with the rot, 
 But we all shall be able to sing 71 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 Our acquaintance may cut us direct, 
 Even Love may become rather cold. 
 And a friend of our earlier years 
 May look shy at the coat that is old : 
 We may not have a twig or a straw. 
 Not a reed where affection may cling. 
 Not a dog for our love, or a cat, 
 But we stiU shall be able to sing, 80 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 Some are pallid with watching and 
 
 want, 
 Some are burning with blushes of 
 
 shame ; 
 Some have lost all they had in the 
 
 world, 
 And are bankrupts in honour and 
 
 name. 
 Some have wasted a fortunein trade— 
 And by going at all in the ring, 
 Some have lost e'en a, voice in the 
 
 House ; 
 But they aU will be able to sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo I 90 
 
A SONG FOR THE MILLION 
 
 637 
 
 Some are deep in the Slough of De- 
 spond, 
 And so sick of the burthen of life, 
 That they dream of leaps over abridge. 
 Of the pistol, rope, poison, and knife ; 
 To the Temples of Riches and Fame 
 We are not going up in a string ; 
 And to some even Heaven seems black, 
 But we all shall be able to sing 
 
 Hpllahbaloo ! 99 
 
 We may give up the struggle with Care, 
 And the last little hope that would 
 
 stop. 
 We may strive with a Giant Despair — . 
 From the very blue sky we may drop. 
 By some sudden bewildering blow 
 Strickendownlikeabirdonthewing, — 
 Or with hearts breaking surely and 
 
 slow — 
 But we all shall be able to sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 
 Oh ! no matter how wretched we be, 
 How ill-lodg'd, or ill-clad, or ill-fed, 
 And with only one tile for a roof, — 
 That we carry about on the head: 112 
 We may croak with a very bad cold, 
 Or a throat that 's as dry as a ling, — 
 There's the street or thestageforus all, 
 For we all shall be able to sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 
 There 's a Music aloft in the air, 
 As if Cherubs were humming a song, 
 Now it's high, now it's low, here and 
 there. iso 
 
 There 's a Harmony floating along ! 
 While the steeples are loud in their 
 
 joy. 
 
 To the tune of the bell's ring-a-ding, 
 Let us chime in a peal, one and all. 
 For we all should be able to sing 
 
 HuUahbaloo ! 
 
 SKIPPING. A MYSTERY 
 
 Little Children skip, 
 The rope so gaily gripping, 
 
 Tom and Harry, 
 
 Jane and Mary, 
 
 Kate, Diana, 
 
 Susan, Anna, 
 All are fond of skipping ! 
 
 The Grasshoppers all skip, 
 The early dew-drop sipping, 
 
 Under, over', 
 f Bent and clover, 
 Daisy, sorrel. 
 Without quarrel, 
 AU are fond of skipping ! 
 
 The tiny Fairies skip. 
 
 At midnight softly tripping ; 
 
 Puck and Peri, 
 
 Never weary, 
 
 With an antic 
 
 Quite romantic, 
 AU are fond of skipping. 
 
 The little Boats they skip. 
 Beside the heavy Shipping 
 
 While the squalling 
 
 Winds are calling, 
 
 FaUing, rising, 
 
 Rising, falling; 
 All are fond of skipping I 
 
 The pale Diana skips. 
 The silver billows tipping. 
 
 With a dancing 
 
 Lustre glancing 
 
 To the motion 
 
 Of the ocean — 
 All are fond of skipping ! 
 
 The little Flounders skip. 
 When they feel the dripping ; 
 
 Scorching, frying, 
 
 Jumping, trying 
 
 If there is not 
 
 Any shying/ 
 All are fond of skipping ! 
 
 40 
 
638 
 
 SKIPPING. A MYSTERY 
 
 The very Dogs they skip, 
 
 While threatened with a whipping, 
 
 WheeUng, prancing. 
 
 Learning dancing, 
 
 To a measure. 
 
 What a pleasure ! 
 All are fond of skipping ! 
 
 The little fleas they skip, so 
 
 And nightly come a nipping, 
 
 Lord and Lady, . 
 
 Jude E^hd Thady, ' 
 
 In the night 
 
 So dark and shady^- 
 AU are. fond of skipping ! 
 
 The Autumn Leaves they skip ; 
 When blasts the trees are stripping ; 
 
 Bounding, whirlingj 
 
 Sweeping, twirling, 60 
 
 And in wanton 
 Mazes curling, 
 All are fond of skipping ! 
 
 The Apparitions skip. 
 
 Some mortal grievance ripping. 
 
 Thorough many ' 
 
 A crack and cranny. 
 
 And the keyhole 
 
 Good as any — 
 All are fond of skipping ! 70 
 
 But oh ! how Readers skip, 
 
 In heavy volumes dipping I 
 ***** J^J^^l ***** 
 
 * ♦ * * a,nd ***** 
 
 * ♦ * and ***** 
 ******** 
 
 All are fond of skipping ! 
 
 A TALE OF TEMPER 
 
 Of all cross breeds of human sinners, • 
 The crabbedest are those who dress 
 
 our dinners ; 
 Whether the ardent fires at which 
 
 they roast 
 And broil and bake themselves like 
 
 Smithfield martyrs. 
 Are apt to make them crusty, like a 
 
 toast. 
 Or drams, encouraged by so hot a 
 
 post ; 
 However, cooks are generally Tartars; 
 And altogether might be safely 
 cluster'd 
 In scientific catalogues 
 Under two names, like Dinmont's 
 dogs 10 
 
 Pepper and Mustard. 
 
 Thecase thus being very common, 
 It followed, quite of course, when 
 
 Mr. Jervis 
 Engaged a clever culinary woman. 
 He took a mere Xantippe in his ser- 
 vice — 
 
 ■In- fact — her metal not to bur- 
 nish. 
 As vile a shrew as Shrewsbury could 
 
 furnish — 
 One who in temper.language, manners, 
 looks. 
 In every respect 
 Might just have come directzo 
 From him, who is supposed to send us 
 cooks. 
 
 The very day she came into her 
 place 
 She slapp'd the scullion's face ; 
 The next, the housemaid being rather 
 
 pert. 
 Snatching the broom, she ' treated her 
 
 like dirt ' — 
 The third, a quarrel with the groom 
 
 she hit on — 
 Cyrus, the page, had half-a-dozen 
 knocks ; 
 And John, the coachman, got a box 
 He couldn't sit on. »9 
 
A TALE OF TEMPER 
 
 639 
 
 MeanAvhile, her strength to rally, 
 Brandy, and rum, and shrub she 
 
 drank by stealth. 
 Besides the Cream of some mysterious 
 
 Valley 
 That may, or inay not, be the Vale of 
 
 Health : 
 At least while credit lasted, or her 
 
 wealth, — 
 For finding that her blows came only 
 
 thicker, 
 Invectives and foul names but flew the 
 
 quicker, 
 The more she drank, the more inclin'd 
 
 to bicicei:. 
 The other servants, one and all, 
 Took Bible oaths whatever might 
 
 befal, 
 Neither to lend her cash, nor fetch her 
 
 liquor I 40 
 
 This caused, of course, a dreadful 
 schism, 
 And what was worse, in spite of all 
 endeavour, 
 After a fortnight of Tea-totalism, 
 The Plague broke out more virulent 
 
 than ever ! 
 The life she l^, her fellows down the 
 
 stairs ! 
 The life she led her betters in the 
 
 parlour ! 
 No parrot ever gave herself such 
 
 airs. 
 No pug-dog cynical was such a snarler ! 
 At woman, man, and child, she flew 
 
 and snapp'd, 
 
 No rattlesnake on earth so fierce and 
 
 rancorous — 50 
 
 No household cat that ever lapp'd 
 
 To swear and spit was half so apt — 
 
 No bear, sore-headed, could be more 
 
 cantankerous — 
 No fretful porcupine more sharp and 
 crabbed — 
 No wolverine 
 More full of sjpleen — 
 In short, the woman was coinpletely 
 rabid I 
 
 The least offenceof look or phrase. 
 
 The slightest verbal joke, the merest 
 
 frolic, 59 
 
 Like a snap-dragon set her in a blaze, 
 
 Her spirit was so alcoholic ! 
 
 And woe to him who felt her 
 
 tongue I 
 
 It burnt like caustic — Uke a nettle 
 
 stung. 
 Her speech was scalding, — scorching, 
 — vitriolic I 
 And larded, not with bacon fat. 
 Or anything so- mild as that, 
 But curses so intensely diabolic, 
 So broiling hot, that he, at whom she 
 
 levell'd. 
 Felt in his very gizzard hewas devil'd I 
 
 , Often and often Mr. Jervis 70 
 
 Lbng'd, and yet feared, to turn her 
 
 from his service ; 
 For why? Of all his philosophic loads 
 Of reptiles loathsome, spiteful, and 
 
 pernicious, 
 Stuff'd Lizards, bottled Snakes, and 
 
 pickled Toads, 
 Potted Tarantufesjand Asps malicious. 
 And Scorpions cured by scientific 
 
 modes. 
 He had not an y creature half so vicious ! 
 
 At last one morning 
 The coachman had already given 
 
 warning, , 
 And little Cyrus 80 
 
 Was gravely th^^king of a new cockade, 
 For open War's rough sanguinary 
 
 trade, 
 Or any other service, quite desirous; 
 Instead of quarrelling with siich a 
 
 jade, — 
 When accident explain'd the coil she 
 
 made. 
 And whence her Temper had derived 
 
 the virus ! 
 
 Struck with the, fever, called the 
 
 scarlet. 
 The Termagant was lying sick in bed. 
 And little Cyrus, that precocious 
 
 varlet. 
 
640 
 
 A TALE OF TEMPER 
 
 Was just declaring her ' as good as 
 dead,' 90 
 
 When down the attic stairs the house- 
 maid, Charlotte, 
 
 Came running from the chamber over- 
 head. 
 Like one demented ; 
 
 Flapping her hands, and casting up 
 her eyes, 
 
 And giving gasps of horror and sur- 
 prise, 
 Which thus she vented — 
 
 ' O Lord ! I wonder that she didn't 
 bite us ! 
 Or sting us like a Tantalizer ', 
 
 (The note will make the reader wiser,) 
 And set us all adancing likeSt. WitusI 
 
 ' Temper ! No wonder that the 
 
 creature had «oi 
 
 A temper so uncommon bad ! 
 
 She 's just confessed to Doctor 
 
 Griper 
 
 That being out of Rum, and like 
 
 denials, — 
 Which always was prodigious trials, — 
 Because she couldn't pay the piper, 
 She went one day, she did, to master's 
 
 wials, 
 And drunk the spirit as preserv'd the 
 Wiper ! ' 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 ON THE ARRANGEMENT .OF THE STATUES IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE 
 
 If Nelson looks down on a couple of Kings, 
 
 However it pleases the Loyal s ; 
 Tis after the fashion of nautical things, 
 
 A Sky-scraper over the Royals. 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON NEW YEAR'S DAY 
 
 Yes, yes, it's very true and very clear! 
 By way of compliment, and common 
 
 chat. 
 It's very Well to wish me a New Year; 
 But wish me a new hat ! 
 
 Although not spent in luxury and 
 
 ease. 
 In course a longer life I won't refuse ; 
 But while you'rp wishing, wish me if 
 
 you please, 
 A newer pair o' shoes ! 
 
 Nay, while new things and wishes are 
 afloat, 9 
 
 I own to one that I should not rebut — 
 Instead of this old rent, to have a coat 
 With more of the New Cut ! 
 
 O yes, 'tis very pleasant, tho' I'm poor. 
 To hear the steeple make that merry 
 
 din ; 
 Except I wish one bell was at the door 
 To ring new trowsers in. 
 
 To be alive is very nice indeed. 
 
 Although another year at last de- 
 parts ; 
 
 Only with twelve new months I rather 
 need 
 
 A dozen of new shirts. 20 
 
 Yes, yes, it's very true, and very clear, 
 By way of compliment and common 
 
 chat. 
 It 's very well to wish me a New Year, 
 But wish me a new hat ! 
 
 Tarantula, 
 
641 
 
 THE LADY'S DREAM 
 
 The lady lay in her bed, 
 
 Her couch so warm and soft, 
 But her sleep was restless and broken 
 stUl; 
 For turning oft and oft 
 From side to side, she mutter 'd and 
 moan'd, 
 And toss'd her arms aloft. 
 
 At last she startled up, 
 And gaz'd on the vacant air. 
 
 With a look of awe, as if she saw 
 Some dreadful phantom there — 10 
 
 And then in the pillow she buried her 
 face 
 From visions ill to bear. 
 
 The very curtain shook, 
 
 Her terror was so extreme ; 
 And the Ught that fell on the broider'd 
 i quilt 
 
 Kept a tremulous gleam ; 
 And her voice was hollow, and shook 
 as she cried : — 
 ' Oh me ! that awful dream ! 
 
 ' That weary, weary walk 19 
 
 In the churchyard's dismal ground 1 
 
 And those horrible things, with shady 
 wings. 
 That came and flitted round, — 
 
 Death, death, and nothing but death. 
 In every sight and sound ! 
 
 ' And oh ! those maidens young. 
 
 Who wrought in that dreary room. 
 With figures drooping and spectres 
 thin. 
 And cheeks without a bloom ; — 
 And the Voice that cried, " For the 
 j, pomp of pride, 
 I We haste to an early tomb ! 30 
 
 ' " For the pomp and pleasure of 
 Pride, 
 
 We toil like Afric slaves. 
 And only to earn a home at last. 
 
 Where yonder cypress waves ; " — 
 And then they ppinted — I never saw 
 
 A ground so fullof graves ! 
 
 ' And still the coffins came. 
 
 With their sorrowful trains and slow ; 
 Coffin after coffin still, 
 
 A sad and sickening show ; 40 
 
 From grief exempt, I never had 
 
 dreamt 
 Of such a World of Woe ! 
 
 ' Of the hearts that daily break, 
 Of the tears that hourly fall. 
 
 Of the many, many troubles of life, 
 That grieve this earthly ball — 
 
 Disease and Hunger, and Pain, and 
 Want, 
 But now I dreamt of them all I 
 
 ' For the blind and the cripple were 
 there, 49 
 
 And the babe that pined for bread. 
 And the houseless man, and the widow 
 poor 
 Who Begged — to bury the dead ; 
 The naked, alas, that I might have 
 clad. 
 The famished I might have fed ! 
 
 ' The sorrow I might have soothed. 
 And the unregarded tears ; 
 
 For many a thronging shape wasthere. 
 From long forgotten years. 
 
 Ay, even the poor rejected Moor, 
 Who rais'd my childish fears ! 60 
 
 ' Each pleading look, that long ago 
 I scann'd with a heedless eye. 
 
 Each face was gazing as plainly there. 
 As when I pass'd it by : 
 
 Woe, woe for me if the past should be 
 Thus present when I die ! 
 
 ' No need of sulphurous lake. 
 
 No need of fiery coal. 
 But only that crowd of human kind 
 
 Who wanted pity and dole — 70 
 In everlasting retrospect. — 
 
 Will wring my sinful soul I 
 
643 
 
 THE LADY'S DREAM 
 
 ' Alas ! I have walked through life 
 Too heedless where I trod ; 
 
 Nay, helping to trample my fellow 
 worm, 
 And fill the burial sod — 
 
 Forgetting that even the sparrow falls 
 Not unmark'd of God I 
 
 ' I drank the richest draughts ; 
 
 And ate whatever is good — 80 
 Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit. 
 
 Supplied my hungry mood ; 
 But I never remembered the wretched 
 ones 
 
 That starve for want of food ! 
 
 ' I dress'd as the noble dress. 
 In cloth of silver and gold, 
 With silk, and satin, and costly iurs. 
 
 In many an ample fold ; 
 But I never remembered the naked 
 limb 
 That froze with winter's cold. 90 
 
 ' The wounds I might have heal'd ! 
 
 The human sorrow and smart ! 
 And yet it never was in my soul 
 
 To play so ill a part : 
 But evil is wrought by want of 
 Thought, 
 
 As well as want of Heart I ' 
 
 She clasp'd her fervent hands. 
 And the tears began to stream ; 
 
 Large, and bitter, and fast they fell. 
 Remorse was so extreme : 100 
 
 And yet, oh yet, that many a Dame 
 Would dream the Lady's Dream ! 
 
 MAGNETIC MUSINGS 
 
 Passing my brow, and passing my 
 
 eyes. 
 And passing lower with devious range, 
 
 Passing my chest. 
 
 And passing the rest, 
 I feel a something passing strange ! 
 
 Over my soul there seems to pass 
 A middle state of life or death. 
 And I almost seem to feel, alas ! 
 That I am drawing mypassing breath! 
 And, methinks I hear the passing-bell; 
 But, Mr. Passmore, that reverend elf. 
 Gives me a pass that I know well, 12 
 A sort of passport to Heaven itself ! 
 
 Passing my brow, and passing my eye, 
 And passing lower, with devious 
 range. 
 
 Passing my chest. 
 
 And passing the rest, 
 I feel a something passing strange ! 
 
 Oh, Mr. Eyre, Lieutenant dear ! 
 Oh I Lady Sale, thou gallant lass ! 20 
 I know for certain that ye are near, 
 For I feel, I feel, the Khyber Pass ! 
 
 But no — 'tis Brockedon passes my 
 
 brow. 
 And I'm in the Alpine Passes now. 
 With icy valleys, and snowy crests. 
 Whereon the passing vapour rests ; 
 And guide and English traveller pass. 
 Each on a very passable ass ! 
 
 Passing my ear and passing my eye ! 
 
 joy ! what pastoral meads I spy. 
 Full of lambs that frisk and feed 31 
 While the Pastor plays on his rustic 
 
 reed — 
 To the very best of his humble ability. 
 Piping ever shrill and loud. 
 But oh ! what new magnetic cloud 
 Passes over my passibility ! 
 
 Over my soul there seems to pass 
 A middle state of life or death. 
 And I almost seem to feel, alas ! 
 That I am drawing my passing breath. 
 No more prospects bright and sunny, 
 No more chance of pleasant cheer, 42 
 No more hope of passing money — 
 
 1 feel the pass of the Overseer 1 
 
643 
 
 A DREAM 
 
 ■TwAS night: the Globe was folded 
 
 up, 
 (The paper, not the earth,) 
 And to its proper shelf restored 
 The fairest ' Maid of Perth : ' 
 But still with strange intricacy 
 The things that I had read — 
 The Irish News, the Scottish Tale — 
 Kept running in my head ; 
 While over all a sort of mist 
 Began to slowly creep, lo 
 
 The twilight haze of Thought before 
 It darkens into Sleep ; 
 A foggy land where shady shapes 
 Kept stirring in the gloom. 
 Till with a hint of brighter tint 
 One spot began to bloom, 
 And on the blank, by dreamy prank, 
 I saw a Figure tall. 
 As vivid as from painted glass, 
 Projected on a wall ! 20 
 
 The face, as well as I could trace. 
 Two sparkling eyes were there, 
 Black as the beard, and trim mous- 
 tache, 
 And curly head of hair ; 
 The nose was straight, the mouth was 
 
 large. 
 The lips disclosed beneath 
 A set full white and regular, 
 Of strong and handsome teeth — 
 The whiter, that his brow, and cheek. 
 And thick uncover'd gorge, 30 
 
 Were ruddy as if baked by heat 
 Of sun or glowing forge. 
 
 His dress was buff, or some such stuff. 
 
 And belted at the waist ; 
 
 A curious dirk, for stabbing work. 
 
 Was in the girdle placed. 
 
 Beside a sort of pouch or purse 
 
 Of some wild creature's skin. 
 
 To safely hold his store of gold 
 
 Or silver coin therein ; — 40 
 
 But — suddenly his doublet changed 
 
 To one of brighter hue, 
 
 A jerkin fair and superfine, 
 
 Of cloth of azure blue, 
 
 Slash'd front and back with satin black, 
 
 Embroider'd o'er, and laced 
 
 With sable silk, as used to suit 
 
 The ancient time and taste ; 
 
 His hose were of the Flemish cut, 
 
 His boots of cordovan ; 50 
 
 A velvet bonnet on his head. 
 
 Like that of Scottish man, — 
 
 Nay, not a velvet one, — for why, 
 
 As dreams are apt to deal. 
 
 With sudden change, as swift as 
 
 strange. 
 It shone a cap of steel I 
 His coat of buff, or azure stuff, 
 Became a hauberk bright. 
 No longer gay in his array, 
 But harness'd for the Fight ! 60 
 
 Huge was his frame and muscular, 
 
 Indicative of strength : 
 
 His bosom broad, his brawny arms 
 
 Of more than common length ; 
 
 And well the sturdy limbs might be 
 
 So sinewy, stark, and strong, 
 
 That had to wield in battle-field 
 
 A sword so broad and long I 
 
 Few men there were of mortal mould. 
 
 Although of warlike trade, 70 
 
 But had been rash to stand the clash 
 
 Of that tremendous blade ; 
 
 And yet aloft he swung it oft, 
 
 As if of feather-weight. 
 
 And cut amid the empty air 
 
 A monstrous figure' eight ; 
 
 Whilst ever as it cleft the wind, 
 
 A whisper came therewith, 
 
 That low and clear said in my ear, 
 
 ' Behold the Fighting Smith ! " 80 
 
 And lo ! another ' change came o'er 
 The spirit of my dream : ' 
 The hauberk bright no longer shone 
 With that metallic gleam — 
 
 ' Vide Scott's ' Fair Maid of Perth.' 
 
644 
 
 A DREAM 
 
 No ruddy visage furnace-scorched, 
 
 With glowing eyes, was there, 
 
 No sable beard, nor trim moustache, 
 
 Nor head of raven hair ; 
 
 No steely cap, with plume mayhap. 
 
 No bonnet small or big ; 90 
 
 Upon his brow there settled now 
 
 A curly powder'd Wig ! 
 
 Beneath his chin two cambric bands 
 
 Demurely drooped adown ; 
 
 And from his brawny shoulders 
 
 hung 
 A black forensic gown. 
 
 No mail beneath, to guard from death, 
 Or wounds in battle dealt. 
 Nor ready dirk for stabbing work. 
 Dependent at his belt — 100 
 
 His right hand bore no broad clay- 
 more. 
 But, with a flourish, soon 
 He wav'd a Pistol huge enough 
 For any horse-dragoon. 
 And whilst he pointed to and fro, 1 
 As if to aim therewith, 
 Still in my ear, the voice was clear, 
 ' Behold the Fighting Smith ! ' ' 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 ON A PICTURE (407) IN THE BRITISH INSTITUTION 
 
 Sir, let me just your tasteful eye enveigle 
 To yonder Painting, of the Madman Eagle. 
 Which, that by Poole ? Excuse me, sir, I beg, 
 I really have no wish to catch ' The Plague.' 
 
 THE KEY 
 
 A MOORISH ROMANCE 
 
 ' On the east coast, towards Tunis, the Moors still preserve the keys of their ancestors' houses in 
 Spain ; to which country they still express the hopes of one day returning, and a?ain planting the 
 crescent on the ancient walls of the Alhambra.'— .Jco/^j TraveU in Morocco and Algiers. 
 
 'Is Spain cloven in such a manner as to want closing? * — Sancho Pansa. 
 
 The Moor leans on his cushion. 
 With the pipe between his lips ; 
 And still at frequent intervals 
 The sweet sherbet he sips ; 
 But, spite of lulling vapour 
 And the sober cooling cup. 
 The spirit of the swarthy Moor 
 Is fiercely kindling up ! 
 
 One hand is on his pistol, 
 On its ornamented stock. 
 While his finger feels the trigger 
 And is busy with the lock — 
 
 The other seeks his ataghan, 
 And clasps its jewell'd hilt — 
 Oh ! much of gore in days of yore 
 That crooked blade has spilt ! 
 
 His brows are knit, his eyes of jet 
 In vivid blackness roll. 
 And gleam with fatal flashes 
 Like the fire-damp of the coal ; 20 
 His jaws are set, and through his teeth 
 He draws a savage breath, 
 As if about to raise the shout 
 Of Victory or Death ! 
 
 ' F»& 'The State Trials in Ireland.' 
 
THE KEY 
 
 645 
 
 For why ? the last Zebeck that cams 
 And moor'd within the Mole, 
 Such tidings unto Tunis brought 
 As stir his very soul — 
 The cruel jar of civU war, 
 The sad and stormy reign, 30 
 
 That blackens like a thundercloud 
 The sunny land of Spain ! 
 
 No strife of glorious Chivalry, 
 
 For honour's gain or loss, 
 
 Nor yet that ancient rivalry, 
 
 The Crescent with the Cross. 
 
 No charge of gallant Paladins 
 
 On Moslems stern and stanch ; 
 
 But Christians shedding Christian 
 
 blood 
 Beneath the olive's branch ! 40 
 
 A war of horrid parricide. 
 
 And brother killing brother ; 
 
 Yea, like to ' dogs and sons of dogs,' 
 
 That worry one another. 
 
 But let them bite aiid tear and fight. 
 
 The more the Kaffers slay. 
 
 The sooner Hagar's swarming sons 
 
 Shall make the land a prey ! 
 
 The sooner shall the Moor behold 
 Th' Alhambra's pile again ; S" 
 
 And those who pin'd in Barbary 
 Shall shout for joy in Spain-^ 
 The sooner shall the Crescent wave 
 On dear Granada's walls ; 
 And proud Mohammed Ali sit 
 Within his father's halls ! 
 
 ' AUa-il-alla ! ' tiger-like 
 Up springs the swarthy Moor, 
 And, with a wide and hasty stride, 
 Steps o'er the marble floor ; 60 
 
 Across the hall, till from the wall. 
 Where such quaint patterns be, 
 With eager hand he snatches down 
 An old and massive Key I 
 
 A massive Key of curious shape. 
 And dark with dirt and rust. 
 And well three weary centuries 
 The metal might encrust ! 
 
 For since the King Boabdil fell 
 Before the native stock, 70 
 
 That ancient Key, so quaint to see, 
 Hath never been in lock. 
 
 Brought over by the Saracens 
 
 Who fled across the main, 
 
 A token of the secret hope 
 
 Of going back again ; 
 
 From race to race, from hand to hand. 
 
 From house to house it pass'd ; 
 
 O will it ever, ever ope 
 
 The Palace gate at last ? 80 
 
 Three hundred years and iifty-two 
 On post and wall it hung — 
 Three hundred years and fifty-two 
 A dream to old and young ; 
 But now a brighter destiny 
 The Prophet's will accords ; 
 The time is come to scour the rust 
 And lubricate the wards. 
 
 For should the Moor with sword and 
 
 lance 
 At Algesiras land, "^ 90 
 
 Where is the bold Bernardo now 
 Their progress to withstand ? 
 To Burgos should the Moslem come. 
 Where is the noble Cid 
 Five royal crowns to topple down 
 As gallant Diaz did ? 
 
 Hath Xeres any Pounder now, 
 
 When other weapons faU, 
 
 With club to thrash invaders rash. 
 
 Like barley with a flail ? 100 
 
 Hath Seville any Perez still. 
 
 To lay his clusters low, 
 
 And ride with seven turbans green 
 
 Around his saddle-bow ? 
 
 No ! never more shall Europe see 
 Such Heroes brave and bold, 
 Such Valour, Faith, and Loyalty, 
 As used to shine of old ! 
 No longer to one battle cry 
 United Spaniards run, no 
 
 And with their thronging spears up- 
 hold 
 The Virgin and her Son 1 
 
646 
 
 THE KEY 
 
 From Cadiz Bay to rough Biscay 
 
 Internal discord dwells, 
 
 And Barcelona bears the scars 
 
 Of Spanish shot and shells. 
 
 The fleets decline, the merchants 
 
 pine 
 For want of foreign trade ; 
 And gold is scant ; and Alicante 
 Is seal'd by strict blockade ! 120 
 
 The loyal fly, and Valour falls, 
 
 Oppos'd by court intrigue ; 
 
 But treachery and traitors thrive, 
 
 Upheld by foreign league ; 
 
 While factions seeking private ends 
 
 By turns usurping reign — 
 
 Well may the dreaming, scheming 
 
 Moor 
 Exulting point to Spain ! 
 
 Well may he cleanse the rusty Key 
 With Afric sand and oil, , 130 
 
 And hope an Andalusian home 
 Shall recompense the toil ! 
 
 Well may he swear the Moorish spear 
 Through wild Castile shall sweep. 
 And where the Catalonian sowed 
 The Saracen shall reap ! 
 
 Well may he vow to spurn the Cross 
 Beneath the Arab hoof. 
 And plant the Crescent yet again 
 Above th' Alhambra's roof — 140 
 When those from whom St. Jago's 
 
 name 
 In chorus once arose, 
 Are shouting Faction's battle-cries. 
 And Spain forgets to ' Close ! ' 
 
 Well may he swear his ataghan 
 Shall rout the traitor swarm. 
 And carve them into Arabesques 
 That show no human form — 
 The blame be theirs whose bloody 
 
 feuds 
 Invite the savage Moor, 150 
 
 And tempt him with the ancient Key 
 To seek the ancient door ! 
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S COW 
 
 A NAUTICAL ROMANCE 
 
 'Water, water everywhere, 
 But not a drop to drink.' — Cokridge. 
 
 It is a jolly Mariner 
 
 As ever knew the billows' stir, 
 
 Or battled wijh the gale ; 
 His face is brown, his hair is black, 
 And down his broad gigantic back 
 
 There hangs a platted tail. 
 
 In clusters, as he rolls along. 
 
 His tarry mates around him throng. 
 
 Who know his budget well ; 
 Betwixt Canton and Trinidad 10 
 No Sea- Romancer ever had 
 
 Such wondrous tales to tell ! 
 
 Against the mast he leans a-slope. 
 And thence upon a coil of rope 
 
 Slides down his pitchy ' starn ; ' 
 
 Heaves up a lusty hem or two. 
 And then at ojice without ado 
 Begins to spin his yarn : — 
 
 ■ As from Jamaica we did come. 
 Laden with sugar, fruit and rum, so 
 
 It blew a heavy gale : 
 A storm that scar'd the oldest men 
 For three long days and nights, and 
 then 
 
 The wind began to fail. 
 ' Still less and less, till on the mast 
 The sails began to flap at last, 
 
 The breezes blew so soft ; 
 Just only now and then a pufi, 
 Till soon there was not wind enough 
 
 To stir the vane aloft. 30 
 
THE CAPTAIN'S COW 
 
 647 
 
 ' No, not a cat's paw anywhere : 
 Hold up your finger in the air 
 
 You couldn't feel a breath ; 
 For why, in yonder storm that burst. 
 The wind that blew so hard at first 
 Had blown itself to death. 
 
 ' No cloud aloft to throw a shade ; 
 No distant breezy ripple made 
 
 The ocean dark below. 
 No cheering sign of any kind ; 40 
 The more we whistled for the wind 
 
 The more it did not blow. 
 
 ' The hands were idle, one and all ; 
 No sail to reef against a squall ; 
 
 No wheel, no steering now 1 
 Nothing to do for man or mate, 
 But chew their cuds and ruminate. 
 
 Just Uke the Captain's Cow. 
 
 ' Day after day, day after day, 
 Becalm'd the Jolly Planter lay, 50 
 
 As if she had been moor'd : 
 The sea below, the sky a-top 
 Fierce blazing down, and not a drop 
 
 Of water left aboard I 
 
 ' Day after day, day after day, 
 Becalm'd the Jolly Planter lay. 
 
 As still as any log ; 
 The parching seamen stood about, 
 Each with his tongue a-loUing out. 
 
 And panting like a dog — 60 
 
 ■ A dog half mad with summer heat 
 And running up and down the street. 
 
 By thirst quite overcome ; 
 And not a drop in all the ship 
 To moisten cracking tongue and lip. 
 
 Except Jamaica rum ! 
 
 ' The very poultry in the coop 
 Began to pine away and droop — 
 
 The cock was first to go ! 
 And glad we were on all our part 70 
 He used to damp our very hearts 
 
 With such a ropy crow. 
 
 ' But worst it was, we did allow. 
 To look upon the Captain's Cow, 
 That daily seemed to shrink : 
 
 Deprived of water hard or soft, 
 For though we tried her oft and oft, 
 The brine she wouldn't drink ; 
 
 ' But only turn'd her bloodshot eye 
 And muzzle up towards the sky, 80 
 
 And gave a moan of pain, 
 A sort of hollow moan and sad. 
 As if some brutish thought she had 
 
 To pray to heav'n for rain ; 
 
 ' And some times with a steadfast stare 
 Kept looking at the empty air. 
 
 As if she saw, beyond, 
 Some meadow in her native land, 
 Where formerly she used to stand 
 
 A-cooUng in the pond. 90 
 
 ' If I had only had a drink 
 Of water then, I almost think 
 
 She would have had the half ; 
 But as for John the Carpenter, 
 He couldn't more have pitied her 
 
 If he had been her calf. 
 
 ' So soft of heart he was and kind 
 To any creature lame, or blind, 
 
 Unfortunate or dumb : 
 Whereby he made a sort of vow, :oo 
 In sympathising with the Cow, 
 
 To give her half his rum ; — 
 
 ' An oath from which henever swerv'd. 
 For surely as the rum was serv'd 
 
 He shared the cheering dram ; 
 And kindly gave one half at least. 
 Or more, to the complaining beast. 
 
 Who took it like a lamb. 
 
 ' At last with overclouding skies 
 
 A breeze again began to rise, no 
 
 That stiffen'd to a gale : 
 Steady, steady, and strong it blew ; 
 And were not we a joyous crew, 
 As on the Jolly Planter flew 
 
 Beneath a press of sail ! 
 
 ' Swiftly the Jolly Planter flew. 
 And were not we a joyous crew. 
 
 At last to sight the land ! 
 A glee there was on every brow. 
 That like a Christian soul the Cow iso 
 
 Appear'd to understand. 
 
648 
 
 THE CAPTAIN'S COW 
 
 ' And was not she a mad-like thing, 
 To land again and taste the spring, 
 
 Instead of fiery glass : 
 About the verdant meads to scour, 
 And snufi the honey'd cowslip flower, 
 
 And crop the juicy grass ! 
 
 'Whereby she grew as plump and hale 
 As any beast that wears a tail. 
 
 Her skin as sleek as silk ; 130 
 And through all parts of England now 
 Is grown a very famous Cow, 
 
 By giving Rum-and-Milk ! ' 
 
 THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK 
 
 AN ALLEGORY 
 
 There 's a murmur in the air. 
 And noise in every street — 
 The murmur of many tongues, 
 The noise of numerous feet — 
 While round the Workhouse door 
 The Labouring Classes flock, 
 For why ? the Overseer of the Poor 
 Is setting the Workhouse Clock. 
 
 Who does not hear the tramp 
 Of thousands speeding along lo 
 
 Of either sex and various stamp. 
 Sickly, crippled, or strong. 
 Walking, Umping, creeping 
 From court, and alley, and lane, 
 But all in one direction sweeping 
 Like rivers that seek the main ? 
 
 Who does not see them sally 
 From mill, and garret, and room. 
 In lane, and court and alley, 
 From homes in poverty's lowest 
 valley, 20 
 
 Furnished with shuttle and loom — 
 Poor slaves of Civilization's galley — 
 And in the road and footways rally. 
 As if for the Day of Doom ? 
 Some, of hardly human form, 
 Stunted, crooked, and crippled by toil ; 
 Dingy with smoke and dust and oil, 
 And smirch 'd besides with vicious soil. 
 Clustering, mustering, all in a swarm. 
 Father, mother, and careful child, 30 
 Looking as if it had never smiled — 
 
 The Sempstress, lean, and weary, and 
 
 wan. 
 With only the ghosts of garments on — 
 The Weaver, her sallow neighbour. 
 The grim and sooty Artisan ; 
 Every soul — child, woman, or man, 
 Who lives — or dies — by labour. 
 
 Stirr'd by an overwhelming zeal, 
 And social impulse, a terrible throng ! 
 Leaving shuttle, and needle, and wheel, 
 Furnace, and grindstone, spindle, and 
 
 reel, 4: 
 
 Thread, and yarn, and iron, and 
 
 steel — 
 Yea, rest and the yet untasted meal — 
 Gushing, rushing, crushing along, 
 A very torrent of Man ! 
 Urged by the sighs of sorrow and 
 
 wrong. 
 Grown at last to a hurricane strong, 
 Stop its course who can ! 
 Stop who can its onward course 
 And irresistible moral force ; so 
 
 O ! vain and idle dream ! 
 For surely as men are all akin. 
 Whether of fair or sable skin. 
 According to Nature's scheme. 
 That Human Movement contains 
 
 within 
 A Blood-Power stronger than Steam. 
 
 Onward, onward, with hasty feet, 
 They swarm — and westward still— 
 
THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK 
 
 649 
 
 Masses born to drink and eat, 
 But starving amidst Whitechapel's 
 meat, 60 
 
 And famishing down Cornhill ! 
 Through the Poultry — but still un- 
 fed- 
 Christian Charity, hang your head ! 
 Hungry — passing the Street of Bread ; 
 Thirsty — the street of Milk ; 
 Ragged — beside the Ludgate Mart, 
 So gorgeous, through Mechanic-Art, 
 With cotton, and wool, and silk I 
 
 At last, before that door 
 That bears so many a knock 70 
 
 Ere ever it opens to Sick or Poor, 
 Like sheep they huddle and flock — 
 
 And would that all the Good and* 
 
 Wise 
 Could see the million of hollow eyes. 
 With a gleam deriv'd from Hope and 
 
 the skies, 
 Upturn'd to the Workhouse Clock ! 
 
 Oh ! that the Parish Powers, 
 Who regulate Labour's hours, 
 The daily amount of human trial, 
 Weariness, pain, and self-denial, 80 
 Would turn from the artificial dial 
 That striketh ten or eleven. 
 And go, for once, by that older one. 
 That stands in the light of Nature's 
 
 sun. 
 And takes its time from Heaven ! 
 
 AN EXPLANATION 
 
 BY ONE OF THE LIVERY 
 
 Says Blue-and-Buff, to Drab-and-Pink, 
 ' I've heard the hardest word, I think. 
 That ever posed me since my teens, 
 I wonder what As-best-os means ! ' 
 
 Says Drab-and-Pink to Blue-and-Buff, 
 ' The word is clear, and plain enough. 
 It means a Nag wot goes the pace, 
 And so as best os wins the race.' 
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS 
 
 ' Drown'd ! drown'd ! '—Hamlet. 
 
 One more Unfortunate, 
 Weary of breath. 
 Rashly importunate. 
 Gone to her death 1 
 
 Take her up tenderly. 
 Lift her with care ; 
 Fashion'd so slenderly, 
 Young, and so fair ! 
 
 Look at her garments 
 Clinging like cerements ; 
 
 Whilst the wave constantly 
 Drips from her clothing ; 
 Take her up instantly. 
 Loving, not loathing. — 
 
 Touch her not scornfully ; 
 Think of her mournfully. 
 Gently and humanly ; 
 Not of the stains of her. 
 All that remains of her 
 Now is pure womanly. 
 
 V 3 
 
6so 
 
 *Make no deep scrutiny 
 Into her mutiny 
 Rash and undutiful : 
 Past all dishonour 
 Death has left on her 
 Only the beautiful. 
 
 Still, for all slips of hers, 
 One of Eve's family — 
 Wipe those poor lips of hers 
 Oozing so clammily. 
 
 Loop up her tresses 
 Escaped from the comb, 
 Her fair auburn tresses ; 
 Whilst wonderment guesses 
 Where was her home ? 
 
 Who was her father ? 
 Who was her mother ? 
 Had she a sister ? 
 Had she a brother ? 
 Or was there a dearer one 
 Still, and a nearer one 
 Yet, than all other ? 
 
 Alas ! for the rarity 
 Of Christian charity 
 Under the sun ! 
 Oh ! it was pitiful ! 
 Near a whole city full. 
 Home she had none ! 
 
 Sisterly, brotherly, 
 Fatherly, motherly. 
 Feelings had changed : 
 Love, by harsh evidence. 
 Thrown from its eminence ; 
 Even God's providence 
 Seeming estranged. 
 
 Where the lamps quiver 
 
 So far in the river. 
 
 With many a light 
 
 From window and casement. 
 
 From garret to basement. 
 
 She stood, with amazement. 
 
 Houseless by night. 
 
 THE BRIDGE OF "SIGHS 
 
 40 
 
 so 
 
 60 
 
 The bleak wind of March 
 Made her tremble and shiver ; 
 But not the dark arch. 
 Or the black flowing river : 
 Mad from life's history, 
 Glad to death's mystery, 
 Swift to be hurl'd — 
 Anywhere, anywhere, 
 Out of the world ! 
 
 In she plunged boldly. 
 No matter how coldly 
 The rough river ran, — 
 Over the brink of it, 
 Picture it^think of it, 
 Dissolute man ! 
 Lave in it, drink of it, 
 Then, if you can ! 
 
 Take her up tenderly, 
 Lift her with care ; 
 Fashion'd so slenderly, 
 Young, and so fair ! 
 
 Ere her limbs frigidly 
 Stiffen too rigidly. 
 Decently, — kindly, — 
 Smoothe and compose them : 
 And her eyes, close them. 
 Staring so blindly ! 
 
 Dreadfully staring 
 Thro' muddy impurity, 
 As when with the daring 
 Last look of despairing, 
 Fix'd on futurity. 
 
 Perishing gloomily, 
 Spurr'd by contumely. 
 Cold inhumanity, 
 Burning insanity. 
 Into her rest. — 
 Cross her hands humbly, 
 As if praying dumbly. 
 Over her breast ! 
 
 Owning her weakness. 
 Her evil behaviour. 
 And leaving, with meekness. 
 Her sins to her Saviour 1 
 
 70 
 
651 
 EPIGRAM ON DR. ROBERT ELLIOT OF CAMBERWELL. 
 
 Whatever Doctor Robert's skill be worth, 
 
 One hope within me still is stout and hearty, 
 He would not kill me till the 24*'' 
 
 For fear of my appearing at his party ! 
 May 23, 1844. 
 
 EPIGRAM ON A CERTAIN EQUESTRIAN STATUE 
 
 Whoever has looked upon Wellington's breast. 
 Knows well that he is not so full in the chest ; 
 But the sculptor, to humour the Londoners partial, 
 Has turn'd the lean Duke to a plump City Marshal. 
 
 EPIGRAM ON THE NEW HALF-FARTHINGS 
 
 ' Too small for any marketable shift, 
 What purpose can there be for coins like these ? ' 
 Hush, hush, good Sir ! — Thus charitable Thrift 
 May give a Mite to him who wants a cheese ! 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 Charm 'd with a drink which Highlanders compose, 
 A Gerinan traveller exclaim'd with glee, — • 
 
 ' Potztausend ! sare, if dis is Athol Brose, 
 How goot dere Athol Boetry must be ! ' 
 
 THE LAY OF THE LABOURER 
 
 A SPADE ! a rake ! a hoe ! 
 
 A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
 A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 
 
 A flail, or what ye wUl — 
 And here 's a ready hand 
 
 To ply the needful too]. 
 And skill'd enough, by lessons rough, 
 
 In Labour's rugged school. 
 
 To hedge, or dig the ditch. 
 
 To lop or fell the tree, 10 
 
 To lay the swarth on the sultry field. 
 
 Or plough the stubborn lea ; 
 The harvest stack to bind, 
 
 The wheaten rick to thatch. 
 And never fear in my pouch to find 
 
 The tinder or the match. 
 
 To a flaming barn or farm 
 My fancies never roam ; 
 
 The fire I yearn to kindle and 
 burn 
 
 Is on the hearth of Home ; 20 
 
 Where children huddle and crouch 
 
 Through dark long winter days,^ 
 Where starving childiren huddle and 
 crouch. 
 
 To see the cheerful rays, 
 A-glowing on the haggard cheek. 
 
 And not in the haggard's blaze ! 
 
 To Him who sends a drought 
 
 To parch the fields forlorn, 
 The rain to flood the meadows with 
 mud. 
 
 The lights to blast the Corn, 30 
 To Him I leave to guide 
 
 The bolt in its crooked path. 
 To strike the miser's rick, and show 
 
 The skies blood-red with wrath. 
 
6s 3 
 
 THE LAY OF THE LABOURER 
 
 A spade ! a rake ! a hoe ! 
 
 A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
 A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 
 
 A flail, or what ye will — 
 The corn to thrash, or the hedge to 
 plash. 
 
 The market-team to drive, 40 
 
 Or mend the fence by the cover side. 
 
 And leave the game alive. 
 
 Ay, only give me work. 
 
 And then you need not fear 
 That I shall snare his worship's hare. 
 
 Or kill his grace's deer ; 
 Break into his lordship's house, 
 
 To steal the plate so rich ; 
 Or leave the yeoman that had a purse 
 
 To welter in a ditch. S" 
 
 Wherever Nature needs 
 
 Wherever Labour calls, 
 No job Til shirk of the hardest work. 
 
 To shiin the workhouse walls ; 
 Where savage laws begrudge 
 
 The pauper babe its breath, 
 And doom a wife to a widow's life. 
 
 Before her partner's death. 
 
 My only claim is this. 
 
 With labour stiff and stark, 60 
 
 By lawful turn, my living to earn, 
 
 Between the light and dark ; 
 My daily bread, and nightly bed, 
 
 My bacon, and drop of beer — 
 But all from the hand that holds the 
 land. 
 
 And none from the overseer ! 
 
 No pajrish money, or. loaf, 
 
 No pauper badges for me, 
 A son of the soil, by right of toil 
 
 Entitled to my fee. 70 
 
 No alms I ask, give me my task : 
 
 Here are the arm, the leg. 
 The strength, the sinews of a Man, 
 
 To work, and not to beg. 
 
 Still one of Adam's heirs. 
 
 Though doom'd by chance of birth 
 To dress so mean, and to eat the lean 
 
 Instead of the ifat of the earth ; 
 To make such humble meals 
 
 As honest labour can, So 
 
 A bone and a crust, with a grace to 
 God, 
 
 And little thanks to man ! 
 
 A spade ! a rake ! a hoe ! 
 
 A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
 A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 
 
 A flail, or what ye will — 
 Whatever the tool to ply, 
 
 Here is a willing drudge. 
 With muscle and limb, and woe to him 
 
 Who does their pay begrudge ! 90 
 
 Who every weekly score 
 
 Docks labour's little mite, 
 Bestows on the poor at the temple 
 door. 
 
 But robb'd them over night. 
 The very shilling he hoped to save. 
 
 As health and morals fail, 
 Shall visit me in the New Bastille, 
 
 The Spital, or the Gaol ! 
 
 SONNET TO A SONNET 
 
 Particularly commended, with the Fifth of Sir Philip Sidney's, and the pages of 
 Froissart, to the perusal of certain Journalists across the Channel ; and generally to 
 their Young countrymen, who would do well to affect, with the beards and moustaches 
 of the olden time, the gallant courtesy of the ancient manners. 
 
 Rare Composition of a Poet- Knight, 
 Most chivalrous amongst chivalric men, 
 Distinguish'd for a polish'd lance and pen 
 In tuneful contest, and the touftiey-fight ; 
 
SONNET TO A SONNET 653 
 
 Lustrous in scholarship, in honour bright, 
 
 Accomplish'd in all graces current then. 
 
 Humane as any in historic ken, 
 
 Brave, handsome, noble, afiable, polite, 
 
 Most courteous to that race become of late 
 
 So fiercely scornful of all kind advance, lo 
 
 Rude, bitter, coarse, implacable in hate 
 
 To Albion, plotting ever her mischance, — 
 
 Alas ! fair Verse, how false and out of date 
 
 Thy phrase ' sweet enemy ' applied to France ! 
 
 EPIGRAM ON HER MAJESTY'S VISIT TO THE CITY 
 
 We've heard of comets, blazing things. 
 With ' fear of change ' perplexing Kings ; 
 But lo ! a. novel sight and strange, 
 A Queen who does not fear a 'Change ! 
 
 EPIGRAM ON THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO THE CITY 
 
 BY A TRADESMAN OF CORNHILL 
 
 Sure the measure is strange 
 
 And all Commerce so stops, 
 And to open a 'Change 
 
 Make us shut up our shops. 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 When would-be Suicides in purpose fail — 
 
 Who could not find a morsel though they needed — 
 
 If Peter sends them for attempts to jail, 
 
 What would he do to them if they succeeded ? 
 
 THE SAUSAGE-MAKER'S GHOST 
 
 A LONDON LEGEND 
 
 Somewhere in Leather Lane — 
 
 I wonder that it was not Mincing, 
 And for this reason most con- 
 vincing. 
 That Mr. Brain 
 Dealtin those well-minc'dcartridges 
 of meat 
 Some people like to eat — 
 
 However, all such quibbles overstep- 
 ping. 
 
 In Leather Lane he liv'd ; and drove 
 a trade 
 
 In porcine sausages, though London 
 made, 
 Call'd ' Epping.' 10 
 
654 
 
 THE SAUSAGE-MAKER'S GHOST 
 
 Right brisk was the demand, 
 Seldom his goods staid long on hand, 
 For out of all adjacent courts and lanes 
 Young Irish ladies and their 
 
 swains, 
 Such soups of girls and broths of 
 boys ! 
 Sought his delicious chains, 
 Preferr'd to all polonies, saveloys, 
 And other foreign toys — 
 The mere chance passengers 
 Who saw his ' sassengers,' 20 
 Of sweetness undeniable. 
 So sleek, so mottled, and so 
 friable, 
 Stepp'd in, forgetting ev'ry other 
 thought. 
 And bought^ 
 
 Meanwhile a constant thumping 
 Was heard, a sort of subterranean 
 chumping — 
 Incessant was the noise 
 But though he had a foreman and 
 assistant. 
 With all the tools consistent, 
 (Besides a wife and two fine chopping 
 boys) 30 
 
 His means were not yet vast enough 
 For chopping fast enough 
 To meet the call from streets, and 
 lanes, and passages. 
 For first-chop ' sassages.' 
 
 However, Mr. Brain 
 Was none of those dull men and slow, 
 Who, flying bird-like by a railway 
 
 train. 
 Sigh for the heavy mails of long ago ; 
 He did not set his face 'gainst innova- 
 tions 
 For rapid operations, 40 
 
 And therefore in a kind of waking 
 
 dream 
 Listen'd to some hot-water sprite that 
 
 hinted 
 To have his meat chopp'd, as the 
 Times was printed, 
 By steam ! 
 
 Accordingly in happy-hour, 
 A bran-new Engine went to work 
 Chopping up pounds on pounds 
 of pork 
 With all the energy of Two-Horse- 
 Power, 
 And wonderful celerity — 
 When lo ! when ev'ry thing to hope 
 responded, so 
 
 Whether his head was turn'd by his 
 
 prosperity. 
 Whether he had some sly intrigue, in 
 verity. 
 The man absconded ! 
 
 His anxious Wife in vain 
 Placarded Leather Lane, 
 And all the suburbs with descriptive 
 
 bills. 
 Such as are issued when from homes 
 
 and tills 
 Clerks, dogs, cats, lunatics, and chil- 
 dren roam ; 
 Besides advertisements in all the 
 journals, 
 Or weeklies or diurnals, 60 
 Beginning ' Lbft his Home ' — 
 The sausage-maker, spite of white and 
 black. 
 Never came back. 
 
 Never, alive ! — But on the seventh 
 
 night, 
 Just when the yawning grave its dead 
 releases. 
 Filling his bedded Wife with sore 
 affright 
 In walk'd his grisly Sprite, 
 In fifty thousand pieces ! 
 ' O Mary ! ' so it seem'd 
 In hollow melancholy tones to say, 70 
 Whilst thro' its airy shape the moon- 
 light gleam 'd 
 With scarcely dimmer ray— 
 ' O Mary ! let your hopes no longer 
 
 flatter 
 Prepare at once to drink of sorrow's 
 cup,— 
 It an't no use to mince the 
 matter — 
 The Engine's chopped me up! ' 
 
655 
 
 THE LARK AND THE ROOK 
 
 A FABLE 
 ' Lo! hear the gentle lark ! 'Shaksfeare. 
 
 Once on a time — no matter where — 
 A lark took such a fancy to the air, 
 That though he often gaz'd beneath, 
 Watching the breezy down, or heath, 
 Yet very, very seldom he was found 
 To perch upon the ground. 
 
 Hour after hour. 
 Through ev'ry change of weather hard 
 
 or soft, 
 Through sun and shade, and wind and 
 show'r. 
 Still fluttering aloft ; lo 
 
 In silence now, and now in song, 
 Up, up in cloudland all day long. 
 On weary wing, yet with unceasing 
 
 flight. 
 Like to those Birds of Paradise, so 
 
 rare, 
 Fabled to live, and love, and feed in air. 
 But never to alight. 
 
 It caused, of course, much speculation 
 Among the feather'd generation ; 
 Who tried to guess the riddle that was 
 
 in it — 19 
 
 The robin puzzled at it, and the wren. 
 The swallows, cock and hen, 
 The wagtail, and the linnet, 
 The yellowhammer, and the finch as 
 
 well — 
 The sparrow ask'd thetit,whocouldn't 
 
 tell. 
 The jay, the pie — but all were in the 
 
 dark. 
 Till out of patience with the common 
 
 doubt. 
 The Rook at last resolv'd to worm it 
 
 out 
 And thus accosted the mysterious 
 
 Lark : — 
 
 ' Friend, prithee, tell me why 
 You keep this constant hovering so 
 high, 30 
 
 As if you had some castle in the air, 
 That you are always poising there, 
 
 A speck against the sky — 
 Neglectful of each old familiar feature 
 Of Earth that nurs'd you in your cal- 
 low state — 
 You think you're only soaring at 
 
 heaven's gate. 
 Whereas you're flying in the face of 
 Nature ! ' 
 
 ' Friend,' said the Lark, with melan- 
 choly tone. 
 And in each little eye a dewdrop shone, 
 ' No creature of my kind was ever 
 fonder 40 
 
 Of that dear spot of earth 
 Which gave it birth — 
 And I was nestled in the furrow 
 
 yonder ! 
 Sweet is the twinkle of the dewy heath. 
 And sweet that thymy down I watch 
 
 beneath. 
 Saluted often with a loving sonnet : 
 But Men, vile Men, have spread so 
 
 thick a scurf 
 Of dirt and infamy about the Turf, 
 I do not like to settle on it ! ' 
 
 Alas ! how Nobles of another race 50 
 Appointed to the bright and lofty 
 
 way 
 Too willingly descend to haunt a place 
 Polluted by the deeds of Birds of Prey 1 
 
6S6 
 
 SUGGESTIONS BY STEAM 
 
 When Woman is in rags, and poor, 
 And sorrow, cold, and hunger teaze 
 her, 
 If Man would only listen more 
 
 To that small voice that crieth — 
 ' Ease her ! ' 
 
 Without the guidance of a friend. 
 Though legal sharks and screws 
 attack her. 
 
 If Man would only more attend 
 To that small voice that crieth — 
 ' Back her ! ' 
 
 So oft it would not be his fate 9 
 
 To witness some despairing dropper 
 
 In Thames's tide, and run too late 
 To that small voice that crieth — 
 ' Stop her ! ' 
 
 ANACREONTIC 
 
 BY A FOOTMAN 
 
 It 's wery well to talk in praise 
 Of Tea and Water-drinking ways, 
 
 In proper time and place ; 
 Of sober, draughts, so clear and cool, 
 Dipp'd out of a transparent pool 
 
 Reflecting heaven's face. 
 
 Of babbling brooks, and purling rills, 
 And streams as gushes from the hills, 
 
 It 's wery well to talk ; — 9 
 
 But what becomes of all sich schemes, 
 With ponds of ice,andrunningstreams, 
 
 As doesn't even walk ? 
 
 When Winter comes with piercing cold. 
 And all the rivers, new or old, 
 
 Is frozen far and wide ; 
 And limpid springs is solid stuff. 
 And crystal pools is hard enough 
 
 To skate upon and slide ; — 
 
 What then are thirsty men to do, 
 But drink of ale, and porter too, 20 
 
 Champagne as makes a fizz ; 
 Port, sherry, or the Rhenish sort, 
 Andp'rhaps adrop of summut short— 
 
 The water-pipes is friz ! 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 A Lord bought of late an outlandish estate, 
 At its Wild Boars to Chevy and dig ; 
 
 So some people purchase a pig in a poke, 
 And others, a poke in a pig. 
 
657 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 Farewell, Life I My senses swim ; 
 And the world is growing dim ; 
 Thronging shadows cloud the light, 
 Like the advent of the night, — 
 Colder, colder, colder still 
 Upward steals a vapour chill — 
 Strong the earthy odour grows — 
 I smell the Mould above the Rose ! 
 
 Welcome, Life ! the Spirit strives ! 
 Strength returns, and hope revives ; 
 Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn ii 
 Fly like shadows at the morn, — 
 O'er the earth there comes a bloom — 
 Sunny light for sullen gloom. 
 Warm perfume for vapour cold — 
 I smell the Rose above the Mould ! 
 
 THE SURPLICE QUESTION 
 
 BY A BENEDICT 
 
 A VERV pretty public stir 
 Is making, down at Exeter, 
 About the surplice fashion : 
 And many bitter words and rude 
 Have been bestow'd upon the feud. 
 And much unchristian passion. 
 
 For me I neither know nor care 
 Whether a Parson ought to wear 
 A black dress or a white dress ; 
 Fill'd with a trouble of my own, — lo 
 A Wife who preaches in her gown, 
 And lectures in her night-dress ! 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 'Tis said of Lord B., none is keener than he 
 
 To spit a Wild Boar with eclat ; 
 But he never gets near to the Brute with his spear. 
 
 He gives it so very much law. 
 
 BALLAD 
 
 (WITH AN OLD BURTHEN) 
 
 There was a Fairy lived in a well, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down, 
 And she pronounced a magical spell. 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 Whoever looks in this wave she said 
 Shall see the lady that he 's to wed. 
 
 I'll prove true to my love for my love proves true to me. 
 
658 BALLAD 
 
 A King came by with his hunting spear, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down. 
 And stopped to look in the water clear, 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 He laid by the brim his signet of gold 
 And gave his brother his crown to hold, 
 
 I'll prove true to iriy love for my love proves true to me. 
 
 But while he knelt and was gazing down, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down. 
 His Brother stood and tried on the crown. 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 The pearls were bright and the rubies were brave 
 So he tumbled his Brother into the wave, 
 
 I'll prove true to my love for my love proves true to me. 
 
 O Brother, O Brother, you've got my ring, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down. 
 And the lawful crown that made me a, King, 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 But your heart shall fail and your hand shall quake 
 And the head that wears my jewels shall ake, 
 
 I'll prove true to my love for my love proves true to me. 
 
 The Murderer stood and looked from the brink, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down, 30 
 
 The sun is so hot I should like to drink 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 But lo ! as he stooped with a silver cup 
 His head flew down and his heels flew up ! 
 
 I'll prove true to my love for my love proves true to me. 
 
 O Brother, O Brother, I've got your crown, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down. 
 But the weight of the jewels has pulled me down, 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 You shall be crown'd in the skies again. 
 But I shall be marked on the brows like Cain ! 
 
 I'll prove true to my love for ray love proves true to me. 
 
BALLAD 
 
 659 
 
 Down he sank in the dismal wave, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down. 
 As cold as death and as dark as the grave, 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 But when he came to the stones at last 
 The Fairy caught him and held him fast. 
 
 I'll prove true to my love for my love proves true to me. 
 
 She took him into her chrystal hall, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down, 
 And there he saw his face in the wall, 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 She looked rosy but he looked white 
 And all the tapers were burning bright, 
 
 . I'll prove true to my love for my love proves true to me. 
 
 The King leapt down from his fairy throne, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down, 
 With brighter eyes than the diamonds shone. 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 His left hand balanced a golden globe 
 But his right hand lifted his purple robe, 
 
 I'll prove true to my love for my love proves true to me. 
 
 O Brother, O Brother, bend down your knee, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down. 
 But kneel to Heav'n and not to me. 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 For God may frown on your grievous sin 
 But I'm too happy you pushed me in, 
 
 I'll prove true to my love for my love proves true to me. 70 
 
 XI 
 
 Come hither, come hither, you're welcome now, 
 
 Down, down, down derry down, 
 To my golden crown that decks your brow. 
 
 The bower shall bend to me. 
 There 's smiles worth heav'n on my love's face 
 And she has made me King of this place, 
 
 I'll prove true to my love, for my love proved true to me. 
 
66o 
 
 TO MY DEAR MARIANNE 
 
 THIS FIRST SONNET 
 
 If kindly words could warm th' unkindly air 
 To summer clemency, that there might be 
 A constant atmosphere of love with thee, 
 
 Won by a constancy of tender care, — 
 
 Then thy most delicate cheek should ever wear 
 An exquisite blush, red-ripening to the glee 
 Of cheerful lips ; and my contentment see 
 
 Its wish so recognised and written there : 
 
 So much my bosom clings to thee and feels 
 A painful echo of thy bosom pains ; 
 
 The patient paleness of thy cheek so steals 
 With more than chill of Winter to my veins ; 
 
 And conscious sympathy of blood reveals 
 The tender Brother-hood that now obtains ! 
 
 [SONG] 
 
 The Summer — the Summer — 
 
 Is beautiful and green ; — 
 But when its leaves are fallen off 
 Who'd know that it had been, — 
 
 Itsdewybuds, — its scented flow'rs — 
 
 Its fair and sunny mien. 
 If honey were not stored up 
 
 And harvest left to glean ? 
 
 So beauty, — so beauty 
 
 Will wither and away ; — lo 
 
 And what is left to charm us when 
 
 The flower 's in decay, — 
 
 To cheer our hearts and feast our souls 
 
 And bless Affection's sway, — 
 But that love gave us all its sweets 
 Whilst Beauty had its day ? 
 
 Then Winter, — then Winter 
 But sees us more than kind ; — 
 Tho'Age hathsoil'd the surface charm 
 Where first the eye reclin'd. 20 
 
 But love lies deeper at the core. 
 Like words the woodmen find 
 Deep graven in the hearts of trees 
 That once were on the rind. 
 
 [written on the back of the foregoing] 
 
 Give me a pen that 's charg'd with dews 
 Fresh gather'd from the morning rose. 
 And let it stain my page with hues 
 As bright as kernel buds enclose. 
 In common ink shall I indite. 
 With ink that dates the felon's doom. 
 That forges bonds, — no, let me write 
 My bloomy thoughts in tints of bloom. 
 
66 1 
 
 [FRAGMENT] 
 
 (evidently supposed to be spoken by MRS. REYNOLDS, 
 MOTHER OF THE POET's WIFE) 
 
 Mary, I believ'd you quick 
 But you're as deaf as any beedle ; 
 See where you have left the plates ; 
 You've an eye, and so 's a needle. 
 Why an't Anne behind the door. 
 Standing ready with her dishes. 
 No one ever had such maids 
 Always thwarting all my wishes, 
 Marianne set up that child — 
 And where 's her pinafore — call 
 
 Mary, lo 
 
 The frock I made her will be spoU'd — 
 Now Lizzy don't be so contrary, 
 Hand round the bread-r-' Thank God 
 
 for what — ' 
 It's done to rags ! How wrong of Ann 
 
 now, — 
 
 The dumplings too are hard as lead 
 And plates stone-cold— but that 's her 
 
 plan now — 
 Mary, a knock — now Hood take that — 
 Or go without — Why, George, you're 
 
 wanted, 
 Where is that Lotte ? Call her down 
 She knows there 's no white wine 
 
 decanted — 20 
 
 Put to the door, we always dine 
 In public — 
 
 Jane take that cover off the greens ; 
 Our earthen ware theyplaythedeuceto; 
 Here 's Mr. Green without a fork — 
 And I've no plate — but that I'm 
 used to. — 
 
 SERENADE 
 
 Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how 
 
 I wake and passionate watcheskeep; 
 And yet while I address thee now, 
 
 Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep, 
 'Tis sweet enough to make me weep. 
 
 That tender thought of love and 
 thee, 
 Thatwhile the world is hush'd so deep. 
 
 Thy soul 's perhaps awake to me 1 
 
 Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bride of 
 sleep ! 9 
 
 With golden visions for thy dower. 
 While I this midnight vigil keep. 
 
 And bless thee iii thy silent bower ; 
 To me 'tis sweeter than the power 
 
 Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurl'd. 
 That I alone, at this still hour, 
 
 In patient love outwatch the world. 
 
 FALSE POETS AND TRUE 
 
 TO WORDSWORTH 
 
 Look how the lark soars upward and is gone. 
 Turning a spirit as he nears the sky ! 
 His voice is heard, but body there is none 
 To fix the vague excursions of the eye. 
 
662 FALSE POETS AND TRUE 
 
 So, poets' songs are with us, tho' they die 
 
 Obscured, and hid by death's oblivious shroud, 
 
 And Earth inherits the rich melody 
 
 Like raining music from the morning cloud. 
 
 Yet, few there be who pipe so sweet and loud 
 
 Their voices reach us through the lapse of space : 
 
 The noisy day is deafen'd by a crowd 
 
 Of undistinguish'd birds, a twittering race ; 
 
 But only lark and nightingale forlorn 
 
 Fill up the silences of night and morn. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 Love, I am jealous of a worthless man 
 Whom — for his merits — thou dost hold too dear : 
 No better than myself, he lies as near 
 And precious to thy bosom. He may span 
 Thy sacred waist and with thy sweet breath fan 
 His happy cheek, and thy most willing ear 
 Invade with words and call his love sincere 
 And true as mine, and prove it — if he can : — 
 Not that I hate him for such deeds as this — 
 He were a devil to adore thee less. 
 Who wears thy favour, — I am ill at ease 
 Rather lest he should e'er too coldly press 
 Thy gentle hand :■ — ^This is my jealousy 
 Making myself suspect but never thee ! 
 
 ['LOVE, SEE THY LOVER'] 
 
 Love, see thy lover humbled at thy feet, 
 
 Not in servility, but homage sweet, 
 
 Gladly inclined : — and with my bended knee 
 
 Think that my inward spirit bows to thee — 
 
 More proud indeed than when I stand or climb 
 
 Elsewhere : — there is no statue so sublime 
 
 As Love's in all the world, knd e'en to kiss 
 
 The pedestal is still a better bliss 
 
 Than all ambitions. O ! Love's lowest base 
 
 Is far above the reaching of disgrace 
 
 To shame this posture. Let me then draw nigh 
 
 Feet that have fared so nearly to the sky. 
 
 And when this duteous homage has been given 
 
 I will rise up and clasp the heart in Heaven. 
 
66i 
 
 LEAR 
 
 A POOR old king, with sorrow for my crown, 
 Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind- 
 For pity, my own tears have made me blind 
 That I might never see my children's frown ; 
 And, may be, madness, like a friend, has thrown 
 A folded fillet over my dark mind, 
 So that unkindly speech may sound for kind — 
 Albeit I know not. — I am childish grown — 
 And have not gold to purchase wit withal — 
 I that have once maintain'd most royal state — 
 A very bankrupt now that may not call 
 My child, my child — all beggar'd save in tears. 
 Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate. 
 Foolish — and blind — and overcome with years ! 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 Is there a bitter pang for love removed, 
 
 O God ! The dead love doth not cost more tears 
 Than the alive, the loving, the beloved — 
 
 Not yet, not yet beyond all hopes and fears ! 
 Would I were laid 
 Under the shade 
 Of the calm grave, and the long grass of years, — 
 
 That love might die with sorrow : — I am sorrow ; 
 
 And she, that loves me tenderest, doth press 
 Most poison from my cruel lips, and borrow 
 Only new anguish from the old caress ; 
 Oh, this world's grief 
 Hath no relief 
 In being wrung from a great happiness. 
 
 Would I had never filled thine eyes with love, 
 
 For love is only tears : would I had never 
 Breathed such a. curse-like blessing as we prove ; 
 Now, if ' Farewell ' could bless thee, I would sever 1 
 Would I were laid 
 Under the shade 
 Of the cold tomb, and the long grass for ever 1 
 
SONG 
 
 There is dew for the flow'ret 
 And honey for the bee, 
 
 And bowers for the wild bird, 
 And love for you and me. 
 
 There are tears for the many 
 And pleasures for the few ; 
 
 But let the world pass on, dear, 
 There 's love for me and you. 
 
 VERSES IN AN ALBUM 
 
 Far above the hollow 
 Tempest, and its moan, 
 Singeth bright Apollo 
 In his golden zone, — 
 Cloud doth never shade him, 
 Nor a storm invade him. 
 On his joyous throne. 
 
 So when I behold me 
 In an orb as bright. 
 How thy soul doth fold me 
 In its throne of light ! 
 Sorrow never paineth. 
 Not a care attaineth, 
 To that blessed height. 
 
 TO A FALSE FRIEND 
 
 Our hands have met, but not our 
 
 hearts ; 
 Our hands will never meet again. 
 Friends, if we have ever been. 
 Friends we cannot now remain : 
 I only know I loved you once, 
 I only know I loved in vain ; 
 Our hands have met, but not our 
 
 hearts ; 
 Our hands will never meet again ! 
 
 Then farewell to heart and hand ! 
 I would our hands had never met : lo 
 Even the outward form of love 
 Must be resign 'd with some re- 
 gret. 
 Friends, we still might seem to be. 
 If I my wrong could e'er forget ; 
 Our hands have join'd, but not our 
 
 hearts ; 
 I would our hands had never met 1 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 With the good of our country before us. 
 Why play the merepartisan'sgame ? 
 
 Lo ! the broad flag of England is o'er us, 
 And behold on both sides 'tis the 
 same ! 
 
 Not for this, not for that, not for any. 
 Not for these, not for those, but for 
 all,— 
 
 To the last drop of blood, — the last 
 penny — 
 Together let 's stand, or let 's fall ! 
 
 Tear down the vile signs of a frac- 
 tion, 9 
 
 Be the national banner unfurl'd, — 
 And if we must have any faction, — 
 
 Be it ' Britain against all the world.' 
 
66s 
 
 SONG 
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 Those eyes that were so bright, love, 
 
 Have now a dimmer shine,^ 
 But all they've lost in light, love. 
 
 Was what they gave to mine : 
 But still those orbs reflect, love. 
 
 The beams of former hours, — 
 That ripen'd all my joys, my love, 
 
 And tinted all my flowers ! 
 
 Those locks were brown to see, love, 
 That now are turned so gray, — lo 
 
 But the years were spent with me, 
 love, 
 That stole their hue away. 
 
 Thy locks no longer share, love. 
 The golden glow of noon, — 
 
 But I've seen the world look fair, my 
 love, 
 When silver'd by the moon ! 
 
 That brow was smooth and fair, love, 
 
 That looks so shaded now, — 
 But for me it bore the care, love. 
 
 That spoiled a bonny brow. 20 
 And though no longer there, love. 
 
 The gloss it had of yore, — 
 Still Memory looks and dotes, my love, 
 
 Where Hope admired before ! 
 
 SUGGESTED BY A BUNCH OF ENGLISH GRAPES 
 
 We did not wear a leafy crown. 
 And darkly glance to darker glance. 
 Under the green leaf and the brown. 
 Wooing the eyes of maids of France, 
 With very bloomy down : 
 Westain'dnothands with purple blood 
 In golden Arno's pleasant vale. 
 Where the proud Brothers quenched 
 the stain. 
 
 And saw two murderers in the flood 
 With faces guilty-pale : 10 
 
 Nor on the sunny hills of Spain 
 We used to drink the sun and twine 
 Long amorous tendrils to entrap 
 The careless finger of maid to linger 
 And pluck us from the trembling 
 
 vine 
 To brim her dimpled lap. 
 
 LINES 
 
 Lei us make a leap, my dear, 
 In our love, of many a year. 
 And. date it very far away. 
 On a bright clear summer day. 
 When the heart was like a sun 
 To itself, and falsehood none ; 
 And the rosy lips a part 
 Of the very loving heart. 
 
 And the shining of the eye 
 But a sign to know it by ; — 10 
 
 When my faults were all forgiven, 
 And my life deserved of Heaven. 
 Dearest, let us reckon so. 
 And love for all that long ago ; 
 Each absence count a year complete. 
 And keep a birthday when we meet. 
 
666 
 
 SONG 
 
 Air— My mother bids rat.' 
 
 My mother bids me spend my smiles 
 
 On all who come and call me fair, 
 As crumbs are thrown upon the tiles, 
 
 To all the sparrows of the air. 
 But I've a darling of my own 
 
 For whom I hoard my little stock — 
 What if I chirp him all alone, 
 
 And leave mamma to feed the flock 1 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE 
 
 Impatient of his childhood, 
 
 ' Ah me 1 ' exclaims young Arthur, 
 Whilst roving in the wild wood, 
 
 ' I wish I were my father ! ' 
 Meanwhile, to see his Arthur 
 
 So skip, and play, and run, 
 ' Ah me ! ' exclaims the father, 
 
 ' I wish I were my son ! ' 
 
 SIR JOHN BOWRING 
 
 To Bowring, man of many tongues, 
 (All over tongues like rumour) 
 This tributary verse belongs 
 To paint his learned humour ; 
 All kinds of gabs he talks, I wis, 
 From Latin down to Scottish ; 
 As fluent as a parrot is, 
 But far more PoWy-glottish ! 
 No grammar too abstruse he meets 
 However dark and verby, — lo 
 
 He gossips Greek about the streets, 
 And often Russ — in urbe — : 
 
 Strange tongues whate'er you do them 
 
 call, 
 In short the man is able 
 To tell you what's o'clock in all 
 The dialects of Babel. 
 Take him on'Change ; try Portuguese, 
 The Moorish and the Spanish, 
 Polish, Hungarian, Tyrolese, 
 The Swedish and the Danish ; so 
 Try him with these and fifty such, 
 His skill will ne'er diminish. 
 Although you should begin in Dutch 
 And end (like me) in Finnish. 
 
66/ 
 TO HENRIETTA 
 
 ON HER DEPARTURE FOR CALAIS 
 
 When little people go abroad, wherever they may roam, 
 They will not just be treated as they used to be at home ; 
 So take a few promiscuous hints, to warn you in advance. 
 Of how a little EngUsh girl will perhaps be served in France. 
 
 Of course yon will be Frenchified ; and first, it 's my belief. 
 They'll dress you in their foreign style as i-la-mode as beef. 
 With a little row of beehives, as a border to your frock. 
 And a pair of frilly trousers, like a little bantam cock. 
 
 But first they'll seize your bundle (if you have one) in a crack, 
 
 And tie it with a tape by way of bustle on your back ; lo 
 
 And make your waist so high or low, your shape will be a, riddle, 
 
 For anyhow you'll never have your middle in the middle. 
 
 Your little English sandals for a while will hold together, 
 But woe betide you when the stones have worn away the leather ; 
 For they'll poke your little pettitoes (and there will be a hobble !) 
 In such a pair of shoes as none but carpenters can cobble ! 
 
 What next ? — to fill your head with French to match the native girls, 
 In scraps of Galignani they'll screw up your little curls ; 
 And they'll take their nouns and verbs, and some bits of verse and prose, 
 And pour them in your ears that you may spout them through your nose, lo 
 
 You'll have to learn a chou is quite another sort of thing 
 To that you put your foot in ; that a belle is not to ring ; 
 That a corne is not the nubble that brings trouble to your toes ; 
 Nor peut-Btre a potato, as some Irish folks suppose. 
 
 No, no, they have no murphies there, for supper or for lunch. 
 But you may get in course of time a pomme de terre to munch, 
 With which, as you perforce must do as Calais folks are doing. 
 You'll maybe have to gobble up the frog that went a wooing 1 
 
 But pray at meals, remember this, the French are so polite. 
 
 No matter what you eat or drink, ' whatever is, is right ! ' 30 
 
 So when you're told at dinner-time that some delicious stew 
 
 Is cat instead of rabbit, you must answer ' Tant mi — eux I ' 
 
 For little folks who go abroad, wherever they may roam. 
 They cannot just be treated as they used to be at home ; 
 So take a few promiscuous hints, to warn you in advance, 
 Of how a little English girl will perhaps be served in France ! 
 
668 
 
 QUEEN MAB 
 
 A LITTLE fairy comes at night, 
 Her eyes are blue, her hair is brown, 
 
 With silver spots upon her wings, 
 And from the moon she flutters 
 down. 
 
 She has a little silver wand, 
 
 And when a good child goes to bed 
 She waves her wand from right to left, 
 
 And makes a circle round its head. 
 
 And then it dreams of pleasant things, 
 Of fountains filled with fairy fish, lo 
 
 And trees that bear delicious fruit, 
 And bow their branches at a wish : 
 
 Of arbours filled with dainty scents 
 From lovely flowers that never fade; 
 
 Bright flies that glitter in the sun. 
 And glow-worms shining, in the 
 shade. 
 
 And talking birds with gifted tongues. 
 For singing songs and telling tales, 
 
 And pretty dwarfs to show the way 
 Through fairy hills and fairy dales. 
 
 But when a bad child goes to bed, it 
 From left to right she weaves her 
 rings. 
 And then it dreams all through the 
 night 
 Of only ugly horrid things ! 
 
 Then lions come with glaring eyes, 
 And tigers growl, a dreadful noise, 
 
 And ogres draw their cruel knives, 
 To shed the blood of girls and boys. 
 
 Then stormy waves rush on to drown. 
 
 Or raging flames come scorching 
 
 round, 30 
 
 Fierce dragons hover in the air, 
 And serpents crawl alongthe ground. 
 
 Then wicked children wake and weep, 
 And wish the long black gloom away ; 
 
 But good ones love the dark, and find 
 The night as pleasant as the day. 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 My heart 's wound up just like a watch, 
 As far as springs will take — 
 
 It wants but one more evil turn, 
 And then the cords will break ! 
 
 EPIGRAM 
 
 As human fashions change about, 
 The reign of fools should now begin ; 
 
 For when the Wigs are going out, 
 The Naturals are coming in I 
 
669 
 
 TO MINERVA 
 
 FROM THE GREEK 
 
 My temples throb, my pulses boil, 
 I'm sick of Song and Ode, and 
 Ballad— 
 
 So, Thyrsis, take the Midnight Oil 
 And pour it on a lobster salad. 
 
 lily brain is dull, my sight is foul, 
 I cannot write a verse, or read — 
 
 Then, Pallas, take away thine 
 Owl, 
 And let us have a lark instead. 
 
 FRAGMENT 
 
 PROBABLY WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS 
 
 I'm sick of gruel, and the dietetics, 
 
 I'm sick of pills, and sicker of emetics, 
 
 I'm sick of pulses' tardiness or quickness, 
 
 I'm sick of blood, its thinness or its thickness,- 
 
 In short, within a word, I'm sick of sickness ! 
 
 GUIDO AND MARINA 
 
 A DRAMATIC SKETCH 
 
 [GuiDO, having given himself up to the pernicious study of magic and astrology 
 casts his nativity, and resolves that at a certain hour of a certain day he is to- die, 
 Marina, to wean him from this fatal delusion, which hath gradually wasted him away, 
 even to the verge of death, advances the hour-hand of the clock. He is supposed to 
 be seated beside her in the garden, of his palace at Venice.] 
 
 Guido. Clasp me again, ! My soul is very sad ; 
 And hold thy lips in readiness near mine, 
 Lest I die suddenly. Clasp me again ! 
 'Tis such a gloomy day ! 
 
 Mar. Nay, sweet, it shines. 
 
 Guido. Nay, then, these mortal clouds are in mine eyes. 
 Clasp me again ! — ay, with thy fondest force, 
 Give me one last embrace. 
 
 Mar. Love, I do clasp thee ! 
 
 Guido. Then closer — closer — for I feel thee not ; 
 Unless thou art this pain around my heart. 
 Thy lips at such a time should never leave me, lo 
 
670 GUIDO AND MARINA 
 
 Mar. What pain— what time, love ? Art thou ill ? Alas I 
 I see it in thy cheek. Come, let me nurse thee. 
 Here, rest upon my heart. 
 
 Guido. Stay, stay, Marina. 
 
 Look ! — when I raise my hand against the sun. 
 Is it red with blood ? 
 
 Mar. Alas ! my love, what wilt thou ? 
 
 Thy hand is red — and so is mine— all hands 
 Show thus against the sun. 
 
 Guido. AH living men's, 
 
 Marina, but not mine. Hast never heard 
 How death first seizes on the feet and hands, 
 And thence goes freezing to the very heart ? zo 
 
 Mar. Yea, love, I know it ; but what then ? — the hand 
 I hold is glowing. 
 
 Guido. But my eyes ! — my eyes ! — 
 
 Look there, Marina — there is death's own sign. 
 I have seen a corpse, 
 
 E'en when its clay was cold, would still have seem'd 
 Alive, but for the eyes — such deadly eyes ! 
 So dull and dim ! Marina, look in mine ! 
 
 Mar. Ay, they are dull. No, no — not dull, but bright : 
 I see myself within them. Now, dear love, 
 Discard these horrid fears that make me weep. 30 
 
 Guido. Marina, Marina — where thy image lies, 
 There must be brightness — or perchance they glance 
 And glimmer like the lamp before it dies. 
 Oh, do not vex my soul with hopes impossible ! 
 My hours are ending. [Clock strikes. 
 
 Mar. Nay, they shall not ! Hark ! 
 
 The hour — four — five — hark ! — six ! — the very time ! 
 And, lo ! thou art alive ! My love — dear love — 
 Now cast this cruel phantasm from thy brain — 
 This wilful, wild delusion — cast it off ! 
 
 The hour is come — and gone I What ! not a word ! 40 
 
 What, not a smile, even, that thou livest 'for me ! 
 Come, laugh and clap your hands as I do — come. 
 Or kneel with me, and thank th' eternal God 
 For this blest passover ! Still sad ! still mute ! — 
 Oh, why art thou not glad, as I am glad, 
 That death forbears thee ? Nay, hath all my love 
 Been spent in vain, that thou art sick of life ? 
 
 Guido. Marina, I am no more attach'd to death 
 Than Fate hath doomed me. I am his elect, 
 
 That even now forestalls thy little light, 50 
 
 And steals with cold infringement on my breath : 
 Already he bedims my spiritual lamp. 
 Not yet his due — not yet — quite yet, though Time, 
 Perchance, to warn me, speaks before his wont : ' 
 Some minutes' space my blood has still to flow — 
 
GUIDO AND MARINA 671 
 
 Some scanty breath is left me still to spend 
 
 In very bitter sighs. 
 
 But there 's a point, true measured by my pulse, 
 
 Beyond or short of which it may not live 
 
 By one poor throb. Marina, it is near. 60 
 
 Mar. Oh, God of heaven ! 
 
 Guido. I Ay, it is very near. 
 
 Therefore, cling now to me, and say farewell 
 >yhile I can answer it. Marina, speak I 
 Why tear thine helpless hair ? it will not save 
 Thy heart from breaking, nor pluck out the thought 
 That stings thy brain. Oh, surely thou hast known 
 This truth too long to look so like Despair ? 
 
 Mar. O, no, no, no ! — a hope — a little hope — 
 I had erewhile — but I have heard its knell. 
 
 Oh, would my life were measured out with thine — 70 
 
 All my years number'd — all my days, my hours. 
 My utmost minutes, all summ'd up with thine 1 
 
 Guido. Marina — 
 
 Mar. Let me weep — no, let me kneel 
 
 To God — but rather thee — to spare this end 
 That is so wilful. Oh, for pity's sake 1 
 Pluck back thy precious spirit from these clouds 
 That smother it with death. Oh ! turn from death. 
 And do not woo it with such dark resolve. 
 To make me widow'd. 
 
 Guido. I have lived my term. 
 
 Mar. No — ^not thy term — no 1 not the natural term 80 
 
 Of one so young. Oh ! thou hast spent thy years 
 In sinful waste upon unholy — 
 
 Guido. Hush ! 
 
 Marina. 
 
 Mar. Nay, I must. Oh I cursed lore, 
 That hath supphed this spell against thy life. 
 Unholy learning — devilish and dark — 
 Study ! O, God ! O, God ! — how can thy stars 
 Be bright with such black knowledge ? Oh, that men 
 Should ask more light of them than guides their steps 
 At evening to love ! 
 
 Guido. Hush, hush, oh hush ! 
 
 Thy words have pain'd me in the midst of pain. 90 
 
 True, if I had not read, I should not die ; 
 For, if I had not read^ I had not been. 
 All our acts of life are pre-ordain'd. 
 And each pre-acted, in our several spheres. 
 By ghostly duplicates. They sway our deeds 
 By their performance. What if mine hath been 
 To be a prophet and foreknow my doom ? 
 If I had closed my eyes, the thunder then 
 Had roar'd it in my ears ; my own mute brain 
 
672 GUIDO AND MARINA 
 
 Had told it with a tongue. What must be, must. Joo 
 
 Therefore I knew when my full time would fall ; 
 
 And now — to save thy widowhood of tears — 
 
 To spare the very breaking of thy heart, 
 
 I may not gain even a brief hour's reprieve ! 
 
 What seest thou yonder ? 
 
 Mar. Where ? — a tree — the sun 
 
 Sinking behind a tree. 
 
 Guido. It is no tree, 
 
 Marina, but a shape — the awful shape 
 That comes to claim me. Seest thou not his shade 
 Darken before his steps ? Ah me I how cold 
 
 It comes against my feet I Cold, icy cold ! no 
 
 And blacker than a pall. 
 
 Mar. My love ! 
 
 Guido. Oh heaven 
 
 And earth, where are ye ? Marina — [Gdido dies. 
 
 Mar. I am here ! 
 
 What wilt thou ? dost thou speak ? — Methought I heard thee 
 Just whispering. He is dead ? — O God ! he 's dead ! 
 
 FRAGMENTS 
 
 The Lay of the Lark 
 
 With dew upon its breast 
 
 And sunshine on its wing. 
 The lark uprose from its happy nest 
 
 And thus it seemed to sing ; — 
 ' Sweet, sweet ! from the middle of the 
 wheat 
 To meet the morning gray, 
 To leave the corn on a very merry 
 morn. 
 Nor have to curse the day.' 
 lit * « * « * 
 With the dew upon their breast, 
 
 And the sunlight on their wing, lo 
 Towards the skies from the furrows 
 rise 
 The larks, and thus they sing : — 
 ' If you would know the cause 
 That makes us sing so gay. 
 It is because we hail and bless, 
 
 And never curse the day. 
 Sweet, sweet ! from the middle of the 
 wheat 
 (Where lurk our callow brood) 
 
 Where we were hatch 'd, and fed 
 
 corn on a very merry 
 
 Amidst the 
 morn 
 (We never starve for food.) 
 We never starve for bread ! ' 
 
 * * it: 4c 3|c ¥ 
 
 Those flowers so very blue 
 Those poppies flaming red, 
 
 « * * * * * 
 
 His heavy eye was glazed and dull 
 He only murmur'd ' bread ! ' 
 
 ' Farewell — Farewell ' — ^it is an aw- 
 ful word 
 
 When that the quick do speak it to 
 the dead ; 
 
 For though 'tis brief upon the speaker's 
 lips, 
 
 'Tis more than death can answer to, 
 and hath 
 
 No living echo on the living ear. 
 * * * ^ * * 
 
 'Tis awful tobehold the midnight stars 
 They say do rule the destinies of men. 
 
FRAGMENTS 
 
 673 
 
 Gazing upon us from that point of 
 
 space, 
 Where they were set even from their 
 
 lustrous birth, 
 With a most sure foreknowledge of our 
 
 doom 
 Watching its consummation. 
 
 I HAD a dream — the summer beam 
 Play'd on the wings of merry hours — 
 (Made long smiles of merry hours ;) 
 But Life 'gan throw a warp of woe, 
 Across its tapestry of flowers. 
 Fears darker shade took form and 
 
 made — 
 Like shadows darkling in light most 
 
 sparkling. 
 
 * * » * « . * 
 The fragrant tombs amid the blooms 
 Of April in a garden ground 
 Show'd many a name that none could 
 
 claim 10 
 
 Half-read between the roses round. 
 Unbanish'd clouds like cofiSn-shrouds 
 Neighbour'd the sun amid the blue, 
 And tearful streams mix'd with his 
 
 beams. 
 Yet made no promise as they flew. 
 ****** 
 
 Young Hope indeed began to read 
 The prophecies with cheerful look. 
 But dark Despair look'd over there, 
 And wept black blots upon her book. 
 And scarce the form all bright and 
 
 warm zo 
 
 Of Joy was woven into birth 
 When, like her shade, black Grief was 
 
 laid 
 Prone at her feet along the earth. 
 ****** 
 
 Then do not chide — the sunny Side 
 Of monuments for Joy is made. 
 But Sorrow still must weep her fill 
 On those that lie beneath the shade. 
 
 To note the symptoms of the times. 
 Its cruel and cold-blooded crimes, 
 One sure result we win. 
 
 Tho' rude and rougher modes, no 
 
 doubt. 
 Of murther are not going out, 
 That poison's coming in. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The powder that the doomed devour 
 And drink, — for sugar, — meal, — or 
 flour, — 
 
 Narcotics for the young — 
 And worst of all, that subtle juice 10 
 That can a sudden death produce. 
 
 Whilst yet upon the tongue. 
 So swift in its destructive pace. 
 Easy to give, and hard to trace, 
 
 So potable — so clear ! 
 So small the dreadful dose — to slip 
 Between the fatal cup and lip 
 
 In Epsom salts or beer. 
 ****** 
 
 Arrest the plague with Cannabis — 
 And * * * publish this zo 
 
 To quench the felon's hope ; — 
 Twelve drops of Prussic acid still 
 Are not more prompt and sure to kill. 
 
 Than one good Drop of Rope. 
 
 Jove's Eagle Asleep 
 I saw, through his eyelids, the might 
 of his eyes. 
 
 River of Life 
 
 Those waters you hear. 
 Yet see not — they flow so invisibly 
 clear. 
 
 Night 
 
 Shedder of secret tears 
 Felt upon unseen pillows— shade of 
 Death ! 
 
 The Sun and Moon 
 Father of light— and she, its mother 
 
 mild. 
 
 The Moon 
 
 Sometimes she riseth from her 
 shroud 
 Like the pale apparition of a sun. 
 
6/4 
 
 FRAGMENTS 
 
 Mercury 
 That bantam Mercury,' with feathered 
 ■ heels. 
 
 A Lady 
 
 She sighed 
 And paleness came, like moonlight, 
 o'er her face. 
 
 She was like an angel in mosaic, 
 Made up of many-coloured virtues. 
 
 A friendless heart is like a hollow shell, 
 That sighs o'er its own emptiness. 
 
 He lay with a dead passion on his face, 
 Like a storm stiffen 'd in ice. 
 
 Sometimes Hope 
 Singeth so plaintively, 'tis like Despair. 
 
 Her smile can make dull Melancholy 
 
 grow 
 Transparent to the secret hope below. 
 
 Morning 
 Surely this is the birthday of no grief, 
 That dawns so pleasantly along the 
 skies ! 
 
 The lusty Morn 
 Cometh, all flushed, and singing, from 
 
 a feast 
 Of wineand music in the odorous East. 
 
 The sun unglues 
 The crimson leaves of Morning, that 
 
 doth lie. 
 Like a streaked rosebud in the orient 
 
 sky. 
 
 LAMIA 
 
 A ROMANCE 
 DRAMATIS PERSONAE 
 
 Apollonius, a pkilosophe*, a sophist, 
 
 tutor to Lycius. 
 Lycius, a young man of noble birth, 
 
 pupil to Apollonius. 
 Mercutius, 1 young wild 
 
 Curio, > gallants of 
 
 Gaw-o, and others, ) Corinth. 
 
 Julius, brother to Lycius. 
 
 DoMus {pro tempore), butler to Lamia, 
 
 Picus (pro tempore), steward to 
 
 Lamia. 
 Lamia, an Enchantress, by nature a 
 
 Serpent, but now under the disguise 
 
 of a beautiful woman. 
 
 The Scene is in or near Corinth. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 A mossy Bank with frees, on the high Road near Corinth. 
 
 Enter Lamia, 
 
 Lamia. Here I'll sit down and watch ; till his dear foot 
 Pronounce him to my ear. That eager hope 
 Hath won me from the brook before I viewed 
 My unacquainted self. — But yet it seemed 
 A most rare change — and still methinks the change 
 Has left the old fascination in my eyes. 
 Look, here 's a shadow of the shape I am — 
 A dainty shadow 1 [She sits down on the bank. 
 
LAMIA 675 
 
 How fair the world seems now myself am fair I 
 
 These dewy daffodils ! these sweet green trees ! 10 
 
 I've coiled about their roots — but now I pluck 
 
 Their drooping branches with this perfect hand ! 
 
 Sure those were Dryads 
 
 That with such glancing looks peeped through the green 
 
 To gaze upon my beauty. 
 
 [Lycius enters and passes on without noting her. 
 Lycius I sweet Lycius ! — what, so cruel still ! 
 What have I done thou ne'er wilt deign a look, 
 But pass me like a, worm ? 
 
 Lycius. Ha ! who art thou ? [Looking bach. 
 
 goddess, (for there is no mortal tint. 
 
 No line about thee lower than divine,) 20 
 
 What may that music mean, thy tuneful tongue 
 Hath sent in chase of me ? — I slight I I scorn thee I 
 By all the light of day, till this kind hour 
 
 1 never saw that face I^nor one as fair. 
 
 Lamia. O fie, fie, fie ! — what, have you never met 
 That face at Corinth ?— ^turned too oft towards you, 
 Like the poor maiden's that adored Apollo : — 
 You must have marked it I — 
 
 Lycius. Nay, then hear me swear ! 
 
 By all Olympus and its starry thrones — 
 
 My eyes have never chanced so sweet a sight 30 
 
 Not in my summer dreams ! 
 
 Lamia. Enough, enough ! — why then I've watched in vain — 
 Tracked all your ways, and followed like your shadow ; 
 Hung you with blessings — haunted you with love — 
 And waited on your aspect — all in vain ! — 
 I might as well have spent my loving looks, 
 Like Ariadne, on the sullen sea. 
 And hoped for a reflection. Youth, farewell. 
 
 Lycius. O not yet — not yet farewell ! 
 I.et such an unmatched vision still shine on, 40 
 
 Till I have set an impress in my heart 
 To cope with life's decay ! 
 
 Lamia. You say but well. 
 
 I must soon hie me to my elements ; 
 But take your pleasure at my looks till then. 
 
 Lycius. You are not of this earth, then ? {Sadly. 
 
 Lamia. O* tl>>s earth ? 
 
 Why not ? And of this same and pleasant isle. 
 My world is yours, and I would have no other. 
 One earth, one sea, one sky, in one horizon, 
 One room is wide enough, unless you hate me. 
 
 Lycius. Hate you I ^^ 
 
 Lamia. Then you may wish to set the stars between us 
 The dim and utter lamps of east and west. , 
 
 So far you'd have me from you. 
 
6^S LAMIA 
 
 Lycius. Cruel Syren ! 
 
 To set your music to such killing speech. 
 Look if my eyes turn from you — if my brows, 
 Or any hinting feature, show dislike. 
 Nay, hear my lips — 
 
 Lamia. If they will promise love 
 
 Or talk of it ; but chide, and you will kill me. 
 
 ■Lycius. Then, love, speak forth a promise for thyself, 
 And all heaven's witnesses be by to hear thee. — 60 
 
 Lamia. Hold, hold ! I'm satisfied. You'll love me, then ? 
 
 Lycius. With boundless, endless love. 
 
 Lamia. Ay, give me much on't — for you owe me much, 
 If' you knew all. 
 I've licked the very dust whereon you tread — 
 
 Lycius. It is not true ! 
 
 Lamia. I'll swear it, if you will. Jove heard the words, 
 And knows they are sadly true. 
 
 Lycius. And this for me ? , 
 
 Lamia. Aye, sweet, and more. A poor, fond wretch, I filled 
 The flowers with my tears ; and lay supine 70 
 
 In coverts wild and rank — fens, horrid, desolate ! 
 'Twould shock your very soul if you could see 
 How this poor figure once was marred and vilified. 
 How grovelled and debased ; contemned and hated 
 By my own self, because, with all its charms, 
 It then could hope no favour in your eyes ; 
 And so I hid it, 
 
 With toads and newts, and liideous shiny things, 
 Under old ruins, in vile solitudes, 
 Making their haunts my own. So 
 
 Lycius. 'Tis strange and piteous. — Why, then, you maddened ? 
 
 Lamia. I was not quite myself — (not what I am) — 
 Yet something of the woman stayed within me. 
 To weep she was not dead. 
 
 Lycius. Is this no fable ? 
 
 Lamia. O most distrustful Lycius ! Hear me call 
 On heaven, anew, for vouchers to these facts. [It thunders. 
 
 There ! Could 'st thou question that ? Sweet skies, I thank ye ! 
 Now, Lycius, doubt me if you may or can ; 
 And leave me if you will. I can but turn 
 
 The wretched creature that I was, again, 90 
 
 Crushed by our equal hate. Once more, farewell. 
 
 Lycius. Farewell, but not till death. O gentlest, dearest. 
 Forgive my doubts. I have but paused till now 
 To ask if so much bliss could be no dream. 
 
 Now I am sure 
 
 Thus I embrace it with my whole glad heart 
 For ever and for ever ; I could weep. 
 Thy tale hath shown me such a matchless love 
 It makes the elder chronicles grow dim. 
 
LAMIA 677 
 
 I always thought 100 
 
 1 wandered all uncared for on my way, 
 Betide me good or ill — nor caused more tears 
 Than hung upon my sword. Yet I was hung 
 With dews, rich pearly dews — shed from such spheres 
 As sprinkle them in amber. Thanks, bounteous stars. 
 Henceforth you shall but rain your beams upon me 
 To bless my brightened days. 
 
 Lamia. O sweet ! sweet ! sweet I 
 
 To hear you parley thus and gaze upon you ! 
 Lycius, dear Lycius 1 
 
 But tell me, dearest, will you never — never no- 
 
 Think lightly of myself, nor scorn a love 
 Too frankly set before you I because 'twas given 
 Unasked, though you should never give again : 
 Because it was a gift and not a purchase — 
 A boon, and not a debt ; not love for love. 
 Where one 'half 's due for gratitude. 
 
 Lycius. Thrice gracious seems thy gift ! 
 
 Lamia. Oh, no ! Oh, no ! 
 
 I should have made you wait, and beg, and kneel, 
 And swear as though I could but half believe you ; 
 I have not even stayed to prove your patience lao 
 
 By crosses and feigned slights — given you no time 
 For any bribing gifts or costly shows. 
 I know you will despise me. 
 
 Lycius. Never, never. 
 
 So long as I have sight within these balls. 
 Which only now I've learned to thank the gods for. 
 
 Lamia. 'Tis prettily sworn ; and frankly I'll believe you ! 
 Now shall we on our way ? I have a house 
 (Till now no home) within the walls of Corinth : 
 Will you not master it as well as me ? 
 
 Lycius. My home is in your heart ; but where you dwell, 130 
 
 There is my dwelling-place. But let me bear you, sweet 1 
 
 Lamia. No, I can walk, if you will charm the way 
 With such discourse ; it makes my heart so light, 
 I seem to have wings within ; or, if I tire, 
 I'll lean upon you thus. 
 
 Lycius. So lean for ever ! ^Exeuni, 
 
678 LAMIA 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 The Market-place at Corinth. 
 
 Apollonius is discovered discoursing with various young gallants, namely, 
 Mercutius, Curio, &-c. 
 
 Apollonius. Hush, sirs ! 
 You raise a tingling blush about my ears, 
 That drink such ribaldry and wanton jests — 
 For shame ! — for shame ! — 
 You misapply good gifts the gods have granted ! 
 
 Mercutius. The gods have made us tongues— brains, too, I hope — 
 And time will bring us beards. You sages think 
 Minerva's owl dwells only in such bushes. 
 
 Curio. Ha ! ha ! — Why we'll have wigs upon our chins — 
 Long grizzled ones — and snarl about the streets, 10 
 
 Hugged up in pride and spleen like any mantle. 
 And be philosophers ! 
 
 Apollonius. You will do wisely. 
 
 Curio. Ay — I hope — why not ? 
 
 Though age has heaped no winter on our pates. 
 Is wisdom such a frail and spoiling thing 
 It must be packed in ice ? 
 
 Gallo. Or sopped in vinegar ? 
 
 Apollonius. We would you were more gray — 
 
 Mercutius. Why, would you have us gray before our time ? 
 Oh, Life's poor capital is too soon spent 
 
 Without discounting it. Pray do not grudge us ao 
 
 Our share ; — a little wine — a Uttle love — 
 A little youth !— a Uttle, little folly. 
 Since wisdom has the gross. When they are past. 
 We'll preach with you, and call 'em vanities. 
 
 Apollonius. No ! — leave that to your mummies. Sure your act 
 
 Will purchase you an embalming. Let me see ! 
 
 Here 's one hath spent his fortune on a harlot. 
 
 And— if he kept to one it was a merit ! — 
 
 The next has rid the world of so much wine — 
 
 Why that 's a benefit. And you, Sir Plume, 30 
 
 Have turned your Tailor to a Senator ; — 
 
 You've made no man the worse — (for manner's sake • 
 
 My speech exempts yourself). You've all done well ;' 
 
 If not, your dying shall be placed to your credit. 
 
 Curio. You show us bravely — could you ever praise one ? 
 
 Apollonius. One ? and no more ! why then I answer, yes 
 
 Or rather, no ; for I could never praise him. 
 
 He 's as beyond my praise as your complexion 
 
 I wish you'd take a pattern ! — 
 
LAMIA 679 
 
 Curio. Of whose back, sir ? 
 
 Apollonius. Ay, there you must begin and try to match 4a 
 
 The very shadow of his virtuous worth. 
 Before you're half a man. 
 
 MercuHus. Who is this model ? 
 
 An ape — an Afric ape — what he and Plato 
 Conspire to call a Man. 
 
 Apollonius. Then you're a man already ; but no model, 
 So I must set my own example up ; 
 To show you Virtue, Temperance, and Wisdom, 
 And in a youth too ! — 
 Not in a withered graybeard like myself, 
 
 In whom some virtues are mere worn-out vices, 50 
 
 And wisdom but a due and tS.rdy fruit. 
 He, like the orange, bears both .fruit and flower 
 Upon his odorous bough — the fair and ripe I — 
 
 Curio. Why, you can praise too ! 
 
 Apollonius. As well as I dispraise : — They're both in one. 
 Since you're dispjiraged when I talk of graces. 
 For example, when I say that he I spoke of 
 Is no wild sin-monger — no sot — no dicer. 
 No blcisphemer o' th' gods — no shameless scoffer, 
 
 No ape — no braggart — no foul Ubertine — So 
 
 Oh no— 
 
 He hugs no witching wanton to his heart. 
 He keeps no vices he 's obliged to mufSe ; — 
 But pays a filial honour to gray hairs. 
 And guides him by that voice, Divine Philosophy. 
 
 Gallo. Well, he 's a miracle ! — and what 's he caU'd ? 
 
 {All.) Ay, who is he ? — ^who is he ? 
 
 Apollonius. His name is Lycius. 
 
 Curio. Then he 's coming yonder : — 
 Lord, how these island fogs delude our eyes ! 70 
 
 I could have sworn to a girl too with him. 
 
 Apollonius. Ay, ay — ^you know these eyes can shoot so far. 
 Or else the jest were but a sorry one. 
 
 Curio. Mercutius sees her too. 
 
 MercuHus. In faith, I do, sir. 
 
 Apollonius. Peace, puppies ! — nine days hence you will see truer. 
 
 Curio. Nay, but by all the gods^ 
 
 Gallo. We'll take our oath on't. 
 
 Apollonius. Peace, peace ! (aside) I see her too-^This is some mockery. 
 
 Illusion, damned illusion ! 
 
 What, hoi Lycius! 
 
 [Lycius (entering) wishes to pass aside. Lamia clings close to him. 
 
 Lamia. Hark !— who is that ? — quick, fold me in your mantle ; 
 Don't let him see my face ! — 
 
 Lycius. Nay, fear not, sweet— 80 
 
 'Tis but old Apollonius, my sage guide. 
 
68o LAMIA 
 
 Lamia. Don't speak to him — don't stay him — let him pass ! — 
 I have a terror of these graybeard men — 
 They frown on Love with such cold churlish brows, 
 That sometimes he hath flown ! — 
 
 Lycius. Ay, he will chide me; 
 
 But do not you fear aught. Why, how you tremble ! 
 
 Lamia. Pray shroud me closer. I am cold — death cold ! — 
 
 [Old Apoixonius conies up, followed by the Gallants. 
 
 Apollonius. My son, what have you here ? 
 
 Lycius. A foolish bird that flew into my bosom : 
 You would not drive him hence ? 
 
 Apollonius. Well, let me see it ; 90 
 
 I have some trifling skill in augury. 
 And can divine you from its beak and eyes 
 What sort of fowl it is. 
 
 Lycius. I have learned that, sir ; — 
 
 'Tis what is called — a dove — sacred to Venus : — 
 
 [The Youths laugh, and pluck Apollonius by the sleeve. 
 
 Apollonius. Fool ! drive it out ! [To Lycius. 
 
 Lycius. No, not among these hawks here. 
 
 Apollonius. Let 's see it, then. 
 
 (All.) Ay, ay, old Graybeard, you say well for once ; 
 Let 's see it ; — let 's see it ! — 
 
 Apollonius. And sure it is no snake — to suit the fable — 
 You've nestled in your bosom ? 
 
 Lamia (under the mantle). Lost ! lost ! lost ! — 100 
 
 Mercutius. Hark ! the dove speaks — I knew it was a parrot ! — 
 
 Apollonius. Dear Lycius — my own son (at least till now), 
 Let me forewarn you, boy ! — 
 
 Lycius. No, peace, I will not. 
 
 Curio. There spoke a model for you. 
 
 Apollonius. O Lycius, Lycius ! 
 
 My eyes are shocked, and half my age is killed, 
 To see your noble self so ill accompanied ! — 
 
 Lycius. And, sir, my eyes are shocked too — Fie ! is this 
 A proper retinue — for those gray hairs ? 
 A troop of scofi&ng boys ! — Sirs, by your leave 
 1 must and will pass on. [To the Gallants. 
 
 Mercutius. That as you can, sir — no 
 
 Lycius. Why then this arm has cleared a dozen such. 
 
 [They scuffle : in the tumult Apollonius is overturned. 
 
 Apollonius. Unhappy boy ! this overthrow 's your own ! 
 
 [Lycius frees himself and Lamia, and calls bach. 
 
 Lycius. Lift — help him — pick him up ! — fools — braggarts — apes — 
 Step after me who dares ! — [Exit with Lamia. 
 
 Gallo. Whew ! — here 's a model ! — 
 
 How fare you, sir (to Apollonius) — your head ? — I fear 
 Your wisdom has suffered by this fall. 
 
 Apollonius. My heart aches more. 
 
 O Lycius ! Lycius ! — 
 
LAMIA 68 1 
 
 Curio. Hark ! he calls his model !— 
 
 'Twas a brave pattern. We shall never match him. 
 Such wisdom and such virtues — in a youth too ! 
 He keeps no mufSed vices. 
 
 Mercutius. No J no ! not he ! — ,20 
 
 Nor hugs no naughty wantons in his arms — 
 
 Curio. But pays a filial honour to gray hairs, 
 And listens to thy voice — Divine Philosophy ! 
 
 {They run off, laughing and mocking. 
 
 Apollonius. You have my leave to jest. The gods unravel 
 This hellish witchery that hides my scholar I 
 O Lycius ! Lycius ! [Exit Apollonius. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 A rich Chamber, with Pictures and Statues. 
 
 Enter Domus unsteadily, with a flask in his hand. 
 
 Domus. Here 's a brave palace ! [Looking round. 
 
 Why, when this was spread 
 Gold was as cheap as sunshine. How it 's stuck 
 All round about the walls. Your health, brave palace ! 
 Ha ! Brother Picus ! Look ! are you engaged too ? 
 
 Enter Picus. 
 Hand us your hand : you see I'm butler here. 
 How came you hither ? 
 
 Picus. How ? Why a strange odd man — 
 
 A sort of foreign slave, I think — addressed me 
 I' the market, waiting for my turn. 
 Like a beast of burthen, and hired me for this service. 
 
 Domus. So I was hired, too. 
 
 Picus. 'Tis a glorious house ! 10 
 
 But come, let 's kiss the lips of your bottle. 
 
 Domus. Ay, but be modest : wine is apt to blush ! 
 
 Picus. 'Tis famous beverage : 
 
 It makes me reel i' the head. 
 
 Domus. , I believe ye; boy. 
 
 Why, since I sipped it — (mind, I'd only sipped) — 
 I've had such glorious pictures in my brains — 
 Such rich rare dreams ! 
 
 Such blooms, and rosy bowers, and tumbling fountains, 
 With a score of moons shining at once upon me — 
 I never saw such sparkling ! [Drinks. 
 
 Picus. Here 's a vision ! zo 
 
 Domus. The sky was always bright ; or, if it gloomed. 
 The very storms came on with scented waters. 
 And, if it snowed, 'twas roses ; claps of thunder 
 Seemed music, only louder ; nay, in the end, 
 
 z 3 
 
682 LAMIA 
 
 Died off in gentle ditties. Tiien, such birds ! 
 
 And gold and silver chafers bobbed about ; 
 
 And when there came a little gust of wind, 
 
 The very flowers took wing and chased the butterflies ! 
 
 Pious. Egad, 'tis very sweet. I prithee, dearest Domus, 
 Let me have one small sup ! 
 
 Domus. Nol hear me out. 30 
 
 The hills seemed made of cloud, bridges of rainbows. 
 The earth like trodden smoke. 
 Nothing at all was heavy, gross, or human : 
 Mountains, with climbing cities on their backs, 
 Shifted about like castled elephants ; 
 You might have launched the houses on the sea, 
 And seen them swim like galleys ! 
 The stones I pitched i' the ponds would barely sink — 
 I could have lifted them by tons. [Drinks. 
 
 Picus. Dear Domus, let me paint, too — dear, dear Domus. 40 
 
 Domus. Methought I was all air — Jove ! I was feared, 
 I had not flesh enough to hold me down 
 From mounting up to the moon. 
 At every step — 
 
 Bounce I when I only thought to stride a pace, 
 I bounded thirty. 
 
 Picus. Thirty ! Oh, let me drink ! 
 
 Domus. And that too when I'd even eat or drank 
 At the rate of two meals to the hour ! [Dnnks. 
 
 Picus. Two meals to the hour— ^nay Domus — let me drink. 
 Dear Domus, let me drink — before 'tis empty ! — ■ So 
 
 Domus. But then my fare was all so light and delicate, 
 The fruits, the cakes, the meats so dainty frail, 
 They would not bear a bite — no, not a munch, 
 But melted away like ice. Come, here 's the bottle ! 
 
 Picus. Thanks, Domus — Pshaw, it 's empty ! — Well, who cares — 
 There 's something thin and washy after all 
 In these poor visions. They all end in emptiness, 
 Like this. [Turns down the bottle. 
 
 Domus. Then fill again, boy — fill again ! 
 And be . I say, look there ! — 
 
 Picus. ■ ' It is our Lady ! 
 
 [Lamia enters leaning upon Lycius, 
 
 Domus. Our Lady 's very welcome : (bowing) yours, my lady — 60 
 Sir, your poor butler (to Lycius) : Picus — man — speak up. 
 The very same that swam so in my dreams ; 
 I had forgot the goddess I — 
 
 Lamia. Peace, rude knave ! 
 
 You've tasted what belonged to nobler brains. 
 And maddened I — My sweet love (to Lycius), 'twas kept for you, 
 'Tis nature's choicest vintage. 
 
 (to Domus) Drink no more, sir 1 
 Except what I'll provide you. 
 
LAMIA 683 
 
 Domus. O sweet Lady ! 
 
 Lord, and I had a cup I'd thank you in it ! — 
 But you've been drunk — sweet lady — you've been drunk I 
 Here 's Master Picus knows — for we drunk you. 70 
 
 Picus. Not I, in faith. 
 
 Lycius. Ha ! ha ! my gentle love, 
 
 Methinks your butler should have been your steward. 
 
 Domus. Why you are merry, sir — 
 
 And well you may. ■ Look here 's a house we've come to ! 
 O Jupiter ! 
 
 Look here are pictures, sir, and here 's our statues ! 
 That 's Bacchus ! • IPoinling. 
 
 And there 's Apollo — just aiming at the serpent. 
 
 Lamia. Peace, fool — my dearest Lycius, 
 Pray send him forth. 80 
 
 Lycius. Sirrah, take him ofE ! [To Steward. 
 
 Picus. Fie, Domus — Jcnow your place. 
 
 Domus. My place, slave ! 
 
 What, don't I know my place ? [Falls on his back. 
 
 Ain't I the butler ? 
 
 Lycius. No more — no more — there — pull him out by the heels — 
 
 [Domus is dragged oul. 
 {To Lamia) My most dear love — how fares it with you now ? 
 Your cheek is somewhat pale. 
 
 Lamia. Indeed, I'm weary. 
 
 We'll not stay here — I have some cheer provided 
 In a more quiet chamber. [Exeunl. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 A Street in Corinth ; on one side a very noble building, which is the residence 
 of Lamia. Mercutius, with the other Gallants, come and discourse in 
 front of the house. 
 
 Mercutius. So, here they're lodged ! 
 
 In faith a, pretty nest ! 
 
 Gallo. The first that led us hither for revenge— 
 O brave Mercutius ! 
 
 Curio. Now my humour 's different, 
 
 For while there 's any stone left in the market-place 
 That hurt these bones, when that pert chick o'erset us, 
 I'd never let him sleep ! — 
 
 Gallo. Nor I, by Nemesis I 
 
 I'd pine him to a ghost for want of rest. 
 To the utter verge of death. 
 
 Mercutius. And then you'd beat him. 
 
 Is that your noble mind ? 
 
 Gallo. Lo ! here 's a turncoat ! 
 
 D'ye hear him, gentles ?— he 's come here to fool us 1 la 
 
684 LAMIA 
 
 MercuHus. Not I ; but that I'm turned, I will confess it ; 
 For as we came — in thinking over this— 
 Of Lycius, and the lady whom I glanced 
 Crouching within his mantle — 
 Her most distressful look came so across me — 
 Her death-white cheeks — 
 That I, for one, can find no heart to fret her. 
 
 Curio. Shall Lycius then go free ? 
 
 MercuHus. Ay, for her sake : — 
 
 But do your pleasure ; it is none of mine. [Exit. 
 
 Gallo. Why, a false traitor ! 
 
 Curio. Sirs, I can expound him ; 20 
 
 He 's smit — he 's passion-smit — I heard him talk 
 Of her strange witching eyes — such rare ones 
 That they turned him cold as stone. 
 
 Gallo. Why let him go then — but we'll to our own. 
 
 Curio. Ay, let 's be plotting 
 
 How we can vent our spites on this Sir Lycius — 
 I own it stirs my spleen, more than my bruises. 
 To see him fare so well — hang him ! — a model ! — 
 One that was perked too, underneath our noses, 
 
 For virtue and fot temperance. 30 
 
 I have a scheme will grieve 'em without end : 
 I planned it by the way. 
 You know this fellow, Lycius, has a father 
 Some fifteen leagues away. We'll send him thither 
 By some most urgent message. 
 
 Gallo. Bravely plotted : 
 
 His father shall be dying. Ah ! 'tis excellent. 
 I long to attempt the lady ; — nay, we'll set 
 Mercutius, too, upon her ! Pray, let 's to it. 
 Look ! here 's old Ban-dog. 
 
 [Apollonius appears in the distance. 
 
 Curio. Nay, but I will act 
 
 Some mischief ere I go. There 's for thee, Lycius ! 40 
 
 [He casts a stone through the window, and they run off. 
 
 Enter Apollonius. 
 Apollonius. Go to, ye silly fools ! — Lo ! here 's a. palace ! 
 I have grown gray in Corinth, but my eyes 
 Never remember it. Who is the master ? 
 Some one is coming forth. Lycius again ! 
 
 [Lycius comes out disordered, with his face flushed, and 
 reels up to Apollonius. 
 Ly:ius. Why, how now, Graybeard ? What ! are these your follies, 
 To sound such rude alarum in our ears ? 
 Go to ! 
 
 Apollonius. Son, do you know me ? 
 
 Lycius. Know you ? Why ! 
 
 Or how ? You have no likeness in our skies ! 
 
LAMIA 
 
 685 
 
 [Exit DoMDS, 
 
 Gray hairs and such sour looks ! You'd be a wonder ! 
 
 We have nothing but bright faces. Hebes, Venuses ; 
 
 No age, no frowns ! 
 
 No wrinkle, but our laughter shakes in wine. 
 
 I wish you'd learn to drink, 
 
 ApoHonius. O Lycius ! Lycius ! 
 
 Would you had never learned to drink, except those springs 
 We supped together ! These are mortal draughts ; — 
 Your cup is drugged with death ! 
 
 Lycius. Grave sir, you lie ! 
 
 I'm a young god. Look ! do you not behold 
 The new wings on my shoulders ? You may die ; 
 That moss upon your chin proclaims you're mortal. 
 And feel decays of age. But I'm renewable 
 At every draught I take ! Here, Domus ! Domus ! 
 
 Enter Domus. 
 Bring a full cup of nectar for this churl. 
 'Twill give you back your youth, sir — ay, like magic — 
 And lift you o'er the clouds. You'll dream of nothing 
 That 's meaner than Olympus. Smiling goddesses 
 Will haunt you in your sleep. You'll walk on flowers. 
 And never crush their heads. 
 
 Enter DoMUS with wine. 
 
 ApoUonius. Peace, madman, peace ! 
 
 None of your draughts for me — your magic potions. 
 That stuff your brains with such pernicious cheats ! 
 I say, bear off the bowl ! 
 
 Lycius. What ! — will he not ? — 70 
 
 Then cast it over him — 'twill do as well ; — 
 He shall be a demi-god against his will. 
 Cast it, I say ! — [To Domus. 
 
 Domus. 'Tis such a sinful waste ! 
 
 Why, there, then — there ! \He throws it over Apollonius. 
 
 Look how it falls to the ground ! 
 Lord, you might soak him in it year by year. 
 And never plump him up to a comely youth 
 Like you or me, sir ! — 
 
 Lycius. Let him go. Farewell !— 
 
 Look, foolish Graybeard — I am going back 
 
 To what your wisdom scorned. A minute hence 80 
 
 My soul is in Elysium ! [Exit with Domus. 
 
 Apollonius. Fool, farewell ! 
 
 Why, I was sprinkled ; yet I feel no wet. 
 'Tis strange ! — this is some magic, against which 
 Philosophy is proof. I must entangle it. 
 
 Hold ! [He stands in meditation. 
 
 I have it faintly dawning in my brain. 
 
 'Tis somewhere in my books (which I'll refer to) — 
 
686 LAMIA 
 
 Speaking of Nature's monstrous prodigies, 
 
 That there be witching snakes — Circean birth — ■' 
 
 Who, by foul spells and forgeries, can take 90 
 
 The mask and shape of woman — fair externe, 
 
 But viperous within. And so they creep 
 
 Into young hearts, and falsify the brain 
 
 With juggling mockeries. Alas, poor boy. 
 
 If this should be thy case I These are sad tales 
 
 To send unto thy father. 
 
 [Mercutius enters without perceiving Apollonius : going up to 
 Lamia's house, he recollects himself. 
 
 Mercutius. Here again ? 
 
 What folly led me hither ? I thought I was 
 Proceeding homeward. Why I've walked a circle 
 And end where I began ! 
 
 [Apollonius goes up and calls in his ear. 
 
 Apollonius. • I'll tell you, dreamer ; 
 
 It 's magic, it 's vile magic brought you hither, 100 
 
 And made you walk in a fog. 
 
 There, think of that ;— be wise, and save yourself ! 
 I've better men to care for I [Exit Apollonius. 
 
 . Mercutius. What did he say ? 
 
 The words were drowned in my ear by something sweeter. 
 
 [A strain of wild music within the house. 
 Music ! ] rare music ! — It must be her voice ; 
 I ne'er heard one so thrilling ! Is it safe 
 To listen to a song so syren-sweet — so exquisite ? — 
 That I might hold my breath, entranced, and die 
 Of ardent listening ? She is a miracle I 
 
 Enter DoMus. 
 Look, here 's a sot will tell me all he knows. 110 
 
 One of her servants — 
 Is that your lady's voice ? {to Domus) her pipe 's a rare one. 
 
 Domus. Ay, marry. If you heard it sound within. 
 Till it makes the glasses chime, and all the bottles. 
 You'd think yourself in heaven. 
 
 Mercutius. I wish she'd sing again. 
 
 Domus. And if you saw her eyes, how you would marvel I 
 I have seen my master watch them, and fall back 
 Like a man in his fits. I'm rather dizzy. 
 And drunken-like myself. The vile quandaries 
 Her beauty brings one into— [Staggers about. 120 
 
 Ay, I'm crazed. But you should see our Pious 
 
 Lord, how he stands agape, till he drops his salver. 
 And then goes down on his knees. 
 
 Mercutius. And so should I, 
 
 Had I been born to serve her ! [Sishs 
 
 Domus. Why you shall, boy ; 
 
 And have a leather jerkin — marry, shall you I 
 
LAMIA 
 
 687 
 
 We need a helper sadly. I'm o'er-burdened 
 (You see how I am burdened) ; but I'll teach you 
 What manners you may want. 
 
 MeKuHus. Well, I'm for you— 
 
 (I will dislike no place that brings me near her) 
 
 Mind, you have 'listed me. 
 
 Domus. And I can promise 130 
 
 You'll not dislike your fare — 'tis excellent, light 
 As well as savoury, and will not stuff you ; 
 But when you've eat your stretch to the outer button, 
 In half an hour you'll hunger. It is all feasting. 
 With barely a tithe of fasting. Then such drinking ! 
 There 's such a cellar I 
 
 One hundred paces long (for I have paced it). 
 By about two hundred narrow. Come along, boy ! iExeunt. 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 A Chamber in Lamia's House. Lamia and Lycius are discovered sitting 
 on a couch. 
 
 Lamia. Nay, sweet-lipped Silence, 
 'Tis now your turn to talk. I'll not be cheated 
 Of any of my pleasures ; which I shall be, 
 Unless I sometimes listen. 
 
 Lycius. ' Pray talk on, 
 
 A little further on. You have not told me 
 What country bore you, that my heart may set 
 Its name in a partial place. Nay, your own name — 
 Which ought to be my better word for beauty — 
 I know not. 
 
 Lamia. Wherefore should I talk of such things 
 
 I care not to remember ? A lover's memory 10 
 
 Looks back no further than when love began. 
 As if the dawn o' the world. 
 As for my birth — suppose I like to think 
 That we were dropped from two strange several stars 
 (Being thus meant for one), why should you wish 
 A prettier theory, or ask my name. 
 As if I did not answer, heart and eyes. 
 To those you call me by ? In sooth, t will not 
 Provide you with a worse. 
 
 Lycius. Then I must find it. Now I am but puzzled 20 
 
 To compound sweet superlatives enough 
 In all the world of words. 
 
 [DoMUS enters boisterously with a letter. 
 
 Domus. An express ! an express ! 
 
 Faith, I've expressed it. I did not even wait {aside) 
 To pry between the folds. 
 
 [Lycius takes the letter, and reads in great agitation. 
 Lamia watches him. 
 
688 LAMIA 
 
 Lamia. Alas ! what news is this ? Lycius ! dear Lycius I 
 Why do you clutch your brow so ? What has chanced 
 To stab you with such grief ? Speak ! speak ! 
 
 Lycius. My father ! 
 
 Lamia. Dead ? 
 
 Lycius. Dying — dying — ^if not dead by this. 
 
 I must leave you instantly. 
 
 Lamia. Alas t I thought 
 
 This fair-eyed day would never see you from me 1 3» 
 
 But must you go, indeed ? 
 
 Lycius. I must ! I must ! 
 
 This is some fierce and fearful malady 
 To fall so sudden on him. Why, I left him. 
 No longer since — ay, even when I met you 
 We had embraced that morn. 
 
 Lamia. It was but yesterday ! 
 
 How soon our bliss is marred ! And must you leave me ? 
 
 Lycius. Oh ! do not ask again with such a look, 
 Or I shall linger here and pledge my soul 
 To everlasting shame and keen remorse ! 
 
 Lamia. The fates are cruel ! 
 
 Yet let me cling to thee and weep awhile : 4° 
 
 We may not meet again. I cannot feel 
 You are safe but in these arms ! \_She embraces him. 
 
 Lycius. I'm split asunder 
 
 By opposite "factions of remorse and love ; 
 But all my soul clings here. 
 
 Domus. It makes me weep. 
 
 He will not see his father. [Lycius casts himself on the couch. 
 
 Lamia {striking Domus). Wretch ! take that. 
 For harrowing up his griefs ! Dearest ! — my Lycius ! 
 Lean not your brow upon that heartless pillow ! 
 
 Domus. How he groaned then ! 
 
 Lamia. Lycius, you fright me ! 
 
 You turn me cold ! 
 
 Lycius {rising up). Oh ! in that brief rest, 
 I've had a waking vision of my father ! se 
 
 Even as he lay on his face and groaned for me, 
 And shed like bitter tears ! 
 
 Oh, how those groans will count in heaven against me ! 
 One for pain's cruelty, but two for mine, 
 That gave a sting to his anguish. 
 
 His dying breath will mount to the skies and curse me. 
 His angered ghost 
 
 Will haunt my sight, and when I'd look upon you 
 Step in like a blot between us. 
 
 Lamia. Go, go ! or you will hate me. Go and leave me ! 6o 
 
 If I now strive by words or tears to stay you 
 For my pleasure's sake or pain's, 
 You'd say there was something brutal in my nature 
 
LAMIA 689 
 
 Of cold and fiendish, and unlike woman ; 
 
 Some taint that devilish 
 
 Yet give me one long look before you go — 
 
 One last long look ! [She fixes her eyes on his. 
 
 Lycius. O gods I my spirit fails me, 
 
 And I have no strength to go, although I would ! 
 
 Lamia. Perhaps he is dead already ! 
 
 Lycius. Ha ! Why, then, 
 
 What can I ? Or, if not, what can I still ? 70 
 
 Can I keep him from his urn ? or give him breath ? 
 Or replenish him with blood ? 
 
 Lamia. Alas ! alas ! 
 
 Would I had art or skill enough to heal him ! 
 
 Lycius. Ay, art and skill, indeed, do more than love 
 In such extremities. Stay ! here, hard by. 
 There dwells a learned and most renowned physician. 
 Hath wrought mere miracles. 
 
 Him I'll engage, armed with our vows and prayers. 
 To spend his utmost study on my father, 
 
 And promptly visit him. A short farewell. 80 
 
 [Exit. DoMus follows. 
 
 Lamia. Farewell — be not o'er long. It made me tremble 
 That he should see his father ! The oldest eyes 
 Look through some fogs that young ones cannot fathom. 
 And lay bare mysteries. Ah me ! how frail 
 Are my foundations ! Dreams, mere summer dreams, 
 Which, if a day-beam pierce, return to nothing ! 
 And let in sadder shows. A foot — so soon ! 
 Why, then, my wishes hold. 
 
 Enter DoMUS and Picus. 
 
 Domus. He 's gone ! he 's gone ! 
 
 He had not snuffed the air, outside o' the gate. 
 
 When it blew a change in his mind. He bade me tell you, 90 
 
 A voice from the sky-roof, where the gods look down, 
 Commanded him to his father. 
 
 Lamia. No more ! no more ! 
 
 (The skies begin, then, to dispute my charms.) 
 But did he ne'er turn back ? 
 
 Domus. Ay, more than twice 
 
 He turned on his heel, and stood — then turned again, 
 And tramped still quicker as he got from hence. 
 Till at last he ran hke a lapwing ! 
 
 Lamia. This is a tale 
 
 Coined by the silly drunkard. You, sir, speak. [To Picus. 
 
 Picus. Nay, by our troths — 
 
 Lamia. Then, sirrah, do not speak. 
 
 If such vile sense be truth, I've had too much on't. 100 
 
 Hence ! fly ! or I will kill you with a frown. 
 You've maddened me ! 
 
690 LAMIA 
 
 Picus. I saw her eyes strike fire ! 
 
 [Picus and Domus run out. Lamia looks round the chamber. 
 
 Lamia. Alone ! alone ! 
 
 Then, Lamia, weep, and mend your shatter-web. 
 And hang your tears, like morning dew, upon it. 
 Look how your honey-bee has broken loose 
 Through all his meshes, and now wings away, 
 Showing the toils were frail. Ay, frail as gossamers 
 That stretch from rose to rose. Some adverse power 
 Confronts me, or he could not tear them thus. no 
 
 Some evil eye has pierced my mystery ! 
 A blight is in its ken ! 
 
 I feel my charms decay — my will 's revoked — 
 And my keen sight, once a prophetic sense, 
 Is blinded with a cloud, horrid and black, 
 Like a veil before the face of Misery 1 
 
 Another Apartment in Lamia's House. Enter Julius (Lycius's 
 brother) and Domus. 
 
 Julius. Rumour has not belied the house i' the least ; 
 'Tis all magnificent. I pray you, sir. 
 How long has your master been gone ? 
 
 Domus. About two quarts, sir ; 
 
 That is, as long as one would be a drinking 'em. lao 
 
 'Tis a very little while since he set off, sir. 
 
 Julius. You keep a strange reckoning. 
 Where is your mistress ? Will she see me ? 
 
 Domus. Ay, marry ; 
 
 That is, if you meet ; for it is good broad daylight. 
 
 Julius. This fellow's manners speak but ill for the house. [Aside. 
 Go, sirrah, to your lady, with my message : 
 Tell her one Julius, Lycius's best friend, 
 
 Desires a little converse. [Exit Domus. 
 
 Now for this miracle, whose charms have bent 
 
 The straightest stem of youth strangely awry — 130 
 
 My brother Lycius ! 
 He was not use to let his inclination 
 Thus domineer his reason : the cool, grave shade 
 Of Wisdom's porch dwelt ever on his brow 
 And governed all his thoughts, keeping his passions 
 Severely chastened. Lo ! she comes. How wondrously 
 Her feet glide o'er the ground. Ay, she is beautiful ! 
 So beautiful, my task looks stern beside her. 
 And duty faints like doubt. 
 
 Enter Lamia. 
 
 Oh, thou sweet fraud 1 
 Thou fair excuse for sin, whose matchless cheek 140 
 
LAMIA 691 
 
 Vies blushes with the shame it brings upon thee, 
 Thou delicate forgery of love and virtue, 
 .Why art thou as thou art, not what here seems 
 So exquisitely promised ? 
 
 Lamia. Sir, do you know me ? 
 
 If not — and my near eyes declare you strange — 
 Mere charity should make you think me better. 
 
 Julius. Oh, would my wishful thought could think no worse 
 Than I might learn by gazing. 
 
 Why are not those sweet looks — those heavenly looks, 
 True laws to judge thee by, and call thee perfect ? . 150 
 
 'Tis pity, indeed 'tis pity. 
 That anything so fair should be a fraud ! 
 
 Lamia. Sir, I beseech you, wherefore do you hang 
 These elegies on me ? For pity's sake 
 What do you take me for ? No woman, sure, 
 By aiming thus to wound me (weeping). 
 
 Julius. Ay, call these tears 
 
 Into your ready eyes ! I'd have them scald 
 Your cheeks until they fade, and wear your beauty 
 To a safe and ugly ruin. Those fatal charms 
 
 Can show no sadder wreck than they have brought 160 
 
 On many a noble soul, and noble mind. 
 Pray count me : 
 
 How many men's havocks might forerun the fall 
 Of my lost brother Lycius ? 
 
 Lamia. Are you his brother ? 
 
 Then I'll not say a word to vex you : not a look 
 Shall aim at your offence. You are come to chide me, 
 I know, for winning him to sell his heart 
 At such a worthless rate. Yet I will hear you. 
 Patiently, thankfully, for his dear sake. 
 
 I will be as mild and humble as a worm 170 
 
 Beneath your just rebuke. 'Tis sure no woman 
 Deserved him ; but myself the least of all, 
 Who fall so far short in his value. 
 
 Julius. She touches me ! [Aside. 
 
 Lamia. Look, sir, upon my eyes. Are they not red ? 
 Within an hour, I've rained a flood of tears. 
 To feel, to know 
 
 I am no better than the thing I am. 
 Having but just now learned to rate my vileness. 
 You cannot charge 
 
 My unworthy part so bitterly as I do. 180 
 
 If there 's about me anything that 's honest. 
 Of true and womanly, it belongs to Lycius, 
 And all the rest is Grief's. 
 
 Julius. Then I'll not grieve you — 
 
 I came with frowns, but I depart in tears 
 And sorrow for you both ; for what he was. 
 
692 LAMIA 
 
 And what you might have been — a pair of wonders, 
 The grace and pride of nature — now disgraced, 
 And fallen beyond redress. 
 
 Lamia. You wring my heart ! 
 
 Julius. Ay, if you think how you have made him stain 
 The fair-blown pride of his unblemished youth, 190 
 
 His studious years — 
 
 And for what poor exchange ? these fading charms — 
 I will not say how frail. 
 
 Lamia. O hold — pray hold ! 
 
 Your words have subtle cruel stings, and pierce 
 More deeply than you aim ! This sad heart knows 
 How little of such wrong and spiteful ill 
 Were in love's contemplation when it clasped him ! 
 Lycius and bliss made up my only thought ; 
 But now, alas ! 
 
 A sudden truth dawns on me, like a light 200 
 
 Through the remainder tatters of a dream, 
 And shows my bliss in shreds. 
 
 Julius. I pity you ! 
 
 Nay, doubtless, you will be, some wretched day, 
 A perished cast-off weed when found no flower — 
 Or else even then, his substance being gone. 
 My brother's heart will break at your desertion. 
 
 Lamia. O never, never ! {Fervently. 
 
 Never, by holy truth ! while I am woman 
 Be false what may, at least my heart is honest. 
 
 Look round you, sir ; this wealth, such as it is, 210 
 
 Once mine, is now all his ; and when 'tis spent, 
 I'll beg for him, toil for him, steal for him ! 
 God knows how gladly I would share his lot 
 This speaki'ng moment in a humble shed. 
 Like any of our peasants ! — ay, lay these hands 
 To rude and rugged tasks, expose these cheeks 
 You are pleased to flatter, to the ardent sun ; 
 So we might only live in safe pure love 
 And constant partnership — never to change 
 In each other's hearts and eyes ! 
 
 Julius. ■ You mend your fault. 220 
 
 This late fragmental virtue much redeems you ; 
 Pray, cherish it. Hark ! what a lawless riot. 
 
 [A loud boisterous shout is heard from below. 
 O hope— Again ! (the noise renewed) why then this is a triumph 
 Of your true fame, which I had just mistaken ; 
 Shame on thee, smooth dissembler — shame upon thee ! 
 Is this the music of your songs of sorrow, 
 And well-feigned penitence — lo ! here, are these 
 Your decent retinue 
 
 Enter the wild Gallants, flushed with wine. 
 
LAMIA 693 
 
 Lamia. Sir, by Heaven's verity 
 
 I do not know a face ! Indeed I do not ; 
 They are strange to me as the future. 
 
 Curio. Then the future 230 
 
 Must serve us better, chuck. Here, bully mates. 
 These, lady, are my friends, and friends of Lycius ! 
 
 Julius. Is it so ?— then Lycius is fallen indeed ! 
 
 Curio. Ay, he has had his trip — as who has not, sir ? 
 I'll warrant you've had your stumbles. 
 
 Julius. Once — on an ape. 
 
 Get out o' the jray of my shins. [Going. 
 
 Lamia. Sir, dearest sir, 
 
 In pity do not go, for your brother's sake, 
 If not for mine — take up my guardianship 
 'Gainst these ungentle men. [She lays hold of JuLios. 
 
 Julius. Off, wanton, off ! 
 
 Would you have me of your crew, too ? [Exit roughly. 
 
 Gallo. Let him. go ! — 240 
 
 He has a graft in him of that sour crab. 
 The Apolionius— let him go, a churl ! 
 
 Curio. Sweet lady, you look sad — fie, it was ill done of Lycius 
 To leave his dove so soon — but he has some swan 
 At nest in another place. 
 
 Gallo. I'll bet my mare on't. 
 
 Lamia. Kind sirs, indeed, I'm sorry 
 Your friend 's not here. If he were by. 
 He would help you to your welcome. 
 
 Curio. We've no doubt on't ; [Bitterly. 
 
 . But we'll not grieve, since here we are quite enough 
 For any merriment. 
 
 Gallo. And as for a welcome, 250 
 
 We'll acknowledge it on your cheer. 
 
 Lamia. Then that 's but sorry, sir. 
 
 If you mean what lies in my heart. 
 
 Gallo. No, no, in faith. 
 
 We mean what lies in your cellar — wine, rare wine. 
 We will pledge you in floods on't, and when knocked off our legs. 
 Adore you on our knees. 
 
 Lamia. Hear me, sweet gentles. 
 
 How you shall win my favour. Set to work and copy — 
 Be each a Lycius. 
 
 Gallo. Lycius, forsooth ! hang him I 
 
 A model again ! the perfect model ! 
 
 Curio. As if we could not match his vices ! 
 Pray ask your Lycius, when he 's new come back 260 
 
 (If ever he come back), 
 What his father ailed, or if he ailed at all, 
 And how it ailed too, that his brother Julius 
 Got no such forged advice. 
 
 Gallo. It had charmed your heart to see how swift he ran 
 
694 LAMIA 
 
 (Whether to get from hence or gain elsewhere, 
 I know not), but I never saw such striving, 
 Save at the Olympic games to win the goal. 
 
 {All.) Hal ha! ha! 
 
 Lamia. Laugh on, I pray, laugh on. Ye puny spites ! 270 
 
 You think to fret me with those ill-coined tales ; 
 
 But look, I join in your glee, [She attempts to laugh. 
 
 Or if I cannot, 'tis because I'm choked with a curse. {She hurries out. 
 
 Gallo. It works ! it wings her ! What shall we next ? 
 Follow her, or carry her ofE ? 
 
 Curio. These are too violent, 
 
 And perilous to ourselves ; but I will fit 
 Our revenge to its other half. Sir Lycius now 
 Must have the green eye set in his head, and then 
 They'll worry each other's hearts without our help. 
 Julius or ApoUonius will be our ready organs 280 
 
 To draw his ear. 
 
 Gallo. 'Tis plausible, and cannot fail to part 'em. 
 And when he has shaken her from off his bough 
 It needs she must fall to us. 
 
 Curio. I wonder where 
 
 That poor sick fool Mercutius is gone ? 
 He hath a chance now. 
 
 Gallo. Methought I glanced him 
 
 Below, and, forsooth, disguised as a serving-man ; 
 But he avoided me. 
 
 Curio. The subtle fox ! 
 
 Let us go beat him up. [Exeunt, hallooing. 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 The Street before Lamia's House. Enter Apollonius with Julius. 
 
 Apollonius. I say she is a snake — 
 
 Julius. And so say I ; 
 
 Apollonius. But not in the same sense — 
 
 Julius. No, not exactly. 
 
 You take that literal, which I interpret 
 
 But as a parable — a figure feigned , 
 
 By the elder sages (much inclined to mark 
 Their subtle meanings in dark allegories) 
 For those poisonous natures — those bewitching sins — 
 That armed and guarded with a woman's husk, 
 But viperous within, seduce young hearts. 
 And sting where they are cherished. 
 
 Apollonius. Your guess is shrewd ; 
 
 Nay, excellent enough to have been my own. 
 But, hark you, I have read in elder oracles 
 _Than ever you will quote, the fact which backs me. 
 
LAMIA 69s 
 
 In Greece, in the midst of Greece, it hath been known. 
 
 And attested upon oath, i' the faith of multitudes. 
 
 That such true snakes have been — ^real hissing serpents, 
 
 Though outwardly like women. • 
 
 With one of such, a youth, a hopeful youth. 
 
 Sober, discreet, and able to subdue 
 
 His passions otherwise — even like our Lycius — 20 
 
 For a fortnight lived in a luxury of wealth. 
 
 Till suddenly she vanished, palace and all, 
 
 Like the shadow of a cloud. 
 
 Julius. The dainty fable ! 
 
 But now unto the proof. Methink this sounds 
 Like a real door {knocking) ; a cloud scarce wars so, 
 But when Jove strikes it with a thunderbolt. 
 I'll tell you, sir. 
 
 She is a wanton, and that 's quite enough 
 To perish a world of wealth. [Picus comes to the door. 
 
 Ho, sirrah ! fellow ! 
 Is your lady now within ? 
 
 Picus. No, sir, she 's out. 30 
 
 Something hath put her out — she will see nobody. 
 She 's ill, she 's grievous bad — her head won't bear 
 The rout of company. [A loud shout without. 
 
 Apollonius. Why, then, I think 
 
 The medical conclave might observe more quiet. 
 Look, knave ! are these her grave, her learned physicians ? 
 Well met, sirs. 
 
 [Another shout, and Curio, &c., issue forth. 
 
 Curio. That 's as may be. Ha ! old mastiff 1 
 
 Go to your kennel. 
 
 Julius. You are just in time, sirs. 
 
 To settle our dispute : we have a gage on't, 
 The sophist here and I. 
 
 There is one lives in that hoMsei— (pointing to Lamia's)— how would you 
 call her ? . 40 
 
 A womah ? 
 
 Curio. Ay ; and sure a rare one. 
 As I have proved upon her lips. 
 
 [Lamia opens a window gently and listens. 
 
 Gallo. Ay, marry, have we I 
 
 She was kind enough, for our poor sakes, to send 
 One Lycius, her late suitor, on an errand 
 That will make him footsore. 
 
 Curio. Yes, a sort of summons 
 
 Cunningly forged to bid him haste to his father. 
 Who lay in the jaws of death. Lord, how he'll swear 
 To find the old cock quite well ! 
 
 Julius. This is too true. [To Apollokius. 
 
 I left our father but this very morn S" 
 
 The halest of old men. He was then on his way 
 
696 LAMIA 
 
 Toward this city, on some state affair. 
 They'll encounter upon the road ! 
 
 Apollonius. Here is some foul and double-damned deception. 
 
 [Lamia, by signs, assents to this reflection. 
 I'll catechise myself. Here, sir — you — you — [To Curio. 
 
 Who have gazed upon this witch, touched her, and talked with her. 
 How know you she is a woman, flesh and blood, 
 True clay and mortal lymph, and not a mockery 
 Made up of infernal elements of magic ? 
 
 Canst swear she is no cloud — no subtle ether — 60 
 
 No fog, bepainted with deluding dyes — 
 No cheating underplot — no covert shape, 
 Making a filthy masquerade of nature ? 
 I say, how know ye this ? 
 
 CuHo. How ? by my senses. 
 
 If I nipped her cheek till it brought the white and red, 
 I wot she is no fog. 
 
 Apollonius. Fie on the senses I 
 
 What are the senses but our worst arch-traitors ? 
 What is a madman but a king betrayed 
 By the corrupted treason of his senses ? 
 
 His robe a blanket, and his sceptre a straw, 70 
 
 His crown his bristled hair. 
 Fie on the shallow senses ! What doth swear 
 Such perjuries as the senses ? — what give birth 
 To such false rumours and base verdicts render 
 In the very spite of truth ? Go to : thy senses 
 Are bond-slaves, both to madness and to magic, 
 And all the mind's disease. I say the senses 
 Deceive thee, though they say a stone's a stone. 
 And thou wilt swear by them an oath, forsooth. 
 
 And say the outer woman is utter woman, 8q 
 
 And not a whit a snake ! Hark ! there 's my answer. 
 
 [Lamia closes the window violently. 
 That noise shall be my comment. 
 
 Gallo. He talks in riddles. 
 
 Like a sphinx lapped in a blanket. Gentles — Curio — 
 Let us leave him to his wisdom. 
 
 Apollonius. Ay, I'll promise 
 
 'Twill dive far deeper than your feather wits 
 Into some mysteries. [Going towards the door. 
 
 Curio. There 's one I know in her house. 
 By name Mercutius, a most savage fellow ; 
 I commend ye to his wrath. [Exeunt Curio, Gallo, &-c. 
 
 Apollonius. So, get ye gone, 
 
 Ye unregarded whelps. 
 
 Julius. But will you in, 90 
 
 Wliether she will or no ? 
 
 Apollonius. Indeed I mean it. 
 
 Sirrah {to Picus), lead on. I'll charge you with your message. [Exeunt. 
 
LAMIA 697 
 
 SCENE VII. 
 
 A Chamber in Lamia's House. Enter Mercuiius in a distracted manner. 
 
 Mercutius. Where is this haunting witch ? Not here ! not here ! — 
 Why then for a little rest and unlocked calm — 
 Ay, such a, calm 
 
 As a shipmate curses on the stagnate sea 
 Under the torrid zone, that bakes his deck 
 Till it burns the sole of his foot. My purpose idles, 
 But my passions burn without pause ; O how this hot 
 And scarlet plague runs boiling through my veins 
 Like a molten lava ! I'm all parched up. 
 
 There 's not a shady nook throughout my brain 10 
 
 For a quiet thought to lie — no, not a spring 
 Of coolness left in my heart. If I have any name, 
 It is Fever, who is all made up of fire. 
 Of pangs — deliriums — raving ecstacies — 
 And desperate impulse. Ha ! a foot ! — I know it ! — 
 
 Now then, I'll ambush here, and come upon her 
 
 Like a wild boar from a thicket. 
 
 [He hides himself behind an arras : Lamia enters, holding 
 her forehead betwixt her palms. 
 Lamia. This should be a real head or 'twould not throb so ; 
 
 Who ever doubts it ? 
 
 I would he had these racking pains within ; 20 
 
 Ay, and those he hath set in my heart, to drive him mad. 
 
 How now, sir ! 
 
 Enter Picus. 
 Picus. There are two below beseech you 
 
 For a conference. The one 's a wrinkled graybeard. 
 
 The other 
 
 Lamia. You need not name. I will see neither ; 
 
 And tell them — look — with a copy of this frown, 
 
 If they congregate again beneath my eaves, 
 
 I have that will hush their twitting. VExit Picus. 
 
 Why must I reap 
 
 These unearned spites where I have sown no hate ? 
 
 Do the jealous gods 
 
 Stir up these cankered spirits to pursue me ? 30 
 
 Another ! (Mercutius comes forward) What brings thee hither ? 
 Mercutius (gloomily). I fio not know— 
 
 If love or hate — indeed I do not know — 
 
 Or whether a twine of both— they're so entangled. 
 
 Mayhap to clasp thee to my heart, and kiss thee, 
 
 To fondle thee, or tear thee, I do not know : 
 
 Whether I come to die, or work thy death, 
 
 Whether to be thy tyrant or thy slave, 
 
 In truth, I do not know. 
 
LAMIA 
 
 But that some potent yearning draws me to thee, 
 
 Something, as if those lips were rich and tempting, 40 
 
 And worthy of caressing — fondly endeared — 
 
 And something as if a tortured devil within me 
 
 Sought revenge of his pangs : I cannot answer 
 
 Which of these brings me hither. 
 
 Lamia. Then prythee hence, 
 
 Till that be analysed. 
 
 Mercutius. Ha ! ha ! turn back : 
 
 Why if I am a tiger — here 's my prey — 
 Or if the milk-mild dove — here is my choice — 
 Do you think I shall turn back howe'er it be ? 
 Let the embrace prove which. Nay, do not shrink, 
 If an utter devil press into thy arms, 50 
 
 Thyself invoked him ! 
 
 Lamia. Ah ! I know by this 
 
 Your bent is evil ! 
 
 Mercutius. Then 'twas evil born ! 
 
 As it works 'twas wrought on — look — say what I am, 
 For I have no recognisance of myself. 
 . Am I wild beast or man — civil or savage — 
 Reasoning or brutal — or gone utter mad — 
 So am I as thou turned me— hellish or heavenly, 
 The slavish subject of thy influence — 
 I know not what I am — nor how I am. 
 
 But by thy own enforcement — come to force thee, 6a 
 
 Being passion-mad. 
 
 Lamia. How have I brought thee hither ? 
 
 I would thou wert away ! 
 
 Mercutius. Why dost thou sit, then, 
 
 I' the middle of a whirlpool drawing me unto thee ? 
 My brain is dizzy, and my heart is sick. 
 With the circles I have made round thee and round thee ! 
 Till I dash into thy arms ! 
 
 Lamia. There shalt thou never ! 
 
 Go ! desperate man ; away ! — and fear thy gods, 
 Or else the hot indignation in my eyes 
 Will blast thee. O, beware ! I have within me 
 
 A dangerous nature, which, if thou provoke, 70 
 
 Acts cruelly. Ne'er chafe me ; thou hadst better 
 Ruffle a scorpion than the thing I am ! 
 Away ! 
 Or I'll bind thy bones till they crack ! 
 
 Mercutius. Ha ! ha ! dost threaten ? 
 
 Why then come ruin, anguish or death. 
 Being goaded onward by my headlong fate 
 I'll clasp thee ! — 
 
 Though there be sugared venom on thy lips 
 I'll drink it to the dregs — though there be plagues 
 In thy contagious touch— or in thy breath So 
 
LAMIA 699 
 
 Putrid infections — though thou be more cruel 
 Than lean-ribbed tigers — thirsty and open fanged, 
 I will be as fierce a monster for thy sake, 
 And grapple thee. 
 
 Lamia. Would Lycius were here ! 
 
 Mercutius. Ha ! wouldst thou have him gashed and torn in strips 
 As I would scatter him ? then so say I 
 ' Would Lycius were here ! ' I have oft clenched 
 My teeth in that very spite. 
 
 Lamia. Thou ruthless devil ! 
 
 To bear him so bloody a will ! — Why then, come Jhither, 
 We are a fit pair. 
 
 [Mercutius embracing her, she stabs him in the bach with 
 a small dagger. 
 
 Mercutius (falling) : O thou false witch ! 90 
 
 Thou hast pricked me to the heart ! Ha ! what a film 
 Falls from my eyes ! — or have the righteous gods 
 Transformed me to a. beast for this ! Thou crawling spite, 
 Thou hideous — venomous — [Dies. 
 
 Lamia. Let the word choke thee ! 
 
 I know what I am. Thou wilful desperate fo6l, 
 To charge upon the spikes ! — Thy death be upon thee ! — 
 Why wouldst thou have me sting ? Heaven knows I had spared thee. 
 But for thy menace of a dearer life. 
 
 ! Lycius ! Lycius ! 
 
 1 have been both woman and serpent for thy sake — joo 
 Perchance to be scorned in each : — I have but gored 
 
 This ill-starred man in vain ! — hush, methought he stirred ; 
 
 I'll give him another thrust (stahs the body) ; there — lie thou quiet. 
 
 What a frown he hath upon his face ! May the gods ne'er mention it 
 
 In their thunders, nor set the red stain of his blood 
 
 For a sign of wrath in the sky ! — O thou poor wretch ! 
 
 Not thee, dull clod ! — but for myself I weep — 
 
 The sport of malicious destinies ! 
 
 Why was I heiress of these mortal gifts 
 
 Perishing all whether I love or hate ? "o 
 
 Nay, come out of sight [To the body. 
 
 With thy dismal puckering look — 'twill fright the world 
 
 Out of its happiness. [She drags the body aside, and covers it with drapery. 
 
 Would I could throw 
 A thicker curtain on thee — but I see thee 
 All through and through, as though I had 
 The eyes of a god within ; alas, I fear 
 I am here all human, and have that fierce thing 
 They call a conscience ! [Ex%t. 
 
JUVENILIA 
 
 THE BANDIT 
 
 (? 1815-17) 
 
 CANTO FIRST 
 
 ' While the red glaring torches illumine the cave, 
 
 Bring the wine that was bought by the blood of the brave ! 
 
 No coward's pale lip 
 
 Of the liquor shall sip 
 While we drink to- our comrades that lie in the grave 1 
 
 ' We gained it in strife, and in danger we won ; 
 But we merrily drink now the battle is done 1 
 
 And the goblet we quaff 
 
 While we merrily laugh, 
 Nor to fill it anew the same danger we'll shun. 10 
 
 ' Then fill the bright goblets — ^replenish the whole ! 
 Pour, pour the rich liquor that gladdens the soul ; 
 
 For remorse we defy 
 
 When the goblet is by. 
 And conscience and care are soon drowned in the bowl." 
 
 Thus sung the bandit crew, and as they sung, 
 Wildly their harsh, discordant voices rung ; 
 And jarring echoes filled the vaulted cave 
 As each harsh voice joined rudely in the stave ; 
 And when they ceased, the scoffing jest gave birth 20 
 
 To sounds of laughter — loud and boisterous mirth ; 
 Or all was hushed in silence round while one 
 Triumphant told of deeds of horror done ; 
 Or boasting speech and bitter mockings rose 
 To angry words, and threatenings to blows 
 And bloody contest, till the din swells high 
 iWith shouts of fury, pain, and blasphemy. 
 
 But instant sunk the tumult and the din. 
 
 As suddenly the Chieftain came within ; 
 
 His tall, majestic, and commanding form 30 
 
 Had been depressed beneath misfortune's storm ; 
 
THE BANDIT 701 
 
 And on his brow care's lineaments uncouth 
 Belie his age and rob him of his youth. 
 And, save when all convulsed, his features show 
 He strives within for mastery with woe ; 
 While half his agitated frame reveals 
 The inward agony his pride conceals ; 
 His face and form assume the settled air 
 And wonted attitude of calm despair. 
 
 He was not formed by Nature for the part 40 
 
 That he now played — once foreign to his heart. 
 
 He had been formed to love ; but 'twas his fate 
 
 To meet with none but who deserved his hate. 
 
 He had been mild, but injuries had fired. 
 
 And with a savage suUenness inspired ; 
 
 Repeated wrongs had turned his breast to steel, 
 
 And all but these he had forgot to feel. 
 
 Apart from all, within a dark recess, 
 
 He sat him down in gloomy silentness. 
 
 Where he was wont to sit in gloomy thought 50 
 
 O'er dark designs with woe and fury fraught, 
 
 And his wild brain each frenzied plan revolved, 
 
 Or acts of daring enterprise resolved ; 
 
 Even now, thus darkly did he meditate 
 
 One last sad act to signalize his hate — 
 
 One deed of retribution to be hurled 
 
 To 'venge the wrongs he suffered from the world I 
 
 Nor oft the robbers ventured to intrude 
 
 By careless noise upon his thoughtful mood ; 
 
 And fewer still e'er strive by curious speech 60 
 
 The secret purport of his plans to reach. 
 
 One look — one word — the intrusive speech repressed, 
 
 And the inquiry hushed, ere scarce expressed ; 
 
 So was he ever feared and held in awe — 
 
 They crouched to him who spurned at every law ! 
 
 Wolf only to address the Chieftain dared. 
 
 Nor for repulses oft repeated cared. 
 
 Next to the Chief they feared and hated him 
 
 Whose joy was blood and cruelty his whim. 
 
 His sheathless blade was never known to rust, 70 
 
 Nor the fresh gore e'er suffered to encrust ; 
 
 Peace he abhorred, and endless warfare waged, 
 
 In jarring strife, eternal broils engaged. 
 
 Ambitious, too, — ^impatient of control, — 
 
 Subjection grated on his haughty soul. 
 
 And made him^-spurning at his leader's sway — 
 
 First to rebel and latest to obey. 
 
 And now, with angry tone the Bandit spoke, 
 
 And on the Chieftain's reverie thus broke — 
 
702 THE BANDIT 
 
 ' Say, do you scorn us, that you shun our feast, 
 For that invites not your contempt at least ; 
 Our wine is good, and even Dacre's Lord 
 Scarce sees such venison smoke upon his board. 
 Such is our feast — would it were never worse. 
 Nor more deserving your contempt than us.' 
 
 Up rose the Chief in haste, but not a word 
 
 Implied the discontented speech was heard. 
 
 ' To arms,' he cried, ' to arms with speed prepare, 
 
 This night our final enterprise to share, 
 
 And then we part, for 'mid these wilds I see 
 
 No firm security remains for me.' 
 
 He spoke — they lingered still, and some expressed 
 Their discontent in murmurs half repressed — 
 ' When steals our wearied limbs repose from toil. 
 While we make merry o'er our hard-earned spoil. 
 This very night we fondly hoped at last 
 To rest and revel after labours past ; 
 And, as I live, a feast, 'twas our belief. 
 Would celebrate the accession of our Chief.' 
 
 ' A feast ! a banquet ! rather let it show 
 In my life's calendar a day of woe ! 
 A day that rose in gloom is lowering yet, 
 And soon, I fear, as gloomily will set ; 
 And for your calling, think you I have prized 
 Your avocation, nor yourselves despised ? 
 Have I your savage, brutal deeds admired, 
 Nor cursed the sordid motives that inspired ? 
 No ! I have viewed ye as a scourge designed — 
 A plague — a curse — to chasten humankind. 
 As such, as instruments I chose you, then, 
 To wreak my vengeance on ungrateful men ! 
 
 ' And in your banquets did I ever sip ? 
 Your food untasted ever pass my lip ? 
 No ! I will eat wild berries and wild fruit, 
 Drink of the stream and famish on a root, 
 Couch in a cave and lodge me where I can, 
 Ere I will now hold anything of man ! 
 And, hear this truth, — the plainest morsel now, 
 By honest labour, earned with sweating brow. 
 Were dearer, sweeter far, to me at least, 
 Than all the viands in your guilty feast ! 
 
 Enough of this. Time hurries on ! Draw near ; 
 For once my plan and all its purport hear, 
 That, known more fully, you may judge aright. 
 You join or not my enterprise to-night ! " 
 
THE BANDIT 703 
 
 In deep attention, — hushed without a sound, — 
 
 With wondering eagerness they circle round ; 
 
 Ne'er had he deigned before one word to hold 
 
 In converse with them or his plans had told ; 
 
 But now he speaks, for once without command, 130 
 
 And the mute robbers, listening, round him stand. 
 
 ' Who has not heard the Earl Glenallan's name. 
 
 And been familiar with his warlike fame ? 
 
 Who, by his king ungratefully repaid. 
 
 Left courts and kings and sought the rural shade. 
 
 Till roused from happy indolence he heard 
 
 The plaint his bondaged countrymen preferred. 
 
 And heard the summons to his patriot hand 
 
 To burst the fetters that enslaved his land ; 
 
 'Twas then reluctantly he drew his sword 140 
 
 Against the king for whom his blood had poured. 
 
 But poured, alas, in vain ; — who does not know 
 
 His combats, victories, and overthrow ? 
 
 Though all his perils, both by land and sea. 
 
 And sorrows since, are only known to me. 
 
 ' Defeated and deserted — under ban — 
 
 Chased like a tiger by the hate of man ; 
 
 By day through lonely wilds he urged His flight. 
 
 And couched beneath Heaven's canopy at night. 
 
 Alone he fled — his tenantry's goodwill iSo 
 
 And wishes for his welfare followed still ; 
 
 But more they dared not — till, by happy chance. 
 
 Two boldly aided his escape to France. 
 
 ' But ere he went he bade a long adieu 
 
 To one, the last, the only friend he knew ; 
 
 To him confided his intended wife — 
 
 His love, his hope, his all, and more than life ; 
 
 And then he hurried from the ingrate strand. 
 
 But first bequeathed his blessing to his land. 
 
 ' In France he covered all his deeds with shame, 160 
 
 And, first, for aye resigned the patriot's name. 
 
 Cursed be the day — the era of his fall — 
 
 He gave his hand in friendship to the Gaul ; 
 
 Ne'er might his foes srf well exult till then. 
 
 Nor he deserved thus of his countrymen ; 
 
 Ne'er had he raised before his traitor hand 
 
 Against the welfare of his native land ; 
 
 His deeds were blasted and his shame was sealed. 
 
 There first he fought and first was known to greet 
 
 A joyful feeling in his own defeat ; '7° 
 
 Oft had he sighed to join in fight once more 
 
 With those he led to victory before ; 
 
704 
 
 THE BANDIT 
 
 But, they victorious, — 'twere a coward's deed ! 
 
 He sighed, and left it for the day of need. 
 
 It came. He marked the Gaul's superior force — 
 
 Resistless, bursting its triumphant course. 
 
 He left the conquerors in joyful haste, 
 
 And fought when ruin and defeat menaced. 
 
 Again he conquered, and returned once more 
 
 With hopes rekindled to his native shore, i8o 
 
 And fondly thought this service might recall 
 
 His country's love and make amends for all. 
 
 In vain 1 His service they remembered not, 
 
 But all, except his many faults, forgot. 
 
 And drove him into solitude to find 
 
 A refuge with the vilest of his kind. 
 
 And now, to fill the measure of his woe, 
 
 His friend must strike the last inhuman blow. 
 
 This night — save we avert the guilty deed, 
 
 Or his cold heart, like that he tortures, bleed — 190 
 
 He weds the hand and heart he basely stole. 
 
 And whelms keen anguish o'er Glenallan's soul ! 
 
 Love, friendless, poor — yet while my arm is strong. 
 
 And my blade keen, I can avenge the wrong. 
 
 Till now I've righted, others' cause alone, 
 
 But now Glenallan shall avenge his own ! ' 
 
 Awhile the robbers paused in deep amaze. 
 
 And on the Chieftain turned their earnest gaze. 
 
 Not that they pondered aught unusual now 
 
 In the dark workings of his gloomy brow ; 200 
 
 But ne'er before they heard his lofty name. 
 
 Nor knew they had a Chieftain of such faihe. 
 
 He spoke again : ' Your guilty hands are red. 
 
 And blush with blood too often they have shed. 
 
 Many perchance may feel in after times 
 
 The woe, the misery that tracked your crimes ; 
 
 But can remorse or conscience now recall 
 
 One deed as black as this among them all ? 
 
 If so, remain, unworthy of the care 
 
 To speed the chastening you ought to share. 210 
 
 Speak ! What so sacred to a Highland breast 
 
 As is the claim of safety for his guest. 
 
 And far more sacred if he be distrest ? 
 
 'Twas thus we hailed the Stuart when he fled. 
 
 And spurned the gold that hung upon his head : 
 
 Was there a wretch, a traitor so accurst, 
 
 A seeming friend who dared betray his trust ? 
 
 • Lead on ! — We go [ The traitor's heart shall bleed. 
 Our hands shall aid, our tongues approve the deed. 
 
THE BANDIT 705 
 
 Long live our Chieftain, and all traitors die 1 ' zzo 
 
 They cried — one only joined not in the cry. 
 
 'Twas Wolf ! ' I say not so,' with scornful smile 
 
 He said, and gazed upon his brand the while. 
 
 ' Could this relate the deeds its edge had done, — 
 
 Lost in amaze ye would forget that one. 
 
 As each succeeding each you found them still 
 
 All brighter far, or blacker, if you will,' — 
 
 And o'er his haggard features as he spoke 
 
 A scornful smile of exultation broke. 
 
 All have some passion, pride, or ruling will, 230 
 
 And his to be in all superior still ; 
 
 And now he gloried o'er the blood he spilt, 
 
 That made him paramount, though but in guilt. 
 
 And now the sign, the bustle, and the din 
 
 Of preparation reigns without — within ; 
 
 Loud ring the arms, and loud the bugle strain. 
 
 Recalls the stragglers to the cave again. 
 
 They came in weary groups, but gaily bring 
 
 Fresh game and booty for the banqueting, 
 
 But, lo ! deserted is the festive board, 240 
 
 And each girds on his armour and his sword. 
 
 While all their converse and their words imply 
 
 Some daring enterprise and booty nigh. 
 
 They marvel and inquire the Chief's intent, 
 
 And rather give submission than consent. 
 
 They arm — the order given — the route is khown, — 
 
 They hurry out, and Wolf is left alone. 
 
 The sun, still lingering in the golden west, 
 
 Slow sinks behind the purple mountain's crest 
 
 That rears its head sublime ; and far below 250 
 
 The lake's calm bosom sparkles in the glow, 
 
 Save where is seen an undulating shade 
 
 By frowning rocks and woods and forests made ; 
 
 Or the tall vessel gently seems to glide 
 
 In silent majesty along the tide. 
 
 Her white sails wooing the soft zephyr's breath. 
 
 Scarce rippling in the dancing wave beneath: 
 
 That rolls with gentle murtnurimg to lave 
 
 The willow twig that loves to kiss the wave. 
 
 One bright departing ray of golden fire "'o 
 
 Still hangs reluctant on the village spire ; 
 
 Like Hope's last dream, it fondly lingers yet. 
 
 Then leaves the highest pinnacle — 'tis set ! 
 
 And now the mountains, blending with the sky. 
 
 Or, lost in clouds, elude the gazer's eye. 
 
 And wide and far the lengthened shadows round, 
 
 Creep slow and silent o'er the darkened ground ; 
 
7o6 THE BANDIT 
 
 And travelling on, obscuring hill and dale, 
 
 The shades of night enshroud the quiet vale. 
 
 Now sleeps the peasant, and forgets the while, 270 
 
 In sweet oblivion, his daily toil ; 
 
 Now rest the weary, and perchance in sleep 
 
 The wretched and unhappy cease to weep ; 
 
 Some few in pain, or revelry or woe, 
 
 Or worldly cares, its influence fdrego. 
 
 Perhaps it flies the dark uneasy bed. 
 
 Where the pale invalid reclines his head ; 
 
 But chiefly Guilt its balmy sweets forsake, 
 
 And the cursed murderer and robber wake, 
 
 For Conscience and Remorse, that sleep not, seem 280 
 
 To sting when waked and haunt their every dream. 
 
 CANTO SECOND 
 Through Arden's pile the lighted tapers blazed, 
 The sound of mirth and revelry was raised. 
 And in the mazy dance light bounding feet 
 The sprightly measure of the music beat, 
 The song, the jest, the laugh, the bowl flew fast. 
 And grey-haired Time smiled gaily as he passed ; 
 And ' joy to Arden and his bonny bride ! ' 
 Was hymned by joyous tongues on every side ; 
 
 And oft they pledged the fair in sparkling wine, 290 
 
 Inspiring wit that better seemed to shine. 
 And there were lovely maids that blushed to hear 
 The grateful praises whispered in their ear ; 
 And undisguised, love mingled with the rest, — 
 A welcome, nor an uninvited guest ; 
 And there were beating hearts with rapture filled. 
 And throbbing pulses that with pleasure thrilled, 
 And eyes that shone with flames they could not veil, 
 And tongues and lips that oft confirmed the tale. 
 Or strove the avowal but in vain to shun, 300 
 
 And all were happy — pleasing — pleased — but one ! 
 
 Clad as a mourner in a sable suit 
 The stranger stood — pale, motionless, and mute, 
 ■Nought could divert his glaring eyes aside. 
 That gazed reproachfully upon the bride. 
 In vain her supplicating glance she raised ; 
 Unmoved, immovable he sternly gazed ; 
 But when she wildly clasped her hands of snow 
 He turned aside in pity to her woe. 
 
 Still where he moved all gaiety was crushed, 310 
 
 The dance was ended and the song was hushed, 
 And if, perchance, the speaker's glance had caught 
 His countenance, with woe and fury fraught. 
 
THE BANDIT 707 
 
 He smiled no more — his face unconscious took 
 The gloomy semblance of the other's look, 
 His speech was checked as sudden as his glee, 
 Or ended in the whisper — ' Who is he ? ' 
 
 'Twas Ulric, on whose brow a sadder shade 
 
 Half mourned the gloomy change his presence made, 
 
 And while the dulcet sounds of music stole 320 
 
 So soft, so sweetly o'er his stormy soul, 
 
 His heart half softened, and his fury soothed, 
 
 As ruffled waves by oily drops are smoothed. 
 
 Inly he shuddered at himself, who stood 
 
 To end the scene of happiness in blood ! 
 
 But when he pondered on his own sad fall. 
 
 That left him dark and lone among them all. 
 
 Or looked on some exulting at his cost. 
 
 And revelling in joys himself had lost. 
 
 Then roused the slumbering Demon in his breast, 330 
 
 And mad designs that scarce could be repressed, 
 
 As suddenly, he laid his eager hand 
 
 And grasped impatiently the starting brand. 
 
 Thus terrible he stood, when Arden pressed 
 
 To view the figure of his stranger guest. 
 
 And while in that stern countenance, with dread. 
 
 The well-known features of the Chief he read, 
 
 A damp, chill shuddering shook his startled frame, 
 
 His tongue, too, trembled while he spoke the name, 
 
 And his heart sank as his fixed eye-balls viewed 34o 
 
 The frowning look and threatening attitude. 
 
 ' Yes ! I am he — deserted and despised, 
 
 Whose heart is tortured and whose head is prized ! . 
 
 Yes, I am he — your treachery has driven 
 
 From all his kind — hope, happiness, and heaven ; 
 
 But shall you not sit mocking at my fall. 
 
 Nor hold your banquets in my father's hall ; 
 
 Nor shall you revel in her beauties now. 
 
 Nor glory in the false one's broken vow. 
 
 No ! I will act, in just resentment strong, 3So 
 
 As late avenger in each former wrong ; 
 
 Requite all injuries received of old. 
 
 And match the justice man has dared withhold.' 
 
 Thus spoke the Chief, and from his girdle drew 
 His brazen bugle-horn, and loudly blew : 
 Shrill rung the strain, and instant from without, 
 Responsive rose the impatient robbers' shout. 
 Fierce rushed the rufiSan band, and burst within, 
 With mingling curses and terrific din, 
 
THE BANDIT 
 
 Like straining bloodhounds round the Chief they stood, 363 
 
 And watched the signal for the work of blood. 
 
 Brandished aloft the robbers' weapons gleam. 
 
 And, flashing, glance beneath the taper's beam, 
 
 While partially the broken rays illume ) 
 
 Their rugged features, shaded by the plume > 
 
 That o'er each brow imparts a deeper gloom. J 
 
 Pale — trembling now, the ladies start aside. 
 
 And crowd in fearful groups around the bride ; 
 
 The guests recoil afraid — e'en Arden shrinks, 
 
 And on his knee a faltering suppliant sinks : 370 
 
 ' Oh ! I have wronged you, but in hour like this, 
 
 When sparkles at my lip the cup of bliss. 
 
 Can you behold it yet untasted shine 
 
 And dash it down ? ' 
 
 ' Thus was it dashed from mine ; 
 Thus did you blast each lingering hope, and steal 
 The last sole joy my wounded soul could feel. 
 And thus will I your budding hopes destroy 
 And blight them ere they ripen into joy. 
 Oh, Arden, you have driven me to deeds 
 
 At which my soul revolts, my nature bleeds, 380 
 
 For you have severed the last tie could bind 
 My soul in amity with humankind. 
 Stripped — exiled — deserted — under ban — 
 In you I still possessed one friend in man ; 
 But, lo ! your treachery has crowned my fall, 
 Stolen my last friend, and made me foe to all. 
 Then look around once more — behold these charms, 
 And that fair bride, now severed from your arms ; 
 Mark the late partners of your joy and see 
 
 The broken wreck of thy last revelry ; 390 
 
 And this, the scene of thy rejoicings view — 
 Survey all these, and bid them all adieu. 
 And tear from off your brow the bridal wreath 
 Before you meet the cold embrace of death ! ' 
 
 But ere his lingering arm could speed its aim, 
 
 The trembling Adelaide affrighted came ; 
 
 Pale was her cheek, and tear-drops glistened there 
 
 Bright as the gems that sparkled in her hair. 
 
 And her clasped hands expressed a deep distress 
 
 That ill accorded with the bridal dress, 400 
 
 As thus in speechless agony of grief 
 
 She bent her lovely form before the Chief." 
 
 On Ulric's brow, each trace of fury flown — 
 The gloominess of grief remained alone. 
 
THE BANDIT ' 709 
 
 He dropped the fatal point — who could forbear 
 
 When tears implored and beauty urged the prayer ? 
 
 But still internally his stubborn pride 
 
 Strove the best feelings of his heart to hide, 
 
 And still each pang he struggled to conceal, 
 
 As though he deemed it weakness thus to feel. 410 
 
 But Nature triumphed ! Though he turned aside 
 
 Abrupt, his changing countenance to hide. 
 
 From his dark eyes unwonted tear-drops rushed 
 
 (So from the smitten rock the waters gushed) ; 
 
 Beneath his cloak he sought the drops to shroud, 
 
 But bursting sighs bespoke his grief aloud. 
 
 ' Oh, Adelaide ! a joyless wretch I came, 
 
 With frenzied purpose and infernal aim. 
 
 To 'venge the falsehood that had caused my woe, 
 
 And make thy blood as now thy tear-drops flow ; 420 
 
 But, lo ! my heart forgets not that it knew 
 
 The time, alas ! it only throbbed for you. 
 
 And, loving yet, rebels against my will. 
 
 And prompts my faltering tongue to bless you still. 
 
 Be blessed ! Forget my love ! The solemn vow . 
 
 That with my wretched heart is broken now. 
 
 But, ah, to you may ne'er its sorrows reach. 
 
 And I alone feel wretched in the breach ; 
 
 Forget all these ! with that unhappy man 
 
 Who bids you still be happy — if you can ! ' 430 
 
 Faltering she answered, but her faint reply 
 
 Was drowned amid the robbers' angry cry. 
 
 Whose scornful words strove vainly to condemn 
 
 The Chieftain's weakness as unknown to them ; 
 
 And one more daring seized the kneeling bride — 
 
 ' Be this my prize ! I claim her first ! ' he cried. 
 
 Surprised and awed, accustomed to his sway. 
 
 They loudly murmured, but they still obey ; 
 
 Amid them all he stands, unhurt, alone, 
 
 And all the band submit and crouch to one ! 440 
 
 ' 'Tis vain. No longer I pretend to wield 
 
 The sword of justice, or the weak to shield, 
 
 Or hurl that vengeance which the Final Day 
 
 More surely and less blindly will repay. 
 
 Enough ! From all your oaths I now release ; 
 
 And this, my last command — Depart in peace. 
 
 Your Chief no longer, in some private cell. 
 
 Far from the busy haunts of men, I'll dwell. 
 
 And strive to wash my many crimes away 
 
 By sorrowing nights, and sighs and tears by day. 45o 
 
7IO THE BANDIT 
 
 Would that ye also left your crimes, and then 
 Were less a scourge and curse to better men ! ' 
 
 As thus he spoke, in bitterness of heart, 
 
 He, sad and sorrowing, turned him to depart ; 
 
 But, sudden bursting in the hall again. 
 
 Came Wolf, and led a strong and armed train. 
 
 ' Behold our prize ! Yon sable plume behold I 
 
 Seize — seize him ! for his head is gold ! 
 
 On, comrades, on ! ' — At once the robbers poured 
 
 And seized the Chieftain ere he gained his sword. 4«o' 
 
 One only dared to strike in his defence. 
 
 And smote the assailant, but at life's expense. 
 
 The Chieftain saw and seized the falUng brand. 
 
 And broke resistless from the circling band ; 
 
 Then, as a lion, when the foes surround, 
 
 Springs on the first and tears him to the ground. 
 
 Headlong he rushed — death followed on each stroke — 
 
 And felled the foremost till the sabre broke. 
 
 Thrice Arden joining in the unequal strife 
 
 Had stayed the steel that pointed at his life ; 470 
 
 But soon a sword too keen — too surely prest — 
 
 Escaped his 'zeal and gored the Chieftain's breast. 
 
 He staggered — sunk — and on the bloody ground 
 
 Still feebly combated with all around. 
 
 Then rose again and rushed against the foe — 
 
 Another effort and a final blow ; — 
 
 With steady purpose and unerring hand 
 
 He raised the fragment of the faithless brand ; 
 
 On Wolf with violence he pressed the blade. 
 
 And lifeless at his feet the robber laid ! 480 
 
 Again he falls — faint, wounded, and beset, 
 
 He fights exhausted but undaunted yet. 
 
 More close the circling foes assault him round. 
 
 From every side he feels the biting wound ; 
 
 Blade after blade the crimson current drinks, 
 
 And steals his strength — he struggles — wavers — sinks ! 
 
 The broken sabre quits his feeble grasp. 
 
 And life just seems to hang upon a gasp. 
 
 Now he can fight no more, but, doomed to die. 
 
 Gazes on his murderers with angry eye : 490 
 
 Loud swells the shout for triumph vilely won, 
 
 The prize is conquered and the deed is done ; 
 
 But other spoil invites — they turn to where 
 
 Bright diamonds sparkle 'mid dishevelled hair ] 
 
 Blest if no violence should take them there ! 
 
 In vain they kneel, and gentler pity claim. 
 
 They plead to those who never knew the name. 
 
 The robbers seize ! but, bursting from the wall. 
 
 What sudden blaze illuminates the hall ? 
 
THE BANDIT 711 
 
 It is the taper, or the robbers' aim, 500 
 
 Has set the lighted drapery in flame ? 
 
 All through the robbers burst their fearful way — 
 
 Perhaps death to go — but never death to stay ! 
 
 ' Who fired the curtain ? 'Twas a foolish deed 1 
 Molest them not, but to the cave with speed. 
 Haste, comrades, bear yon body in your arms, 
 Ere yon red blaze the villagers alarms ! ' 
 
 They seize the Chief unconscious of his lot, 
 
 And wildly hurry from the fatal spot ; 
 
 And wondering villagers collect the while 510 
 
 And gaze in terror on the burning pile. 
 
 With rapid stride the blaze ascends on high. 
 
 Now gains the roof and blushes in the sky ; 
 
 Each space, each chink, the fiery guest betrays. 
 
 And through each window bursts the angry blaze, 
 
 And rocking walls and burning beams impend. 
 
 And crackling timbers with a crash descend ! 
 
 Downward they hurl, still blazing as they go. 
 
 And fall, half-smothering the flames below I 
 
 And lo ! the brightest and the last of all — 520 
 
 One turret trembles at its threatened fall ; 
 
 In vain through many a long and stormy age 
 
 It braved the battle and the tempest's rage. 
 
 Now o'er its frowning crest, that once so proud 
 
 Looked down exulting o'er the misty cloud. 
 
 The roaring flames and spiral blazes curl, 
 
 And fire and smoke in mingled eddies whirl ; — 
 
 It shakes — it totters on its shattered base. 
 
 And headlong falls with brave Glenallan's race. 
 
 Soon will the nettle's humble top alone S3o 
 
 Look proudly down upon the fallen stone ; 
 
 And waving grass will flourish o'er the head 
 
 Of him who scarcely lingers from the dead. 
 
 CANTO THIRD 
 Loud crows the cock— the peasant's slumbers cease ! 
 He wakes to days of innocence and peace ; 
 And with the lark that leaves the yellow corn 
 Begins the matin song and hails the morn. 
 While peering in the East, the rising sun 
 Proclaims a bright, a new-born day begun ; 
 Aurora, blushing, hails the god of day, 
 Who comes to kiss the glittering tears away ; 
 And opening buds and flowers expanding rise, 
 And blush with colours borrowed from the skies. 
 
THE BANDIT 
 
 All wakens into life — the chiding hound 
 And huntsman's horn awake the echoes round, 
 And rouse the stag who listens to the strain, 
 Then starts away and bounds along the plain I 
 Men, horses, hounds, the flying game pursue, 
 And ruddy health attends the happy crew. 
 
 Where'er they fall the pleasing rays adorn — SSo 
 
 Now gild the stream, and now the waving corn. 
 
 On all they glow ; — but ah ! where'er they strike 
 
 They gild the evil and the good alike ; 
 
 The cloud that 's golden wlien beneath the ray 
 
 Is gloomy, dark and ugly when away. 
 
 The beam that played upon the rosy bower 
 
 Now gilds the summit of yon dungeon tower. 
 
 And, through the close and narrow grating cast. 
 
 Is hailed by the sad captive as his last ! 
 
 With that first ray the fettered Chieftain rose 560 
 
 From fearful visions and disturbed repose ; 
 
 For him that sun would never rise again. 
 
 Towards the grate he dragged his heavy chain. 
 
 ' This is my latest day, but ere I die. 
 
 Fain would I gaze upon the earth and sky. 
 
 Oh, heavens ! how lovely is the new-born day ! 
 
 All Nature smiles, all fceautiful and gay, 
 
 Oh, in my youth, what fairy dreams of bliss 
 
 Would Fancy picture on a morn like this ! 
 
 When like the buds I felt my soul expand, 570 
 
 And pictured love and joy on every hand ! 
 
 When ne'er expecting aught less fair to find, 
 
 I ope'd my heart in love to all mankind. 
 
 ' Ah ! thus my fancy in my youth's gay morn 
 
 Would her bright images of life adorn ; 
 
 Yea — like yon sky-lark that so gaily sings 
 
 To heaven, aspiring on exulting wings — 
 
 Would leave this world below and wildly soar 
 
 To add to that fair heaven one heaven more ; 
 
 Life, like yon firmament she drew serene, 580 
 
 Nor clouds obscured — nor storms disturbed the scene. 
 
 And Friendship, Pleasure, Love, and Hope, were given 
 
 To shine as stars in her ideal heaven ! 
 
 'Twas all delusion ! What are earthly joys 
 
 But pleasing dreams our wakening destroys ; 
 
 And I have wakened, yea, to scenes of pain 
 
 That make me wish that I could dream again. 
 
 ' Love is a madness — happiness a dream ! 
 
 And Hope and Friendship things that only seem. 
 
 I've tried them all, and found them all untrue, 5,0 
 
 And long have bid them and the world adieu ; 
 
THE BANDIT 713 
 
 I loved it once, and prized its idle state — 
 Suspected — then despised — and now — I hate ! ' 
 
 Thus spoke the Chief, but now in angry tone 
 He spoke aloud — ' Why am I here alone ? 
 Why am I fettered when all else are free, 
 And left to act their crimes at large but me ? 
 
 And greater villains that deserve my fate ' 
 
 He turned indignantly and left the grate, 
 
 Where he could see the swallows round him skim, 60a 
 
 And all in happy liberty but him. 
 
 E'en thus, a wild enthusiast in all 
 
 The Chief had been, and it had shed his fall. 
 
 One he had known — his honourable sire — 
 
 Such as his heart could cherish and admire. 
 
 And loved to imitate, and Fancy dressed 
 
 And with his virtues painted all the rest — 
 
 Free, open, generous, gay, noble, young, 
 
 Assailed too often by the flattering tongue ; 
 
 Affected love and proferred friendships fell, 6io 
 
 He prized too highly and believed too well ; 
 
 Beloved, he thought, by all, and loving too, 
 
 These were the best, the happiest days he knew ; 
 
 Blest in his blindness ! For how blest is he 
 
 Who sees the world as it ought to be ; 
 
 Who, pressed by want, or misery, or woe. 
 
 Still finds, or fancies, friends, but not a foe, 
 
 And with Despair successfully can cope, 
 
 Buoyed up by frail but never-failing Hope, 
 
 Though never realized, and blessed at last 620 
 
 If the veil drops not and reveals the past. 
 
 Not so with him, for soon as fortune wore 
 
 A frowning look, and friends were friends no more, 
 
 But shunned his woe, not blushing to condemn 
 
 The very faults that had exalted them ; 
 
 Or rising undisguised as open foes. 
 
 Scarce deigned to hide they triumphed in his woes ; . 
 
 But hailed the fall that left him now too weak 
 
 Just vengeance for their injuries to wreak ! 
 
 Then from his cheated eyes the film soon cleared, «3o 
 
 And all the world's deformity appeared. 
 
 Once he had loved it, and too highly prized. 
 
 But now as strongly hated and despised 
 
 He fled its vile contagion with speed — 
 
 A misanthrope — nor more in word than deed ! 
 
 By Flattery, that with the world began 
 The woes, abasement, and the fall of man ; 
 That, demon-like, still ruins and beguiles, 
 And while betraying each sad .victim smiles 1 
 
 A a 3 
 
THE BANDIT 
 
 Thus felt the Chief. How hapless are the great, 640 
 
 If such their evils and too oft their fate. 
 
 Truth they ne'er know divested of disguise, 
 
 And scarcely see but through another's eyes ; — 
 
 But, knowing other men — and, what is more. 
 
 Knowing themselves — how happy are the poor ; 
 
 Too oft condemned for vices they have not, 
 
 And scarce allowed the virtues they have got ; 
 
 None ever flj^tter them — nor oft they fail 
 
 Betrayed by vanity or flattering tale. 
 
 But to my theme. The Chieftain turned away «So 
 
 As though he sought to shun the light of day. 
 
 On his hard couch he threw his limbs once more. 
 
 All racked with pain, or stiff with clotted gore ; 
 
 And while across his pale and varying cheek 
 
 The sudden throbs of anguish seemed to speak. 
 
 His wild and working brain appeared as fraught 
 
 With far more keen and agonizing thought ; 
 
 Remembrance, perhaps, of gay and happier times, 
 
 Linked with the memory of after crimes. 
 
 And keen remorse that shudders o'er the past, 660 
 
 With deep regret for joys that fled too fast. 
 
 And doubtings of the future and his fate, 
 
 And all the sorrows of his present state, 
 
 With all their varied pangs, were mingled there. 
 
 Nor sunk nor settled, but in calm despair. 
 
 Oh, who can speak that wandering of thought, 
 
 When, with all varied recollections fraught, 
 
 In wild confusion the bewildered brain 
 
 Now turns from woe to joy — from joy to pain ; 
 
 Now sinks and saddens over present woes, 670 
 
 And now o'er scenes of former pleasure glows ; 
 
 Regretting joys and means which, once possessed. 
 
 If better known or valued, would have blessed ; 
 
 Thus boiled the Chieftain's brain, and pondered o'er 
 
 The scenes of long-lost happiness once more. 
 
 Yes ; 'twas the mansion of his sires he eyed. 
 
 Such as it had been in the days of pride. 
 
 Though many a lingering, long, and painful day 
 
 Since he had left its roof had passed away ; 
 
 Yet could not time nor misery efface 680 
 
 Of former joys the long remembered trace. 
 
 No ; though each hope of happiness had flown — 
 
 Had left the bitterness of life alone ; 
 
 Though deeds of guilt his soul had long bereft 
 
 Of the last solace to the wretched left ; 
 
 Undimmed the retrospect of happy years 
 
 Shone bright through times of misery and tears ; 
 
THE BANDIT 715 
 
 And oft, as in delusive dream restored, 
 
 We greet departed friends we've long deplored, 
 
 His mind forgot the sense of present pain, 690 
 
 And dreamed o'er scenes of happiness again. 
 
 E'en now, abstracted from his present state, — 
 
 His pain, misfortune, and impending fate, — 
 
 His mind retraced the ever-pleasing scene 
 
 Of things, times, pleasures, feelings that had been. 
 
 But, suddenly, a harsh discordant sound 
 
 Roused him to consciousness of things around. 
 
 He started, and strove vainly to recall 
 
 The fleeting phantoms on the dungeon wall, 
 
 But they had fled in air like parting breath, y*" 
 
 And left him with the Messenger of Death ! 
 
 With calm, unaltered voice, unvarying cheek, 
 
 The fated Prisoner was the first to speak : 
 
 ' I know thy message — no unwelcome one 
 
 To him whose days of misery are done. 
 
 The time is gone such tidings could impart 
 
 Reluctance, grief, or terror to my heart. 
 
 Too long the cup of bitterness I've quaffed 
 
 Without one hope e'er mingled in the draught 
 
 To quit this wretched being with regret ; 7" 
 
 And as for Death — why, I can brave him yet ; — 
 
 Nay, as an Angel — Harbinger of Peace — 
 
 I'll hail the Spectre if he bring release ! ' 
 
 ' Enough ! ' 
 
 Harsh as the grating hinge, and rough, 
 Responsi-(% rung the keeper's loud ' Enough." 
 Surprised, he turned again — ne'er till that hour. 
 Of all the inmates of that gloomy tower. 
 None had he known who gazed on Death so near 
 With such rejoicing and so little fear. 
 
 But, lo ! he started as he seemed to trace 720 
 
 Some dear remembrance in the captive's face ; 
 Swift to embrace the prisoner he flew — 
 ' Oh, heaven ! — my lord — my master — is it you ? ' 
 
 Up rose the Chieftain with a sudden start. 
 
 That voice had struck upon his throbbing heart ! 
 
 ' Ha ! Is it Donald ! or a mocking dream ? 
 
 Are these things so, or do they only seem ? 
 
 Am I awake ? The gaoler bent the knee— 
 
 ' Alas, no dream — dear master, I am he ! ' 
 
 All pride forgotten quite, the Chieftain pressed 73o 
 
 His former steward warmly to his breast. 
 
 But rudely bursting from the Chief's embrace 
 
 He paused, and wildly gazed around the place. 
 
THE BANDIT 
 
 ' Oh, I forgot you lingered here to die. 
 
 Behold the keys ! Oh, take them now and fly : 
 
 My clothes, perchance, will happily disguise 
 
 And shroud your person from more careless eyes. 
 
 For, ah, though Arden kneels before the throne, 
 
 I fear 'twill change the punishment alone-^ 
 
 The gibbet to the block — our nobles hate 740 
 
 The noble soul that made you once so great. 
 
 No hope remains but this — let me implore 
 
 Your speedy flight.' 
 
 The Chieftain frowned—' No more ! 
 Perchance 'tis justice dooms me now to bleed. 
 And you would save me by a traitor's deed ! 
 When have I fled my foes or valued life, 
 Or shrunk when Death menaced me in the strife ? 
 Perhaps one more in love with life than I 
 Would hail the terms, but now I scorn to fly ! 
 
 Beside your hate and punishment, too sure, 750 
 
 Would leave my safety still too insecure.' 
 
 Proudly he answered^' Have you then forgot 
 
 The loathsome dungeon — once my cruel lot 
 
 To linger there a sad and joyless time — 
 
 Misfortune's punishment, and not for crime ? 
 
 Your bounty freed me thence, and now 'tis due 
 
 From gratitude to pay the' same for you. 
 
 And, ah ! my life I cheerfully resign, 
 
 For many woes — few comforts— now are mine ! 
 
 Oh, add one more — O, hark ! The warning bell, 760 
 
 One short hour more, it tolls your parting knell. • 
 
 I pray ! — I kneel ! ' 
 
 ' O give me not the pain,' 
 The Chieftain said, ' to see you kneel in vain, 
 I am resolved — a solemn oath I swore 
 To leave these hated walls with life no more. 
 That oath I keep ; but, would you glad my soul. 
 Bring me a dagger or a poisoned bowl. 
 This last request I urge with latest breath, 
 Oh ! spare your Chief an ignominious death ! ' 
 
 ' Alas, I know Glenallan's vrord too well 770 
 
 To hope to move you now, ray Lord— Farewell ! 
 
 I have a, dagger, but my heart shall feel 
 
 It's deepest reach ere you shall use the steel. 
 
 What ! can no other hand but mine be pressed 
 
 To lend the dagger for my Patron's breast ! 
 
 Ah ! it must be ! once more; my lord, adieu ; 
 
 My death alone surrenders it to you ! ' 
 
THE BANDIT 71; 
 
 He raised his hand, but with a sudden clasp 
 
 The Chieftain caught the dagger in his grasp. 
 
 ' Ha ! Now I laugh to scorn the feeble chain, 780 
 
 The guarded fortress shall not e'en detain. 
 
 In vain shall vengeful crowds impatient flock 
 
 To see my head fall streaming from the block ; 
 
 Exulting peers shall not behold me fall. 
 
 And for their tortures I elude them all. 
 
 Dungeon and fetters may the Umbs control, 
 
 But what can fetter or confine the soul ? 
 
 Now I am free — live to behold me die, 
 
 And tell the world Glenallan scorned to fly ; 
 
 And tell iwith all the courage of a friend 790 
 
 No sign of weakness marked my latter end. 
 
 Live, I command you ! say to Arden this — 
 
 I thank his zeal and pray heaven send him bliss ; 
 
 Tell him to love ' -it died upon his tongue. 
 
 The gaoler's hand in agony he wrung. 
 
 Each strove to speak, but wept, embraced anew, 
 
 They only in their hearts could say — ' Adieu ! ' 
 
 Thus had they lingered, but the distant sound 
 
 Of hurried footsteps broke the silence round. 
 
 Still nearer comes the noise — they rush apart, 803 
 
 A moment more, he aims against his heart — 
 
 'Tis missed — he strikes again — too sure the aim — 
 
 The deathless spirit quits its mortal frame, 
 
 That still and silent lies amid its gore, 
 
 And tells to all — Glenallan is no more ! 
 
 Again the bolts recede, the jarring din 
 
 No more disturbs the prisoner within ; 
 
 He wakes no more, nor can that sound impart 
 
 One quicker throb of terror to his heart ; 
 
 Too late the lingering voice of mercy calls, 810 
 
 And ' Pardon ! ' ' Pardon ! ' echoes to the walls. 
 
 He hears it not — nor would the tidings give 
 
 More joy, perchance, or pleasure did he live. 
 
 But o'er his body hath he still a friend, 
 
 Who seems in silent agony to bend. 
 
 All knew his crimes too well, and some had wept 
 
 The loss of friends where his revenge had swept. 
 
 But Arden weeps his breathless body o'er, 
 
 And Donald's tears are mingled with his gore ; 
 
 Together now they pour the sorrowing sigh, 820 
 
 Nor let him quite unwept, unpitied die ! 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 H. REYNOLDS'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 'ODES 
 AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE' (1825) 
 
 ODE TO MR. M'ADAM 
 
 ' Let us take to the toaA'—Beggai^s Opera. 
 
 M'Adam, hail ! 
 Hail, Roadian ! hail, Colossus ! who dost stand 
 Striding ten thousand turnpikes on the land ! 
 
 Oh universal Leveller ! all hail ! 
 To thee, a good, yet stony-hearted man, 
 
 The kindest one, and yet the flintiest going, — 
 To thee, — how much for thy commodious plan, 
 
 Lanark Reformer of the Ruts, is Owing ! 
 The Bristol mail. 
 Gliding o'er ways hitherto deem'd invincible, 
 
 When carrying Patriots now shall never fail 
 Those of the most ' unshaken public principle.' 
 Hail to thee, Scot of Scots ! 
 
 Thou northern light, amid those heavy men ! 
 Foe to Stonehenge, yet friend to all beside. 
 Thou scatter'st flints and favours far and wide, 
 
 From palaces to cots ; — 
 
 Dispenser of coagulated good ! 
 
 Distributor of granite and of food ! 
 Long may thy fame its even path march on, 
 
 E'en when thy sons are dead ! 
 Best benefactor ! though thou giv'st a, stone 
 
 To those who ask for bread ! 
 
 Thy first great trial in this mighty town 
 Was, if I rightly recollect, upon 
 That gentle hill which goeth 
 
ODE TO MR. M'ADAM 719 
 
 Down from ' the County ' to the Palace gate, 
 
 And, like a river, thanks to thee, now floweth 
 Past the Old Horticultural Society, — 
 
 The chemist Cobb's, the house of Howell and James, 30 
 
 Where ladies play high shawl and satin games — 
 
 A little Hell of lace ! 
 And past the AthenaeiAi, made of late, 
 
 Severs a sweet variety 
 Of milliners and booksellers who grace 
 
 Waterloo Place, 
 Making division, the Muse fears and guesses, 
 'Twixt Mr. Rivington's and Mr. Hessey's. 
 Thou stood'st thy trial, Mac ! and shav'd the road 
 From Barber Beaumont's to the King's abode 40 
 
 So well, that paviours threw their rammers by. 
 Let down their tuck'd shirt-sleeves, and with a sigh 
 Prepar'd themselves, poor souls, to chip or die ! 
 
 Next, from the palace to the prison, thou 
 
 Didst go, the highway's watchman, to thy beat, — 
 Preventing though the rattling in the street. 
 Yet kicking up a row 
 Upon the stones — ah ! truly watchman-like, 
 Encouraging thy victims all to strike. 
 
 To further thy own purpose, Adam, daily ; — 50 
 
 Thou hast smooth 'd, alas, the path to the Old Bailey ! 
 And to the stony bowers 
 Of Newgate, to encourage the approach. 
 By caravan or coach, — 
 Hast strew'd the way with flints as soft as flowers. 
 
 Who shall dispute thy name ! 
 Insculpt in stone in every street, 
 
 We soon shall greet 
 Thy trodden down, yet all unconquer'd fame ! 
 Where'er we take, even at this time, our way, 60 
 
 Nought see we, but mankind in open air. 
 Hammering thy fame, as Chantrey would not dare ; — 
 
 And with a patient care, 
 Chipping thy immortality all day ! 
 Demosthenes, of old — that rare old man — 
 Prophetically, follow'd, Mac ! thy plan :— 
 
 For he, we know, 
 
 (History says so,) 
 Put pebbles in his mouth when he would speak 
 
 The smoothest Greek ! 7" 
 
720 ODE TO MR, M'ADAM 
 
 It is ' impossible, and cannot be,' 
 But that thy genius hath, 
 Besides the turnpike, many another path 
 
 Trod, to arrive at popularity. 
 O'er Pegasus, perchance, thouyhast thrown a thigh,. 
 Nor ridden a roadster only ; mighty Mac ! 
 And 'faith I'd swear, when on that winged hack. 
 Thou hast observ'd the highways in the sky ! 
 Is the path up Parnassus rough and steep, 
 
 And 'hard to climb,' as Dr. B. would say ? 
 Dost think it best for Sons of Song to keep 
 
 The noiseless tenor of their way ? (see Gray.) 
 What line of road should poets take to bring 
 
 Themselves, unto those waters, lov'd the first ! — 
 Those waters which can wet a man to sing ! 
 
 Which, like thy fame, ' from granite basins burst, 
 
 Leap into life, and, sparkling, woo the thirst ? ' 
 
 — That thou'rt a proser, even thy birth-place might 
 Vouchsafe ; — arid Mr. Cad ell may, God wot. 
 Have paid thee many a pound for many a blot, — 
 Cadell 's a wayward wight ! 
 Although no Walter, stillthou art a Scot, 
 And I can throw, I think, a little light 
 Upon some works thou hast written for the town, — 
 And publish'd, like a Lilliput Unknown! 
 
 ' Highwa;ys and Byeways,' is thy book, no doubt, 
 (One whole edition 's out,) 
 And next, for it is fair 
 That Fame, 
 Seeing her children, should confess she had 'em ;— 
 ' Some Passages from the life of Adam Blair,' — 
 
 (Blair is a Scottish name,) 
 What are they, but thy own good roads, M'Adam ? 
 
 7 
 O ! indefatigable labourer 
 In the paths of men ! when thou shalt die, 'twill be 
 A mark of thy surpassing industry. 
 
 That of the monument, which men shall rear 
 Over thy most inestimable bone. 
 Thou did'st thy very self lay the first stone!— 
 Of a right ancient line thou comest, — through 
 Each crook and turn we trace the unbroken clue, 
 
 Until we see thy sire before our eyes, 
 
 Rolling his gravel walks in Paradise I 
 
ODE TO MR. M'ADAM 721 
 
 But he, our great Mac Parent, err'd, and ne'er 
 
 Have our walks since been fair ! 
 Yet Time, who, like the merchant, lives on 'Change, 
 For ever varying, through his varying range. 
 
 Time maketh all things even ! 
 In this strange world, turning beneath high heaven ! 
 
 He hath redeem'd the Adams, and contrived, — 120 
 
 (How are Time's wonders hiv'd !) 
 In pity to mankind and to befriend 'em — 
 
 (Time is above all praise,) 
 That he, who first did make our evil ways, 
 Reborn in Scotland, should be first to mend 'em ! 
 
 ADDRESS TO MR. DYMOKE 
 
 THE CHAMPION OF ENGLAND 
 * Arma virumque cana' — Virgil. 
 
 Mr. Dymoke ! Sir Knight 1 if I may be so bold — 
 (I'm a poor simple gentleman just come to town,) 
 
 Is your armour put by, like the sheep in a fold ? — 
 
 Is your gauntlet ta'en up, which you lately flung down ? 
 
 Are you — who that day rode so mail'd and admir'd, 
 
 Now sitting at ease in a library chair ? 
 Have you sent back to Astley the war-horse you hir'd. 
 
 With a cheque upon Chambers to settle the fare ? 
 
 3 
 What 's become of the cup ? Great tin-plate worker ! say ! 
 
 Cup and ball is a game which some people deem fun ! 
 Oh ! three golden balls haven't lur'd you to play 
 
 Rather false, Mr. D., to all pledges but one ? 
 
 4 
 How defunct is the show that was chivalry's mimic ! 
 
 The breast-plate-r-the feathers— the gallant arra,y ! 
 So fades, so grows dim, and so dies, Mr. Dymoke ! 
 
 The day of brass breeches ! . as Wordsworth would say 1 
 
 5 
 Perchance in some village remote, with a cot. 
 
 And a cow, and a pig, and a barn-door, and all ; — 
 You show to the parish that peace is your lot, 
 
 And plenty, — tho' absent from Westminster Hall ! 
 
ADDRESS TO MR. DYMOKE 
 
 And of course you turn every accoutrement now 
 
 To its separate use, that your wants may be well met ; — 
 
 You toss in your breast-plate your pancakes, and grow 
 A salad of mustard and cress in your helmet. 
 
 7 
 And you delve the fresh earth with your falchion, less bright 
 
 Since hung up in sloth from its Westminster task ;— 
 And you bake your own bread in your tin ; and, Sir Knight, 
 
 Instead of your brow, put your beer in the casque ! 
 
 8 
 How delightful to sit by your beans and your peas, 
 
 With a goblet of gooseberry gallantly clutch'd, 30 
 
 And chat of the blood that had delug'd the Pleas, 
 
 And drench'd the King's Bench.^if the glove had been touch'd ! 
 
 9 
 If Sir Columbine Daniel, with knightly pretensions, 
 
 Had snatch'd your ' best doe,' — he'd have flooded the floor ; — 
 Nor would even the best of his crafty inventions, 
 
 ' Life Preservers,' have floated him out of his gore ! 
 
 Oh, you and your horse ! what a couple was there ! 
 
 The man and his backer, — to win a great fight ! 
 Though the trumpet was loud,^T-you'd an undisturb'd air ! 
 
 And the nag snufi'd the feast and the fray sans affright ! 40 
 
 II 
 Yet strange was the course which the good Cato bore 
 
 When he waddled tail-wise with the cup to his stall ; — 
 For though his departure was at the front door, 
 
 Still he went the back way out of Westminster Hall. 
 
 He went — and 'twould puzzle historians to say, 
 
 When they trust Time's conveyance to carry your mail, — 
 
 Whether caution or courage inspir'd him that day, 
 For, though he retreated, he never turn'd tail. 
 
 13 
 By my life, he 's a wonderful charger ! — The best : 
 
 Though not for a Parthian corps ! — yet for you ! — 
 Distinguish'd alike at a fray and a feast. 
 
 What a Horse for a grand Retrospective Review ! 
 
ADDRESS TO MR. DYMOKE 723 
 
 14 
 What a creature to keep a hot warrior cool 
 
 When the sun 's in the face, and the shade 's far aloof ! — 
 What a tail-piece for Bewick ! — or pyebald for Poole, 
 
 To bear him in safety from EUiston's hoof ! 
 
 15 
 Well ! hail to Old Cato ! the hero of scenes ! 
 
 May Astley or age ne'er his comforts abridge ; — 
 Oh, long may he munch Amphitheatre beans. 
 
 Well ' pent up in Utica ' over the Bridge ! 60 
 
 16 
 And to you, Mr. Dymoke, Cribb's rival, I keep 
 
 Wishing all country pleasures, the "bravest and best ! 
 And oh ! when you come to the Hummums to sleep, 
 
 May you lie ' like a warrior taking his rest ! ' 
 
 ADDRESS TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQ. 
 
 EDITOR OF THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE 
 'Dost thou not suspect my yearsi'— Much Ado about Nothing. 
 
 Oh ! Mr. Urban ! never must thou lurch 
 A sober age made serious drunk by thee ; 
 
 Hop in thy pleasant way from church to church, 
 And nurse thy little bald Biography. 
 
 Oh, my Sylvanus ! what a heart is thine ! 
 
 And what a page attends thee ! Long may I 
 Hang in demure confusion o'er each line 
 
 That asks thy little questions with a sigh ! 
 
 3 
 Old tottering years have nodded to their falls. 
 
 Like pensioners that creep about and die ; — 
 But thou, Old Parr of periodicals, 
 
 Livest in monthly immortality 
 
 4 
 How sweet ! — as Byron of his infant said — 
 
 ' Knowledge of objects ' in thine eye to trace ; 
 To see the mild no-meanings of thy head. 
 
 Taking a quiet nap upon thy face ! 
 
724 ADDRESS TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESg. 
 
 5 
 How dear through thy Obituary to roam, 
 
 And not a name of any name to catch ! 
 To meet thy Criticism walking home, 
 
 Averse from rows, and never calling ' Watch I * 
 
 6 
 Rich is thy page in soporific things, — 
 
 Composing compositions, — lulling men, — 
 Faded old posies of unburied rings,— 
 
 Confessions dozing from an opiate pieh : — 
 
 7 
 Lives of Right Reverends that have never lived, — 
 
 Deaths of good people that have really died, — 
 Parishioners, — hatch'd, — husbanded, — and wiv'd, — 
 
 Bankrupts and Abbots breaking side by side 1 
 
 The sacred query, — the remote response, — 
 
 The march of serious mind, extremely slow, — 
 
 The graver's cut at some right aged sconce. 
 Famous for nothing many years ago ! 
 
 9 
 B. asks of C. if Milton e'er did write 
 
 ' Comus,' obscured beneath some Ludlow lid ;^- 
 And C, next month, an answer doth indite, 
 
 Informing B. that Mr. Milton did ! 
 
 X. sends the portrait of a genuine flea. 
 
 Caught upon Martin Luther years agone ; — 
 And Mr. Parkes, of Shrewsbury, draws a bee, 
 
 Long dead, that gather'd honey for King John. 40 
 
 II 
 There is no end of thee, — there is no end, 
 
 Sylvanus, of thy A, B, C, D-merits ! 
 Thou dost, with alphabets, old walls attend, 
 
 And poke the letters into holes, like ferrets I 
 
 Go on, Sylvanus ! — Bear a wary eye, 
 
 The churches cannot yet be quite run out ! 
 
 Some parishes must yet have been passed by, — 
 There 's Bullock-Smithy has a. church no doubt ! 
 
ADDRESS TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQ. 725 
 
 13 
 Go on — and close the eyes of distant ages ! 
 
 Nourish the names of the undoubted dead I 50 
 
 So Epicures shall pick thy lobster-pages, 
 
 Heavy and lively, though but seldom red. 
 
 14 
 Go on ! and thrive ! Demurest of odd fellows ! 
 
 Bottling up dulness in an ancient binn ! 
 Still live ! still prose I continue still to tell us 
 
 Old truths I no strangers, though we take them in ! 
 
 ADDRESS TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE 
 
 THE GREAT I,ESSEE ! 
 'Do you know, you villain, that I am at this moment tlie greatest man living'!'— Wild Oals. 
 
 I 
 Oh ! Great Lessee ! Great Manager ! Great Man ! 
 Oh, Lord High EUiston ! Immortal Pan 
 Of all the pipes that play in Drury Lane ! 
 Macready's master ! Westminster's high Dane t 
 As Galway Martin, in the House's walls, 
 Hamlet and Doctor Ireland justly calls ! 
 Friend to the sweet and ever-smiling Spring ! 
 Magician of the lamp and prompter's ring ! 
 Drury's Aladdin ,! Whipper-in of Actors ! 
 
 Kicker of rebel-preface-malefactors ! i 
 
 Glass-blowers' corrector ! King of the cheque-taker ! 
 At once Great Leamington and Winston-Maker ! 
 Dramatic Bolter of plain Burma and Cakes ! 
 In silken hose the most reformed of Rakes ! 
 Oh, Lord High EUiston ! lend me an ear ! 
 (Poole is away, and Williams shall keep clear) 
 While I, in little slips of prose, not verse. 
 Thy splendid course, as pattern-work, rehearse ! 
 
 Bright was thy youth-^thy manhood brighter still — 
 The greatest Romeo upon Holborn Hill^ — 
 Lightest comedian of the pleasant day. 
 When Jordan threw her sunshine o'er a play ! 
 [When fair Thalia held a merry reign. 
 And Wit was at her Court in Drury Lane ! 
 Before the day when Authors wrote, of course. 
 The ' Entertainment not for Man but Horse.'] ' 
 
 ^ The passa£;es in brackets were added after the first edition. 
 
ADDRESS TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE 
 
 But these, though happy, were but subject times, 
 
 And no man cares for bottom-steps that climbs — 
 
 Far from my wish it is to stifle down 
 
 The hours that saw thee snatch the Surrey crown 30 
 
 Tho' now thy hand a mightier sceptre wields, 
 
 Fair was thy reign in sweet St. George's Fields. 
 
 Dibdin was Premier — and a golden age 
 
 For a short time enrich'd the subject stage. 
 
 Thou hadst, than other Kings, more peace-and-plenty ; 
 
 Ours but one Bench could boast, whilst thou hadst twenty ; 
 
 But the times changed — and Booth-acting no more 
 
 Drew Rulers' shillings to the gallery door. 
 
 Thou didst, with bag and baggage, wander thence, 
 
 Repentant, like thy neighbour Magdalens ! 40 
 
 3 
 Next, the Olympic Games were tried, each feat 
 Practised, the most bewitching in Wych Street. 
 Charles had his royal ribaldry restor'd. 
 And in a downright neighbourhood drank and whor'd ; 
 Rochester there in dirty ways again 
 Revell'd — and liv'd once more in Drury Lane : 
 But thou, R. W. ! kept'st thy moral ways. 
 Pit-lecturing 'twixt the farces and the plays, 
 A lamplight Irving to the butcher boys 
 
 That soil'd the benches and that made a noise : — 50 
 
 [Rebuking — Half a Robert, Half a Charles — 
 The well-billed Man that called for promised Carles ; 
 ' Sir ! — Have you yet to know ! Hush — hear me out ! 
 A man — pray silence ! — may be down with gout, 
 Or want — or. Sir — aw ! — listen ! — may be fated, 
 Being in debt, to be incarcerated !] ^ 
 You — in the back ! — can scarcely hear a line ! 
 Down from those benches — butchers — they are mine I ' 
 
 4 
 Lastly — and thou wert built for it by nature . — 
 Crown 'd was thy head in Drury Lane Theatre ! fio 
 
 Gentle George Robins saw that it was good, 
 And Renters cluck'd around thee in a brood. 
 King thou wert made of Drury and of Kean ! 
 Of many a lady and of many a Quean ! 
 With Poole and Larpent was thy reign begun — 
 But now thou turnest from the Dead and Dun, 
 Hook 's in thine eye, to write thy plays, no doubt, 
 Apd Colman lives to cut the damnlets out ! 
 
 5 
 Oh, worthy of the house ! the King's commission ! 
 Isn't thy condition ' a most bleiss'd condition ? ' 70 
 
 ' The lines in brackets were added after the first edition. 
 
ADDRESS TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE 727 
 
 Thou reignest over Winston, Kean, and all 
 
 The very lofty and the very small — 
 
 Showest the pliiiribless Bunn the way to kick — 
 
 Keepest a Williams for thy veriest stick — 
 
 Seest a Vestris in her sweetest moments, 
 
 Without the danger of newspaper comments — 
 
 Tellest Macready, as none dared before. 
 
 Thine open mind from the half-open door ! — 
 
 (Alas ! I fear he has left Melpomene's crown, 
 
 To be a Boniface in Buxton town !) — 80 
 
 Thou holdest the watch, as half-price people know. 
 
 And callest to them, to a moment, — ' Go ! ' 
 
 Teachest the sapient Sapio how to sing — 
 
 Hangest a cat most oddly by the wing — 
 
 [(To prove, no doubt, the endless free list ended, 
 
 And all, except the public press, suspended,)] ' 
 
 Hast known the length of a Cubitt-foot — and kiss'd 
 
 The pearly whiteness of a Stephens' wrist — 
 
 Kissing and pitying — tender and humane ! 
 
 ' By heaven she loves me ! Oh, it is too plain ! ' 90 
 
 A sigh like this thy trembling passion slips. 
 
 Dimpling the warm Madeira at thy lips ! 
 
 Go on. Lessee ! Go on, and prosper well ! 
 Fear not, though forty glass-blowers should rebel — 
 Show them how thou hast long befriended them, 
 And teach Dubois their treason to condemn ! 
 Go on ! addressing pits in prose and worse ! 
 Be long, be slow, be anything but terse — 
 Kiss to the gallery the hand that 's glov'd — 
 Make Bunn the Great, and Winston the Belov'd, 
 [Ask the two shilling Gods for leave to dun 
 With words the cheaper Deities in the One ! 
 Kick Mr. Poole unseen from scene to scene. 
 Cane Williams still, and stick to Mr. Kean, 
 Warn from the benches all the rabble rout ; 
 Say, those are mine — ' In parliament, or out ! ' 
 Swing cats — for in thy house there 's surely space — 
 O Beasley, for such pastime, planned the place ! 
 Do anything ! — Thy fame, thy fortune, npurish ! 
 Laugh and grow fat ! be eloquent, and flourish !] ^ 
 Go on — and but in this reverse the thing. 
 Walk backward with wax lights before the King — 
 Go on ! Spring ever in thine eye ! Go on ! 
 Hope's favourite child ! ethereal EUiston ! 
 
 ' The lines in brackets were added after the first edition. 
 
728 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE VERY REVEREND JDHN 
 IRELAND, D.D. 
 
 CHARLES FYNES CLINTON, LL.D. 
 
 THOMAS CAUSTON, D.D. 
 
 HOWELL HOLLAND EDWARDS, M.A. 
 
 JOSEPH ALLEN, M.A. 
 
 LORD HENRY FITZROY, M.A. 
 
 THE BISHOP OF EXETER. 
 
 WILLIAM HARRY EDWARD BENTINCK, M.A. 
 
 JAMES WEBBER, B.D. 
 
 WILLIAM SHORT, D.D. 
 
 JAMES TOURNAY, D.D. 
 
 ANDREW BELL, D.D. 
 
 GEORGE HOLCOMBE, D.D. 
 
 THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF WESTMINSTER. 
 ' Sure the Guardians of the Temple can never think they get enough.' — Citizen of the World. 
 
 Oh, very reverend Dean and Chapter, 
 
 Exhibitors of giant men. 
 Hail to each surplice-back'd adapter 
 
 Of England's dead, in herstoneden! 
 Ye teach us properly to prize 
 
 Two-shilling Grays, and Gays, and 
 Handels, 
 And, to throw light upon our eyes. 
 
 Deal in Wax Queens like old wax 
 candles. 8 
 
 Oh, reverend showmen, rank and file, 
 
 Call in your shillings, two and two ; 
 March with them up the middle aisle, 
 
 And cloister them from public view. 
 Yours surely are the dusty dead, 
 
 Gladly ye look from bust to bust. 
 Setting a price on each great head, 
 
 To make it come down with the 
 dust. 
 
 3 
 Oh, as I see you walk along 
 
 In ample sleeves and ainple back, 
 A pursy and well-ordered throng, 19 
 
 Thoroughly fed, thoroughly black ! 
 In vain I strive me to be dumb, — 
 
 You keep each bard like fatted kid, 
 Grind bones for bread hke Fee faw 
 fum! 
 
 And drink from skulls as Byron did ! 
 
 The profitable Abbey is 
 
 A sacred 'Change for stony stock. 
 Not that a speculation 'tis — 
 
 The profit 's founded on a rock. 
 Death and the Doctors, in each nave 
 
 Bony investments have inurn'd ! 30 
 And hard 'twould be to find a grave. 
 
 From which ' no money is return'd ! ' 
 
 Here many a pensive pilgrim, brought 
 By reverence for those learned 
 bones. 
 Shall often come and walk your short 
 Two-shilling fare' upon the stones. — 
 Ye have that talisman of Wealth, 
 Which puddling chemists sought of 
 old 
 Till ruin'd out of hope and health — 
 The Tomb 's the stone that turns 
 to gold ! 40 
 
 6 
 Oh, licens'd cannibals, ye eat 
 
 Your dinners from your own dead 
 race, 
 ThinkGray,preser\r'd,a'funeralmeat,' 
 And Dryden, devil'd, — after grace, 
 A relish ; — and you take your pieal 
 
 From Rare Ben Jonson underdone. 
 
 Or, whet your holy knives on Steele, 
 
 To cut away at Addison ! 
 
 ' Since this poem was written, Dr. Ireland and those in authority under him have reduced the 
 are fallin " ^'^"''^'""^ '° ""^ English People to know, that while butchers' meat is rising, tombs 
 
ADDRESS TO THE DEAN AND CHAPTER 
 
 729 
 
 O say, of all this famous age, 
 
 Whose learned bones yoar hopes 
 expect, so 
 
 Oh have ye number'd Rydars sage, 
 
 Or Moore among your Ghosts elect ? 
 Lord Byron was not doom'd to make 
 
 You richer by his final sleep — 
 Why don't ye warn the Great to 
 take 
 
 Their ashes to no other heap ? 
 
 8 
 Southey's reversion have ye got ? 
 
 With Coleridge, for his body, made 
 A bargain ? — has Sir Walter Scott, 
 
 Like Peter Schlemihl, sold his 
 shade ? 60 
 
 Has Rogers haggled hard, or sold 
 
 His features for your marble shows. 
 Or Campbell barter'd, ere he 's cold. 
 
 All interest in his ' bone repose ' ? 
 
 Rare is your show, ye righteous men ! 
 
 Priestly Politos, — rare, I ween ; 
 But should ye not outside the Den 
 
 Paint up what in it may be seen ? 
 A long green Shakspeare, with a deer 
 
 Grasp'd in the many folds it died 
 in,— 
 A Butler stuff'd from ear to ear, 71 
 
 Wet White Bears weeping o'er a 
 Dry-den ! 
 
 Paint Garrick up like Mr. Paap, 
 
 A Giant of some inches high ; 
 Paint Handel up, that organ chap. 
 
 With you, as grinders, in his eye ; 
 Depict some plaintive antique thing 
 
 And say th' original may be seen ; — 
 Blind Milton with a dog and string 
 
 May be the Beggar o' Bethnal 
 Green ! 80 
 
 Put up in Poets' Corner, near 
 
 The little door, a platform small ; 
 Get there a monkey — never fear, 
 
 You'll catch the gapers, one and all ! 
 Stand each of ye a Body Guard, 
 
 A Trumpet under either fin, 
 And yell away in Palace Yard 
 
 ' All dead ! All dead ! Walk in ! 
 Walk in 1 ' 
 
 (But when the people are inside, 89 
 
 Their money paid — I pray you, bid 
 The keepers not to mount and ride 
 
 A race around each coffin lid. — 
 Poor Mrs. Bodkin thought last year, 
 
 That it was hard — the woman 
 clacks — 
 To have so little in her ear — 
 
 And be so hurried through the 
 Wax !— ) 
 
 13 
 ' Walk in ! two shillings only ! come ! 
 Be not by country grumblers funked ! 
 Walk in, and see th' illustrious dumb ! 
 The Cheapest House for the de- 
 funct ! ' 100 
 Write up, 'twill breed some just 
 reflection. 
 And every rude surmise 'twill stop-i- 
 Write up, that you have no con- 
 nection 
 (In large) — with any other shop ! 
 
 14 
 And, still to catch the Clowns the 
 more, 
 
 Withsafliples of your shows in Wax, 
 Set some old Harry near the door 
 
 To answer queries with his axe. — 
 Put up some general begging-trunk — 
 
 Since thelastbrokeby some mishap, 
 You've all a bit of General Monk; m 
 
 From the respect you bore his Cap ! 
 
730 
 
 * 
 
 [These lines immediately followed ' Miss Fanny's Farewell Flowers' (see p. 450 and 
 notes) in the ' Athenreum.'] 
 
 LINES TO MISS F. KEMBLE 
 
 ON THE FLOWER SCUFFLE AT COVENT GARDEN, THEATRE 
 
 BY CURL-PATED HUGH 
 
 Make a scramble, gentlemen— make a scramble.' — Boys at Greenwich. 
 
 Well — this flower-strewing I must say is sweet 
 
 And I long, Miss Kemble, to throw myself considerably at your feet ; 
 
 For you've made me a happy man in the scuffle when you jerk'd about the 
 
 daisies ; 
 And ever since the night you kiss'd your hand to me and the rest of the pit, 
 
 I've been chuck full of your praises ! 
 
 I'm no hand at writing, (though I can say several things that 's handsome) ; 
 
 But that ignorance, thank my stars ! got me ofi, when I was tried for forg- 
 ing upon Ransom. 
 
 I didn't try to get the flowers, which so many of your ardent admirers were 
 eager to snatch ; 
 
 But I got a very good going chronometer, and for your sake I'll never part 
 with the watch ! 
 
 I've several relics from those who got your relics — a snuff-box, a gold snap ; 
 A silver guard and trimmings, from a very eager, young chap ; 10 
 
 Two coat flaps with linings, from a youth, who, defying blows. 
 And oaths, and shoves, was snatching at, and I'm sorry to say, missing, the 
 front rose ! 
 
 One aspiring youth out of the country rushed at the wreath like a glutton, 
 But he retired out of the conflict with only a bachelor's button ! 
 Another in a frenzy fought for the flowers like any thing crazy 
 But I've got his shirt pin, and he only got two black eyes and a daisy. 
 
 The thought of you makes me rich — Oh, you're a real friend to the free trade ; 
 You agitate 'em so, and take their attention off — If you'd keep farewelling 
 
 my fortune'd be made. 
 Oh ! how I shall hate to make white soup of the silver, or part with anything 
 
 for your sake ! 
 I'll wear the country gentleman's brooch, on your account it 's so very pretty 
 
 a make ! so 
 
LINES TO MISS F. KEMBLE 731 
 
 / didn't get a bud — indeed, I was just at the moment busy about other things : 
 I wish you'd allow me to show you a choice assortment of rings — 
 You understand the allusioh ; but I'm in earnest — that 's what I am ; 
 And though I'm famous a little — domestic happiness is better than all fame ! 
 
 Well — you're going over the water — (it may be my turn one of these days) ; 
 
 Never heed what them foreigners, the Americans, says ! 
 
 But hoard your heart up till you come back, and if I luckily can 
 
 Scrape up enough, you shall find me yours, and a very altered young man I 
 
NOTES 
 
 ODES AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE (Page i). 
 
 Odes and Addresses | to | Great People. | ' Catching all the oddities, the 
 whimsies, the absurdities, and the | littlenesses of conscious greatness by the 
 way.' I Citizen of the World. \ London : | Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and 
 Joy. I :825. 
 
 This small volume was published in February, 1825, in a form which Cole- 
 ridge described as ' a little, thin, mean-looking sort of a foolscap sub-octavo of 
 poems, printed on dingy outsides '. Coleridge, who thought the Odes must be 
 the work of Charles Lamb, referred to 'the spirited parody ' on the introduction 
 to Peter Bell, presumably meaning the opening Ode to Graham. During the 
 summer of the same year a second edition was called for, and in the year 
 following a third. The earlier of these was prefaced by the following 
 
 Advertisement to the Second Edition. 
 
 ' A Second Edition being called for, the Author takes the opportunity of 
 expressing his grateful thanks to his readers and Reviewers, for the kind way 
 in which they have generally received his little Book. Many of those who 
 have been be-Oded in the following pages have taken the verse-offerings in good 
 part ; and the Author has been given to understand that certain " Great 
 People," who have been kept " out of situations," have, like Bob Acres, looked 
 upon themselves as very ill-used gentlemen. It is rather hard that there 
 should not be room for all the great ; — but this little conveyance — a sort of 
 light coach to Fame, — Uke other conveyances, while it haS only four in labours 
 under the disadvantage of having twelve out. The Proprietor apprehends he 
 must meet the wants of the Public by starting an extra coach, in which case 
 Mr. Colman (an anxious Licenser) and Mr. Hunt (the best maker of speeches 
 and blacking in the City and Liberty of Westminster) shall certainly be booked 
 for places. To the latter Gentleman, the Author gratefully acknowledges the 
 compliment of a bottle of his permanent ink : it will be, indeed, pleasant to 
 write an Address to Mr. Wilberforce in the liquid of a beautiful Jet Black, 
 which the Author now meditates doing. Odes, written in permanent ink, will 
 doubtless stand a chance of running a good race with Gray's ! 
 
 ' A few objections have been made to the present Volume, which the 
 Author regrets he cannot attend to, without serious damage to the whole 
 production. The Address to Maria Darlington is said by several ingenious 
 and judicious persons to be namby-pamby. — This is a sad disappointment to 
 the Writer, as he was in hopes he had accomplished a bit of the right Shen- 
 stonian. The verses to the Champion of England are declared irreverent, 
 
NOTES 7i7> 
 
 and those to Dr. Ireland, and his Partners in the Stone Trade, are held out as 
 an improper interference with sacred things ; these addresses are certainly 
 calumniated : the one was really written as an afiectionate inquiry after a 
 great and reverend Warrior, now in rural retirement ; and the other was 
 intended as a kindly advertisement of an exhibition which, although cheaper 
 than the Tower, and nearly as cheap as Mrs. Salmon's Wax-work, the modesty 
 of the Proprietors will not permit them sufficiently to pufi. 
 
 ' To the universal objection, — that the Book is over-run with puns, — the 
 Author can only say, he has searched every page without being able to detect 
 a thing of the kind. He can only promise therefore, that if any respectable 
 Reviewer will point the vermin out, they shall be carefully trapped and 
 thankfully destroyed.' 
 
 The Third Edition was prefaced as follows : — 
 
 ' From the kindness with which this little volume has been received, the 
 Authors have determined upon presenting to the Public " more last Baxterish 
 words," and the Reader will be pleased therefore to consider this rather as a 
 Preface or Advertisement to the volume to come, than a third Address in 
 prose, explanatory and recommendatory of the present portion of the Work. 
 It is against etiquette to introduce one gentleman to another thrice ; and it 
 must be confessed, that if these few sentences were to be billeted upon the 
 first volume, the Public might overlook the Odes, but would have great reason 
 to complain of the Addresses. 
 
 ' So many Great Men stand over, like the correspondents to a periodical, 
 that they must be " continued in our next." These are certainly bad times 
 for paying debts ; but all persons having any claims upon the Authors, may 
 rest assured that they will ultimately be paid in full. 
 
 ' No material alterations have been made in this third Edition, — with the 
 exception of the introduction of a few new commas, which the lovers of punc- 
 tuation will immediately detect and duly appreciate ; — and the omission of 
 the three puns, which, in the opinion of all friends and reviewers, were detri- 
 mental to the correct humour of the publication.' 
 
 The first and second editions were published by Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 
 the third by Henry Colburn. 
 
 Page i, 1. i. Mr. Graham. A celebrated aeronaut who had made a notable 
 ascent in 1823. 
 
 Page 2, 1. 27. liitU world of Mogg's. Perhaps a reference to Edward Mogg's 
 Paterson's Roads, . . . improved, or to his Pocket Itinerary of the Roads of England 
 and Wales. 
 
 Page 3,1. 1 1 1. In LilHput's Review, i.e. the Quarterly. 
 1. 1 16. Blackwood's, i.e. Blackwood's Magazine, against which the London 
 Magazine writers had waged a paper war — with fatal results to the editor of 
 the latter — in 1820. 
 
 1. 149. The London Lion's. The London Magazine for several years had 
 answers to correspondents, with comments on rejected contributions, under the 
 title of The Lion's Head. 
 
 1. 151. Campbell. Thomas Campbell, the poet, was then editor of the 
 New Monthly Magazine. 
 
734 
 
 NOTES 
 
 Page 5. A Friendly Address. In the first edition this was ' A Friendly 
 Epistle '. Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) was the celebrated prison-reformer. 
 
 Page 7, 1. 78. Moll Brazen, &-c. These names are taken from the Beggar's 
 Opera. 
 
 Page 8, 1. 127. 'flooring Charleys'. 'Charley', the old nickname of the 
 night-watchmen of London who preceded the Police force established in 
 1829. 
 
 Page 9. Richard Martin. Richard Martin (1754-1834), M.P. for Galway 
 1801-1826, was responsible for 'the first modern enactment in Great Britain 
 for protecting the rights of animals '. 
 
 Page 10, 1. 65. Brookes's Theatre. Perhaps a reference is intended to the 
 anatomical museum of Joshua Brookes (1761-1833). 
 
 1. 76. Banting shall weep. William Banting (1797-1878), the noted writer 
 on Corpulency, was an undertaker in St. James's Street. 
 
 Page ii. The Great Unknown, i.e. Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 1. 21. ' Dark with excess of light ! ' ' dark with excessive bright ', Milton, 
 Paradise Lost, Bk. in. 
 
 Pagei2,1. 77. Wear's watch. William Weare, murdered by John Thurtell 
 in October, 1823. 
 
 Page 13,1. 89. Captain Coram' s charitable wicket, i.e. the Foundling Hospital. 
 1. 105. Tho' Dymoke does. Sir Henry Dymoke (1801-1865)^ the last 
 King's Champion, a hereditary office held by his family since the fourteenth 
 century. 
 
 1. 125. Mr. Britton. John Britton (1771-1857), antiquarian and topo- 
 grapher. 
 
 Page 14, 1. 166. the battle lost and won. 
 
 ' When the hurly burly 's done. 
 When the battle 's lost and won.' — Macbeth, i. i. 
 
 Page 15, 1. 178. Rae Wilson. See note to p. 507. 
 
 Page 16, 1. 246. Elshender, i.e. the Black Dwarf, hero of Scott's novel of 
 that name. 
 
 1. 254. Crachami. Miss Crachami, ' the celebrated Sicilian dwarf,' was 
 exhibited in London in 1824. 
 
 Page 17. Joseph Grimaldi (1779-1837), actor and pantomimist. 
 1. 15. ' lure us to the skies '. 
 
 ' He raised a mortal to the skies. 
 She drew an angel down.' — Dryden, Alexander's Feast. 
 1. 18. ' better spare a better man I ' 
 
 ' I could have better spared a better man.' 
 
 Henry IV, Part I, v. iv. 
 
 Page 18, 1. 59. Berkeley's Foote. Maria Foote (1797 ?-i867), afterwards 
 Countess of Harrington, a celebrated actress. 
 
 1.72. Winter— Spring. Thomas Winter (1795-1851), the pugilist, was 
 known in the ring as Tom Spring. 
 
NOTES 735 
 
 Page i8, 1. 82. 'sic transit gloria Munden/' This pun is also recorded 
 by Charles Lamb as having been made by his sister. 
 
 Page 19,1. 113. Joseph, Junior, i.e. Joseph Grimaldi (1802-1832), who pre- 
 deceased his father. 
 
 Page 21,1. 83. the greatest of Coopers, i.e. Sir Astley Cooper (1768-1841), the 
 famous surgeon. 
 
 Page 24. Captain Parry. Sir William Parry (1790-1855), the Arctic ex- 
 plorer, who was then making the third of his four journeys in search of the Pole. 
 1. 28. As Claudio saith. 
 
 ' In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice.' 
 
 Measure for Measure, iii. i. 
 
 Page 26, 1. 117. P. N.'s pious Row, i.e. Paternoster Row. 
 
 1. 130. And Hunt's Account. Henry Hunt (1773-1835), politician, stood 
 for Westminster in 18 18. 
 
 1. 133. Alvanly asks. William Arden, second Baron Alvanley (1789-1849). 
 
 1.139. Barrow. Sir John Barrow(i764-i848), Secretary of the Admiralty, 
 after whom Barrow Straits were named. 
 
 1. 142. Croker. John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), after whom the Arctic 
 Croker Bay was named. 
 
 1. 157. is Winter champion there. See note to page 18. 
 
 Page 27, 1. 180. The Sound of Lancaster. The second reference here is to 
 the Lancasterian system of education invented by Joseph Lancaster (1778- 
 1838). 
 
 W. Kitchener, M.D. William Kitchiner, M.D. (1775 ?-i827) — Hood mis- 
 spelt the name of course by design — was a man of many interests; a scientist 
 and epicure who wrote on a variety of subjects, his best-known book being The 
 Cook's Oracle^ 
 
 Page 28, 1. 20. Kater. Henry Kater (1777-1835). 
 1. 36. Dibdin's cold remains. Kitchiner wrote A Brief Memoir of Charles 
 Dibdin, 1823. 
 
 1. 39. As Milton says. 
 
 ' With many a winding bout 
 Of linked sweetness long drawn out.' — L' Allegro. 
 
 I. 48. Miss Paton's throat. Mary Ann Paton, afterwards Mrs. Woods 
 (1802-1864), a celebrated vocalist. 
 
 II. 55-7. Oxford Sausages .... Cambridge Tart. ' The Oxford Sausage ; 
 or. Select Poetical Pieces written by the most celebrated Wits of the University 
 of Oxford,' 1764. 
 
 Page 29, 1. 70. Mr. Bowles. William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850), the 
 sonneteer, edited Pope's works in ten volumes. 
 
 1.71. OrHaydon,&c. These names are of various notabilities of the day, 
 most of them still familiar. 
 
 1. 73. Lovelass upon Wills. Peter Lovelass wrote three legal treatises on 
 Wills, one of which. The Law's Disposal of a Person's Estate, went through 
 twelve editions from 1786 to 1838. 
 Page 30, 1. 1 19. the Thames Projector. Sir Frederick William Trench (1775- 
 
736 NOTES 
 
 1859), was, in 1824, the first projector of the Thames Embankment, a work 
 not finally undertaken until about five years after his death. 
 
 Page 31,1. 162. ' Illustrations of Lying ! ' Amelia Opie's Illustrations of 
 Lying in all its Branches was published in 1825. 
 
 Page 32, 1. 9. when I take. 
 
 ' Whene'er I take my walks abroad 
 How many poor I see.' 
 
 Watts, Divine Songs for Children, iv. 
 
 Page 33. Maria Darlington, i.e. Maria Foote, acting in that part (see note 
 top. 18). 
 
 1. 7. pea-colour'd Hayne. ' Pea-Green ' Haynes, who had to pay Maria 
 Foote if3,ooo damages for breach of promise of marriage. 
 
 1. 8. thou-and-thee Berkeley. Colonel Berkeley, with whom Maria Foote 
 had had an intrigue. 
 
 1.25. Sterne met thee. Sea the Sentimental Journey. 
 
 WHIMS AND ODDITIES. FIRST SERIES (Page 35). 
 
 Whims and Oddities | In Prose and Verse ; | with Forty Original Designs 
 I By I Thomas Hood, | One of the Authors of Odes and Addresses to Great 
 People, I and the Designer of the Progress of Cant | [Woodcut of Cupid rowing 
 a boat formed of his bow with the arrow as mast] Fourth Edition. | ' O Cicero ! 
 Cicero ! if to pun be a crime, 'tis a crime I have learned | of thee : O Bias ! 
 Bias ! if to pun be a crime, by thy example I was biassed ! ' | Scriblerus. I 
 London : | Lupton Relfe, Cornhill. | 1829. 
 
 I have been unable to examine a copy of the first (1826) edition. The first 
 to third editions had each a special Preface, all reprinted in the fourth : — 
 
 ' In presenting his Wh^ms and Oddities to the Public, the Author desires 
 to say a few words, which he hopes will not swell into a Memoir. 
 
 ' It happens to most persons, in occasional lively moments, to have their 
 little chirping fancies and brain crotchets, that skip out of the ordinary 
 meadow-land of the mind. The Author has caught his, and clapped them up 
 in paper and print, like grasshoppers in a cage. The judicious reader will 
 look upon the trifling creatures accordingly, and not expect from them the 
 flights of poetical winged horses. 
 
 ' At a future time, the Press may be troubled with some things of a more 
 serious tone and purposej-^which the Author has resolved upon publishing, 
 in despite of the advice of certain critical friends. His forte, they are pleased 
 to say, is decidedly humourous ; but a gentleman cannot always be breathing 
 his comic vein. 
 
 ' It will be seen, from the illustrations of the present work, that the Inventor 
 is no artist ; — in fact, he was never " meant to draw " — any more than the 
 tape-tied curtains mentioned by Mr. Pope. Those who look at his designs, 
 with Ovid's Love of Art, will therefore be disappointed ; — his sketches are 
 as rude and artless to other sketches, as Ingram's rustic manufacture to the 
 polished chair. The designer is quite aware of their defects ; but when 
 Raphael has bestowed seven odd legs upon four Apostles, and Fuseli has 
 
NOTES 
 
 717 
 
 stuck in a great goggle head without an owner ; — when Michael Angelo has 
 set on a foot the wrong way, and Hogarth has painted in defiance of all the 
 laws of nature and perspective, he does hope that his own little enoftiities 
 may be forgiven — that his sketches may look interesting like Lord Byron's 
 Sleeper, — " with all -their errors." 
 
 ' Such as they are, the Author resigns his pen-and-ink fancies to the public 
 eye. He has more designs in the wood ; and if the present sample should 
 be relished, he will cut more, and come again, according to the proverb, with 
 a New Series.' 
 
 Address to the Second Edition. 
 
 ' The first edition of Whims and Oddities being exhausted, I am called 
 forward by an importunate publisher to make my best bow, and a new address 
 to a discerning and indulgent public. Unaffectedly flattered by those who 
 have bought this little work, and still more bound to those who have bound 
 it, I adopt the usual attitude of a Thanksgiver, but with more than the usual 
 sincerity. Though my head is in Cornhill, my hand is not on my Cheapside, 
 in maMng these professions. There is a lasting impression on my heart, 
 though there is none on the shelves of the publisher. 
 
 ' To the Reviewers in general my gratitude is eminently due for their very 
 impartial friendliness. It would have sufficed to reconcile me to a far 
 greater portion than I have met with, of critical viper-tuperation. The candid 
 Journalists, who have condescended to point out my little errors, deserve my 
 particular thanks. It is comely to submit to the hand of taste, and the arm 
 of discrimination, and with the head of deference I shall endeavour to amend 
 (with one exception) in a New Series. 
 
 ' I am informed that certain monthly, weekly, and very every day critics, 
 have taken great offence at my puns, — and I can conceive how some Gentlemen 
 with one idea must be perplexed by a double meaning. To my own notion 
 a pun is an accommodating word, like a farmer's horse, — with a pillion for 
 an extra sense to ride behind ; — it will carry single, however, if required. 
 The Dennises are merely a sect, and I had no design to please, exclusively, 
 those verbal Unitarians. 
 
 'Having made this brief explanation and acknowledgment, I beg leave, 
 like the ghost of the royal Dane, to say " Farewell at once," and commend 
 my remembrance and my book together, to the kindness of the courteous 
 reader..' 
 
 Address to the Third Edition. 
 
 ' It is not usual to have more than "one grace before meat, one prologue before 
 a play — one address before a work, — Cerberus and myself are perhaps the only 
 persons who have had three prefaces. I thought, indeed, that I had said my 
 last in the last impression, but a new Edition being called for, I came forward 
 for a new exit, after the fashion of Mr. Romeo Coates — a Gentleman, notorious, 
 like Autumn, for taking a great many leaves at his departure. 
 
 ' As a literary parent, I am highly gratified to find that the elder volume of 
 Whims and Oddities does not get snubbed, as happens with a first child at the 
 birth of a second ; but that the Old and New Series obtain fresh favour and 
 friends for each other, and are likely to walk hand in hand, like smiling brothers, 
 towards posterity, 
 
 B b 
 
738 NOTES 
 
 ' Whether a third volume will transpire is a secret still "warranted undrawn " 
 even to myself ;— there is, I am aware, a kind of nonsense— indispensable,— or 
 sine ^a non-sense — that always comes in welcomely to relieve the serious 
 discussions of graver authors,— and I flatter myself that my performances may 
 be of this nature — but having parted with so many of my vagaries I am doubtful 
 whether the next November may not find me sobered down into a political 
 economist. ' 
 
 Page 35. Moral Reflections. London Magaiine, May, 1822, in 'The Lion's 
 Head ', where it was introduced with : ' Our " Unknown " Correspondent has 
 favoured us with the following ; of which he says, although he wrote it on the 
 pinnacle of St. Paul's, he 
 
 " Stoop'd to Truth, and moralized his song." ' 
 1. 12. How small those emmets. 
 
 'These emmets how little they are in our eyes.' 
 
 Isaac Watts, Moral Songs. 
 
 Page 38. ' Please to Ring the Belle.' London Magazine, January,. 1822, in 
 ' The Lion's Head ', where it was thus introduced : 
 
 ' We have received the following letter. 
 
 " Sir, — After reading the other day, that Pope could have extracted poetry 
 out of a warming pan, it occurred to me that I could, perhaps, wring a verse 
 or two out of a bell, or strike a few stanzas out of a brass knocker. Whether 
 I have succeeded I leave to be judged from the following." ' 
 Dr. Kitchener. See note to p. 27. 
 
 Page 40, 1. 107. O. Y. E., i.e. Owhyhee. 
 
 Page 41. The Last Man. Thomas Campbell had published his poem The 
 Last Man in the New Monthly Magazine in the autumn of 18 12. Mrs. Shelley 
 published her three-volume novel on the same theme in 1826. It has been 
 pointed out that there is a parallel in La Bruyere's Caracteres, ch. v. 
 
 Page 44. Faithless Sally Brown. London Magazine, March, 1822, in ' The 
 Lion's Head ', with this introduction : 
 
 ' We cannot sufficiently express our gratitude to Common Sense, jun., of 
 Leeds, for the patience and skill with which he has attempted to couch the Eyes 
 of Lion's Head. Will Common Sense, jun. frankly tell us, (in a frank if he 
 pleases,) what we are to think of the following ballad ? — ' 
 
 To line 60 in the magazine was given this footnote : ' Catullus has imitated 
 this, " Ad dominam solam usque pipi-abat." ' — Printer's Devil. 
 
 Reprinting the Ballad in Whims and Oddities, Hood prefaced itas follows : 
 
 'The Ballad of "Sally Brown and Ben the Carpenter." 
 
 ' I have never been vainer of any verses than of my part in the following 
 Ballad. Dr. Watts, amongst evangelical muses, has an enviable renown — 
 and Campbell's Ballads enjoy a snug genteel popularity. "Sally Brown " has 
 been favoured, perhaps, with as wide a patronage as the Moral Songs, though 
 its circle may not have been of so select a class as the friends of ' ' Hohenlinden." 
 But I do not desire to see it amongst what are called Elegant Extracts. The 
 lamented Emery, drest as Tom Tug, sang it, at his last mortal Benefit at 
 Covent Garden ; — and, ever since, it has been a great favourite with the water- 
 
NOTES 739 
 
 men of Thames, who time their oars to it, as the wherrymen of Venice time 
 theirs to the lines of Tasso. With the watermen, it went naturally to Vauxhall: 
 —and, overland, to Sadler's Wells. The Guards, not the mail coach, but the 
 Life Guards, — picked it out from a fluttering hundred of others — all going to 
 one air — against the dead wall at Knightsbridge. Cheap printers of Shoe 
 Lane, and Cow-cross, (all pirates I) disputed about the Copyright, and published 
 their own editions, — and, in the meantime, the Authors, to have made bread 
 of their song, (it was poor old Homer's hard ancient case !) must have sung it 
 about the streets. Such is the lot of Literature ! the profits of " Sally Brown " 
 were divided by the Ballad Mongers : — it has cost, but has never brought me, 
 a half -penny.' 
 
 The ballad was set to ' Wapping Time ', by Jonathan Blewitt, about 1829, 
 as No. 2 of The Ballad Singer. 
 
 Page 46, 1. 44. Miss Biffen. Sarah Biffin or Befifin (1784-1850), a miniature- 
 painter, who was born without hands, arms, or legs. 
 
 Page 50. The Fall of the Deer. London Magazine, November, 1822, in 
 ' The Lion's Head ', where it was set in old English type and introduced in 
 these words: 'The following is taken, as Nimrod assures us, from a real 
 " Old Poem," upon hunting, and indeed it has the appearance of having never 
 been young.' 
 
 Page 54. The Stag-Eyed Lady. London Magazine, May, 1822, signed 
 ' Incog." Scheherazade, &c., is of course the form for introducing the tales of 
 the Arabian Nights. 
 
 Page 57. Remonstratory Ode. London Magazine', June, 1825, unsigned. 
 
 Page 59, 1. 1 38. In the Youthful Days. The title of one of Mathews's enter- 
 tainments. 
 
 Page 61, 1. 74. As Spencer had. This is how Hood gave it though it is often 
 reprinted Spenser ; the reference is probably to the Hon. W. R. Spencer, 
 author of Beth Gelert, as well as to the one-time fashionable tailless coat of 
 the same name. 
 
 Page 68. Faithless Nelly Gray. This was set to music by Jonathan Blewitt, 
 and published about 1829 as No. 4 of The Ballad Singer. 
 
 WHIMS AND ODDITIES. SECOND SERIES (Page 70). 
 
 Whims and Oddities, | in Prose and Verse ; | with Forty Original Designs, 
 I by I Thomas Hood | one of the Authors of Odes and Addresses to Great 
 People, I and the Designer of the Progress of Cant | [a woodcut of an acorn 
 and oak leaves, faced like a Chinaman] | ' What Demon hath possessed 
 thee, that thou wilt never forsake that | impertinent custom of punning ? ' 
 Scriblerus. | Second Series. | London : | Charles Tilt, 86, Fleet Street. | 
 MDCCCXXVII. 
 
 It was prefaced as follows : 
 
 ' In the absence of better fiddles, I have ventured to come forward again 
 with my little kit of fancies. I trust it will not be found an unworthy sequel 
 to my first performance ; indeed, I have done my best, in the New Series, 
 innocently to imitate a practice that prevails abroad in duelling — I mean, 
 that of the Seconds giving satisfaction. 
 
740 NOTES 
 
 ' The kind indulgence that welcomed my Volume heretofore, prevents me 
 from reiterating the same apologies. The Public have learned, by this time, 
 from my rude designs, that I am no great artist^ and from my text, that I am 
 no great author, but humbly equivocating, bat-like, between the two kinds ; 
 
 though proud to partake in any characteristic of either. As for the first 
 
 particular, my hope persuades me that my illustrations cannot have degene- 
 rated, so ably as I have been seconded by Mr. Edward Willis, who, like the 
 humane Walter, has befriended my offspring in the wood. 
 
 ' In the literary part I have to plead guilty, as usual, to some verbal mis- 
 demeanours ; for which, I must leave my defence to Dean Swift, and the other 
 great European and Oriental Pundits. Let me suggest, however, that a pun 
 is somewhat like a cherry : though there may be a slight outward indication 
 of partition — of duplicity of meaning — yet no gentleman need make two bites 
 at it against his own pleasure. To accommodate certain readers, notwith- 
 standing, I have refrained from putting the majority in italics. It is not every 
 one, I am aware, that can Toler-ate a pun like my Lord Norbury.' 
 
 Page 76, 1. 233. Be thou my park. ' I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my 
 deer,' Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis. 
 
 Pace yj. Mary's Ghost. This was set to music by Jonathan Blewitt, and 
 published about 1829 as No. i of The Ballad Singer. 
 
 I. 44. Sir Astley, i.e. Sir Astley Cooper; see note to p. 21. 
 
 Page 78, 1. 36. One Williams. In 181 1 "one Williams' murdered the 
 Marrs in Ratclifle Highway ; the crime is said to have in,spired De Quincey's 
 essay on Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts. 
 1. 47. distance did not lend. 
 
 ' 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.' — Campbell. 
 1. 70. Not Goldsmith's Auburn. 
 
 ' Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain.' 
 
 Goldsmith, The Deserted Village. 
 
 Page 79, 1. 89. Hilton. William Hilton (1786-18 39), historical painter. 
 I. 90. De Wint. Peter De Wint (i 784-1 849), landscape pointer. 
 
 Page 83. The Demon-Ship. Literary Gazette, June 30, 1827. In the 
 Whims and Oddities volume it was prefaced as follows : 
 
 ' Stories of storm-ships and haunted vessels, of spectre-shallops, and super- 
 natural Dutch doggers, are common to many countries, and are well-attested 
 both in poetry and prose. The adventures of Solway sailors, with Mahound, 
 in his bottomless barges, and the careering of the Phantom-ship up and down 
 the Hudson, have hundreds of asserters besides Messrs. [Allan] Cunningham 
 and [Geoffrey] Crayon ; to doubt their authenticity may seem like an imita- 
 tion of the desperate sailing of the haunted vessels themselves against wind 
 and tide. I cannot help fancying, however, that Richard Faulder was but 
 one of those old tavern-dreamers recorded by old Heywood, who conceived 
 
 "The room wherein they quaff 'd to be a pinnace." 
 And as for the Flying Dutchman, my notion is very different from the popular 
 conception of that apparition, as I have ventured to show by the above design 
 [a woodcut showing a broad-beamed Dutchman, hat-downwards, as a balloon]. 
 The spectre-ship, bound to Dead-Man's Isle, is almost as awful a craft as the 
 
NOTES 
 
 741 
 
 skeleton bark of the Ancient Mariner ; but they are both fictions, and have 
 not the advantage of being realities, like the dreary vessel with its dreary 
 crew in the following story, which records an adventure that befel even unto 
 myself.' 
 
 Page 89. The Monkey -Martyr. Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1827. 
 
 Page 90, 1. 54. Where Cross keeps. The Menagerie at Exeter Change : 
 see p. 57. 
 
 Page 92. Death's Ramble. Literary Gazette, June 9, 1827. 
 
 Page 94, 1. 66. ' The head and-front of his offending.' 
 
 ' The very head and front of my offending.' — Othello, i. iii. 80. 
 
 Page 95, 1. 12. Like the emmets. See note to p. 35. 
 
 Page 96, 1. 41. when as Norval I spoke. In Home's Douglas. 
 
 Page 102, 1. 60. Was Little — now I'm Moore. Thomas Moore wrote several 
 of his earlier volumes of verse under the pen-name of Thomas Little. 
 
 A Butcher. Introduced by the following prose passages : 
 
 ' Of all creeds — after the Christian^ — I incline most to the Pythagorean^ 
 I like the notion of inhabiting the body of a bird. It is the next thing to 
 being a cherub — at least, according to the popular image of a boy's head and 
 wings ; a fancy that savours strangely of the Pythagorean. 
 
 ' I think nobly of the soul with MalvoUo, but not so meanly, as he does by 
 implication, of a bird-body. What disparagement would it seem to shuffle 
 off a crippled, palsied, languid, bed-ridden carcass, and find yourself floating 
 above the world — in a flood of sunshine — under the feathers of a Royal Eagle 
 of the Andes ? 
 
 ' For a beast-body I have less relish — and yet how many men are there who 
 seem predestined to such an occupancy, being in this life even more than 
 semi-brutal ! How many human faces that at least countenance, if they do 
 not confirm, this part of the Brahminical Doctrine. What apes, foxes, pigs, 
 curs, and cats, walk our metropolis — to say nothing of him shambling along 
 Carnaby or Whitechapel.' 
 
 The verses are then followed by a prose consideration of certain animal-like 
 humans. 
 
 Page 163, 1. 10. there 's the Phoenix, &c. The insurance companies used 
 to keep their own fire-engines. 
 
 Page 104. The Volunteer. Published in the second edition of Dagley's 
 Death's Doings, 1827. 
 
 1. I. that memorable year. 1804. 
 
 1. 9. Lawyers' Corps. In the Death's Doings text this is Tailors' Corps. 
 
 Page 107. John Trot. This was set to music by Jonathan Blewitt, and 
 published about 1829 as No. 3 of The Ballad Singer. 
 
 THE PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES (Page no). 
 
 The I Plea | of | the Midsummer Fairies, | Hero and Leander, | Lycus the 
 Centaur, | and | Other Poems | By Thomas Hood, | Author of "Whims and 
 
742 NOTES 
 
 Oddities," etc. etc. | London : | printed for | Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, 
 and Green, | Paternoster Row. | 1827. 
 
 Ciiarles Lamb contributed to Hone's Table Book what he termed ' a meagre, 
 and a harsh, prose abstract ' of the poem ; closing with the beautiful tribute 
 to his young friend : ' The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of 
 Apollo.' 
 
 Page 118, 1. 317. daisy stars, whose firmament is green. This forestalled 
 Carove, who in the Story Without an End, as translated by Mrs. Austin in 1834, 
 wrote ' that she might become a floweret, and twinkle brightly as a blue star 
 on the green firmament of earth '. It was to Carove that Longfellow referred 
 when he wrote 
 
 ' Spake full well, in language quaint and olden. 
 
 One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, 
 When he called the flowers, so blue and golden. 
 Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.' 
 Page 128, 1. 712. A little, sorrowful, deserted thing. The reference is to the 
 tradition that Sir.Thoraas Gresham, who founded the Royal Exchange, was a 
 foundling, and to the legend that his life was saved by the chirping of a grass- 
 hopper, and that he in consequence adopted that creature as his crest. 
 
 Page I32, 1. 865. a timely Apparition. That of William Shakespeare. 
 
 Page 161. Lycus, the Centaur. London Magazine, August, 1822, where it 
 had the following motto : 
 
 ' Nee fuerat nudas poena videre Deas. — Propertius.' 
 1. 2. fore-doom' d. In the London Magazine ' foredamn'd '. 
 Page 162, 1. 38. As if rooted. ' but rooted ' in the magazine. 
 Page 163, 1. 81. pray'd with my voice. ' one voice ' in the magazine. 
 Page 164, 1. 133. Vile shapes. ' Like shapes ' in the magazine. 
 
 Page 170. The Two Peacocks of Bedfont. London Magazine, October, 1822, 
 signed ' Ovid '. 
 
 Page 176. A Retrospective Review. Literary Souvenir, 1827. 
 
 Page 177. Fair Ines. London Magazine, January, 1823, signed ' H.', and in 
 a section entitled ' The Miscellany '. The third stanza was added later. The 
 song was also given, without any acknowledgements, in the Literary Magnet 
 of September, 1827. 
 
 Page 178 The Departure of Summer. London Magazine, November, 1821, 
 signed ' Incog.' It formed part of an address given by the poet to the Literary 
 Society, of which he was a member. 
 
 Page 180. Ode: Autumn. London Magazine, February, 1823, signed 'H.', 
 the first two stanzas being there given as one. 
 
 Page 182. Hymn to the Sun. London Magazine, September, 1822, unsigned. 
 
 To a Cold Beauty. London Magazine, June, 1823, signed ' T.' 
 Page 183. Ruth. Forget-me-not, 1827. 
 
 The Sea of Death. London Magazine, March, 1822, signed ***. 
 Page 184. Ballad. Friendship's Offering, 1827. 
 
NOTES 743 
 
 Page 185. / Remember, I Remember. Friendship's Offering, 1826. 
 Page 186. The Water Lady. Forget-me-not, 1^26. 
 
 To an Absentee. London Magazine, April, 1822, signed ' Incog.' 
 
 Page 187. Ode to the Moon. Blackwood's Magazine, April, 1827. 
 
 Page 190. Autumn. Friendship's Offering, 1826. ' 
 
 Page 192. Sonnet on Mistress Nicely. This was given, with slight verbal 
 changes, in the Literary Magnet, 1827 (iii. N.S.) as ' Sonnet on the Mistress 
 Cicely, a Pattern and Example for Housekeepers '. It had probably appeared 
 elsewhere before being given in the Plea volume, and may have been quoted by 
 the Magnet from the earlier form. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport. Mary Ann Davenport (1765 ?r 1843), a well-known actress. 
 Sonnet Written in a Volume of Shahspeare. Literar'^ Souvenir, 1827. 
 
 Page 193. Sonnet to Fancy. London Magazine, December, 1822, signed ' T.' 
 1. 3. guest, 'quest ' in the magazine. . 
 To an Enthusiast. London Magazine, May, 1823, signed ' T.' 
 
 Page 194. Sonnet: It is not death. ioKdow Magazine, June, 1823, signed 'T.' 
 
 Page 196. Sonnet : Silence. London Magazine, February, 1823. 
 
 THE EPPING HUNT (Page 197). 
 
 The Epping Hunt. | By | Thomas Hood, Esq. | Author of " Whims and 
 Oddities." | Illustrated with | Six Engravings on Wood, | By-I Branston and 
 Wright, Bonner, Slader, and T., Williams ; | After the Designs | of -| George 
 Cruikshank. | " Hunts Roasted — " | London : | Charles Tilt, 86, Fleet Street. | 
 MDCCCXXIX. 
 
 Page 198, 1. 35. Like Beckford. Peter Beckford, who published Thoughts 
 on H-unting in 1781. 
 
 COMIC MELODIES (Page 204). 
 
 Comic Melodies | a Series of | Humorous Ballads, Duetts and Trios | The 
 Words (written expressly for this Work) by | Thomas Hood, Esq. | Author of 
 Whims and Oddities | The Music — Consisting of Original Airs by | J. Blewitt | 
 [an illustration of faces in musical notes] | A doleful Song a doleful look 
 retraces | But merry Music maketh merry Faces. | Clementi and Chappell | 
 1830. 
 
 These melodies were written for Charles Mathews's (1776-1835) Entertain-' 
 ments, and the songs were set amid much patter. 
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM (Page 209). 
 
 The Gem, 1829. 
 
 The I Dream of Eugene Aram, | the Murderer. | By Thomas Hood, Esq. i 
 With designs by W. Harvey. | Engraved on Wood by Branston and Wright. | 
 [a vignette engraving of a reclining figure with a book, with a pair of hands 
 showing through the clouds, one clutching a bag, the other pointing to a knife] | 
 London ; | Charles Till, 86, Fleet Street. | 1831. 
 
744 
 
 NOTES 
 
 It was dedicated to J. H. Reynolds, in the following letter : 
 ' Dear Reynolds, — Induced to this reprint by a series of Illustrations from 
 the pencil of an Artist whose genius you highly estimate ; — remembering some 
 partiality you have expressed' for the Poem itself : — and, above all, that you 
 stand nearest to me in a stricter form of the brotherliood which the Dream is 
 intended to enforce ; I feel that I cannot inscribe it more appropriately or more 
 willingly than to yourself. It will be accepted, I know, with the kind feeling 
 which is mutual between you and your's, ever truly- 
 
 'Thomas Hood.' 
 
 The Dedication was followed by the following : 
 
 Preface. 
 
 ' The remarkable name of Eugene Aram [I7P4-I759]. belonging to a man 
 of unusual talents and acquirements, is unhappily associated with a deed of 
 blood as extraordinary in its details as any recorded in our calendar of crime. 
 In the year 1745, being then an Usher and deeply engaged in the study of 
 Chaldee, Hebrew, Arabic, and the Celtic dialects, for the formation of a 
 Lexicon, he abruptly turned over a still darker page in human knowledge, and 
 the brow that learning might have made illustrious was stamped ignominious 
 for ever with the brand of Cain. To obtain a trifling property he concerted with 
 an accomplice, and with his own hand effected, the violent death of one Daniel 
 Clarke, a shoemaker of Knaresborough, in Yorkshire. For fourteen years 
 nearly the secret slept with the victim in the earth of St. Robert's Cave, and the 
 manner of its discovery would appear a strikiiig example of the Divine Justice, 
 even amongst those marvels narrated in that curious bid volume alluded to in 
 The Fortunes of Nigel, under its quaint title of " God's Revenge against 
 Mnrther." 
 
 ' The accidental digging up of a skeleton, and the unwary and emphatic 
 declaration of Aram's accomplice that it Could not be that of Clarke, betraying 
 a guilty knowledge of the true boiies, he was wrought to a confession of their 
 deposit. The learned homicide was seized and arraigned ; and a trial of un- 
 common interest was wound up by a defence as memorable as the tragedy itself 
 for eloquence and ingenuity — too ingenious for innocence, and eloquent enough 
 to do credit even to that long premeditation which the interval between the 
 deed and its discovery had afforded. That this dreary period had not passed 
 without paroxysms of remorse, may be inferred from a fact of affecting interest. 
 The late Admiral Burney was a scholar, at the school at Lynn in Norfolk, where 
 Aram was an Usher, subsequent to his crime. The Admiral stated that Aram 
 was beloved by the boys, and that he used to discourse to them of Murder, not 
 occasionally, as I have written elsewhere, but constantly, and in somewhat of 
 the spirit ascribed to him in the Poem. 
 
 ' For the more imaginative part of the version I must refer back to one of 
 those unaccountable visions, which come upon us like frightful monsters thrown 
 up by storms from the great black deeps of slumber. A lifeless body, in love 
 and relationship the nearest and dearest, was imposed upon my back, with 
 an overwhelming sense of obligation — not of filial piety merely, but some awful 
 responsibility equally vague and intense, and involving, as it seemed, inexpiable 
 sin, horrors unutterable, torments intolerable, — to buiry my dead, like Abra- 
 ham,\)ut of my sight. In vain I attempted, again and again, to obey the mys- 
 terious mandate — by some dreadful process the burthen was replaced with 
 
NOTES 745 
 
 a more stupendous weight of injunction, and an appalling conviction of the 
 impossibility of its fulfilment. My mental anguish was indescribable ; — the 
 mighty agonies of souls tortured on the supernatural racks of sleep are not to 
 be penned— and if in sketching those that belong to blood -guiltiness I have been 
 at all successful, I owe it mainly to the uninvoked inspiration of that terrible 
 dream. — T.H.' 
 
 The ' Preface ' was followed by a reprint of the text of Eugene Aram's 
 defence. 
 
 HOOD'S OWN (Page 214). 
 
 Hood's Own : | or, | Laughter from Year to Year. | Being former Runnings 
 of His Comic Vein, with an infusion of j New Blood for General Circulation 
 ] [illustration of a laughing sunflower] I London : I A. H. Baily and Co., 
 CornhiU. | MDCCCXXXIX. 
 
 The volume consisted mostly of verse and prose published from 1830 to 
 1838 in Hood's Comic Annual. It was issued in monthly parts. 
 
 Page 217. Ode to M. Brunei. Sir Marc Isambard Brunei (1769-1849) was 
 designer of the Thames Tunnel, which was begun in 1825 and completed in 
 1843 — the work having been stopped for seven years from 1828. 
 
 Page 221. A Nocturnal Sketch. This was prefaced by the following letter 
 supposed to be addressed to the Editor of the Comic A nnual : 
 
 A Plan for Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme. 
 
 ' Respected Sir, 
 
 ' In a morning paper justly celebrated for the acuteness of its reporters, 
 and their almost prophetic insight into character and motives — the Rhodian 
 length of their leaps towards results, and the magnitude of their inferences, 
 beyond the drawing of Meux's dray-horses, — there appeared, a few days since, 
 the following paragraph. 
 
 ' " Mansion House. Yesterday, a tall emaciated being, in a brown coat, 
 indicating his age to be about forty-five, and the raggedness of which gave a 
 great air of mental ingenuity and intelligence to his countenance, was intro- 
 duced by the officers to the Lord Mayor. It was evident from his preliminary 
 bow that he had made some discoveries in the art of poetry, which he wished 
 to lay before his Lordship, but the Lord Mayor perceiving by his accent that 
 he had already submitted his project to several of the leading Publishers, 
 referred him back to the same jurisdiction, and the unfortunate Votary of the 
 Muses withdrew, declaring by another bow, that he should offer his plan to 
 the Editor of the Comic Annual." 
 
 ' The unfortunate, above referred to, Sir, is myself, and with regard to the 
 Muses, indeed a votary, though not a loA one, if the qualification depends on 
 my pocket — but for the idea of addressing myself to the Editor of the Comic 
 Annual. I am indebted solely to the assumption of the gentlemen of the Press. 
 That I have made a discovery is true, in common with Hervey, and Herschel, 
 and Galileo; and Roger Bacon, or rather, I should say, with Columbus — my 
 invention concerning a whole hemisphere, as it were, in the world of poetry — 
 in short, the whole continent of blank verse. To an immense number of 
 readers this literary land has been hitherto a complete terra incognita, and from 
 
 B b 3 
 
746 NOTES 
 
 one sole reason, — the want of that harmony which makes the close of one line 
 chime with the end of another. They have no relish for numbers that turn up 
 blank, and wonder accordingly at the epithet of " Prize," prefixed to Poems 
 of the kind which emanate in^— I was going to say from — the University of 
 Oxford. Thus many very worthy member.s of society are unable to appreciate 
 the Paradise Lost, the Task, the Chase, or the Seasons, — the PFiM/ej- especially — 
 without rhyme. Others, again, can read the Poems in question, but with a 
 limited enjoyment ; as ceirtain persons can admire the architectural beauties 
 of Salisbury steeple, but would like it better with a ring of bells. For either 
 of these tastes my discovery will provide, without affronting the palate of any 
 other ; for although the lover of rhyme will find in it a prodigality hitherto 
 unknown, the heroic character of blank verse will not suffer in the least, but 
 each line will " do as it likes with its own," and soiind as independently of 
 the next as, " milkmaid " and " water-carrier." I have the honour to 
 subjoin a specimen — and if, through your publicity,, Mr. Murray should be 
 induced to make me an offer for an Edition of Paradise Lost on this principle, 
 for the Family Library, it will be an eternal obligation on. Respected Sir, 
 your most obliged, and humble servant, *** ****.' 
 
 Page 222. A Diary lately Published. Lady Charlotte Bury's Diary Illus- 
 trative of the Times of George IV, 1838. 
 
 Page 227. Number One. This was set to music by C. M. Sola, and pub- 
 lished in 1832. 
 
 Page 228. The Drowning Ducks. Literary Gazette, October 27, 1827. 
 
 Page 230. The Fall. Athenaeum. February 4, 1832. 
 
 Page 231, 1. 31. ' It's Edgar Huntley '. Edgar Huntley ; or, the Memoirs of 
 a Sleepwalker, by an American novelist, Charles Brockedon Brown, was 
 published in 1801 and enjoyed popularity for some years. 
 
 Page 232. The Steam Service. These verses were set amid prose, foretelling 
 the time when sailing vessels would have given place to steaming ones. 
 
 Page 233. P. Murphy. Patrick Murphy's Anatomy of the Seasons, 1834, 
 Weather Almanack, 1837, &c., and similar works. 
 
 Page 236, 1. 14. on Paine's Hill. Probably suggested by Pain's Hill, near 
 Cobham in Surrey, at which place the poet had a friend. 
 
 Page 240, 1. 3. iiisit to Murphy. See note to p. 233. 
 
 1. 7. Francis Moore. Moore's Almanack was begun in 1699. 
 
 Page 245. A Singular Exhibition. The annual exhibitions of the Royal 
 Academy were held at Somerset House. 
 
 Page 248, 1. 29. Slaughter's. The name of a celebrated coffee-house. 
 
 Page 251, 1. 63. Thurtell'd. See note to p. 12. 
 
 Page 252, 1. 196. One drew an angel. See note to p. 17. 
 
 Page 258, 1, 32. My Lord, they say. 
 
 ' My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night ; 
 Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about 
 The other, four in wondrous motion.' 
 
 King John, iv. ii. 
 
NOTES 747 
 
 Page 258, 1. ji. Like old Sir Hugh, i.e. Sir Hugh Myddleton, who planned 
 the New River. 
 
 Page 259. The Double Knock. This was prefaced by the following letter 
 on ' Rhyme and Reason ', supposed to be addressed to the Editor of the 
 Comic Annual : 
 
 ■Sir, 
 
 ' In o^e of your Annuals you have given insertion to " A Plan for Writing 
 Blank Verse in Rhyme " ; but as I have seen no regular long poem constructed 
 on its principles, I suppose the scheme did not take with the literary world. 
 Under these circumstances I feel encouraged to bring forward a novelty of 
 my own, and I can only regret that such poets as Chaucer and Cottle, Spenser 
 and Hayley, Milton and Pratt, Pope and Pye, Byron and Batterbee, should 
 have died before it was invented. 
 
 ' The great difficulty in verse is avowedly the rhyme. Dean Swift says 
 somewhere in his letters, " that a rhyme is as hard to find with him as a 
 guinea," — and we all know that guineas are proverbially scarce among poets, 
 The merest versifier that ever attempted a Valentine must have met with this 
 Orson, some untameable savage syllable that refused to chime in with Society. 
 For instance, what poetical Foxhunter — a contributor to the Sporting 
 Magazine — ^has not drawn all the covers of Beynard, Ceynard, Deynard, 
 Feynard, Geynard, Heynaxd, Keynard, Leynard, Meynard, Neynard, Peynard, 
 Queynard, to find a rhyme for Reynard ? The spirit of the times is decidedly 
 against Tithe ; and I know of no tithe more oppressive than that poetical one, 
 in heroic measure, which requires that every tenth syllable shall pay a sound 
 in kind. How often the Poet goes up a line, only to be stopped at the end by 
 an impracticable rhyme, like a bull in a blind alley ! I have an ingenious 
 medical friend, who might have been^an eminent poet by this time, but the 
 first line he wrote ended in ipecacuanha, and with all his physical and mental 
 power, he has never yet been able to find a rhyme for it. 
 
 ' The plan I propose aims to obviate this hardship. My system is, to take 
 the bull by the horns ; in short, to try at first what words will chime, before 
 you go farther and fare worse. To say nothing of other advantages, it will 
 at least have one good effect, — and that is, to correct the erroneous notion 
 of the would-be poets and poetesses of the present day, that the great end of 
 poetry is rhyme. I beg leave to present a specimen of verse, which proves 
 quite the reverse, and am. Sir, Your most obedient servant, 
 
 ' John Dryden Grubb.' 
 
 Page 260. Bailey Ballads. These were prefaced by the following prose : 
 ' To anticipate mistake, the above title refers not to Thomas Haynes — or 
 F. W. N. — or even to any publishers — but the original Old Bailey. It belongs 
 to a set of songs composed during the courtly leisure of what is technically 
 called a Juryman in Waiting^-that is, one of a corps de reserve, held in readiness 
 to fill up the gaps which extraordinary mental exertion — or sedentary habits 
 — or starvation, may make in the Council of Twelve. This wrong box it was 
 once my fortune to get into. On the 5th of November, at the sixth hour, 
 leaving my bed and the luxurious perusal of Taylor on Early Rising — I walked 
 from a yellow fog into a black one, in my unwilling way to the New Court, 
 which sweet herbs even could not sweeten, for the sole purpose of making 
 criminals uncomfortable. A neighbour, a retired sea-captain with a wooden 
 
748 NOTES 
 
 leg, now literally a jury-mast, limped with me from Highbury Terrace on the 
 same hanging errand — a personified Halter. Our legal drill corporal was 
 Serjeant Arabin, and when our muster-roll without butter was over, before 
 breakfast, the uninitiated can form no idea of the ludicrousness of the excuses 
 of the would-be Nonjurors,— aggravated by the solemnity of a previous oath, 
 the deUvery from a witness-box like a pulpit, and the professional gravity of 
 the Court. One weakly old gentleman had been ordered by his physician to 
 eat little, but often, and apprehended even fatal consequences from being 
 locked up with an obstinate eleven ; another conscientious demurrer desired 
 time to make himself master of his duties, by consulting Jonathan Wild, 
 Vidocq, Hardy Vaux, and Lazarillo de Tormes. But the number of deaf men 
 who objected the hardness of their hearing criminal cases was beyond belief. 
 The pubUshers of " Curtis on the Ear " and " Wright on the Ear " — (two popular 
 surgical works, though rather suggestive of PugiUsm) — ought to have sten- 
 torian agents in that Court. Defective on one side myself, I was literally 
 ashamed to strike up singly in such a chorus of muffled double drums, and 
 tacitly suffered my ears to be boxed with a common Jury. I heard, on the 
 right hand, a Judge's charge — an arraignment and evidence to match, with 
 great dexterity, but failing to catch the defence from the left hand, refused 
 naturally to concur in any sinister verdict. The learned Serjeant, I presume, 
 as I was only half deaf, only half discharged me, — committing me to the relay- 
 box, as a Juror in Waiting, — and from which I was relieved only by his suc- 
 cessor. Sir Thomas Denman, and to justify my dullness, I inade even his 
 stupendous voice to repeat my dismissal twice over ! 
 
 ' It was during this compelled attendance that the project struck me of a 
 Series of Lays of Larceny, combining Sin and Sentiment in that melo-dramatic 
 mixture which is so congenial to the cholera morbid sensibility of the present 
 age and stage. The following are merely specimens, but a hint from the 
 Powers that be, — in the Strand, — will promptly produce a handsome volume 
 of the remainder, with a grateful Dedication to the learned Serjeant.' 
 
 Page 263, 1. i. Our village. Our Village, by Mary Russell Mitford, had been 
 published in five series from 1824 to 1832. 
 
 Page 266, 1. 55. ' Those Emmets '. Three brothers, distinguished as 
 workers on behalf of ' United Ireland '. See note to p. 35. 
 
 Page 267. To Fanny. Though included by Hood in Hood's Own, and re- 
 printed in many editions of his works, it should be pointed out that on their 
 original appearance in the Comic Annual for 1830 they were signed Edward 
 Herbert (i.e. John Hamilton Reynolds). It may be that Hood had used 
 Reynolds's signature with consent, as he once did Lamb's. 
 
 Page 268. Poems by a Poor Gentleman.' These were introduced by the 
 following : 
 
 ' Poetry and poverty begin with the same letter, and, in more respects than 
 one, are " as like each other as two P's." — Nine tailors are the making of a 
 man, but not so the nine Muses. Their votaries are notoriously only water- 
 drinkers, eating mutton cold, and dwelling in attics. Look at the miserable 
 lives and deaths recorded of the poets. " Butler," says Mr. D'Israeli, " lived 
 in a cellar, and Goldsmith in a Deserted Village. Savage ran wild, — Chatterton 
 was carried on St. Augustine's Back like a young gipsy ; and his half-.starved 
 Rowley always said heigho, when he heard of gammon and spinach. Gray's 
 
NOTES 749 
 
 days were ode-ious, and Gay's gaiety was fabulous. Falconer was ship- 
 wrecked. Homer was a blind beggar, and Pope raised a subscription for him, 
 and went snacks. Crabbe found himself in the poor-house, Spenser couldn't 
 afford a great-coat, and Milton was led up and down by his daughters, to save 
 the expense of a dog." 
 
 ' It seems all but impossible to be a poet, in easy circumstances. Pope has 
 shown how verses are written by Ladies of Quality — and what execrable 
 rhymes Sir Richard Blackmore composed in his chariot. In a hay -cart he might 
 have sung like a Burns. 
 
 ' As the editors of magazines and annuals (save one) well know, the truly 
 poetical contributions which can be inserted, are not those which come post 
 free, in rose-coloured tinted paper, scented with musk, and sealed with fancy 
 wax. The real article arrives by post, unpaid, sealed with rosin, or possibly 
 with a dab of pitch or cobbler's wax, bearing the impression of a halfpenny, or 
 more frequently of a button, — the paper is dingy, and scant — the hand- 
 writing has evidently come to the author by nature — there are trips in the 
 spelling, and Priscian is a little scratch'd or so — but a rill of the true Castilian 
 runs through the whole composition, though its fountain-head was a broken 
 tea-cup, instead of a silver standish. A few years ago 1 used to be favoured 
 with numerous poems for insertion, which bore the signature of Fitz-Norman ; 
 the crest on the seal had probably descended from the Conquest, and the 
 packets were invariably delivered by a Patagonian footman in green and gold. 
 The author was evidently rich, and the verses were as palpably poor ; they 
 were declined, with the usual answer to correspondents who do not answer, 
 and the communications ceased — as I thought for ever, but I was deceived ; 
 a few days back one of the dirtiest and raggedest of street urchins delivered 
 a soiled whity brown packet, closed with a wafer, which bore the impress of 
 a thimble. The paper had more the odour of tobacco than of rose leaves, and 
 the writing appeared to have been perpetrated with a skewer dipped in coffee- 
 grounds ; but the old signature of Fitz-Norman had the honour to be my " very 
 humble servant " at the foot of the letter. It was too certain that he had 
 fallen from affluence to indigence, but the adversity whch had wrought such 
 a change upon the writing implements, had, as usual, improved his poetry. 
 The neat crowquill never traced on the superfine Bath paper any thing so 
 unaffected as the following : — ' 
 
 Page 269, 1. 21. No Peachum it is. Peachum and Lockit are characters in 
 Gay's Beggar's Opera. 
 
 1.31. a Brownrigg's Apprentice. Elizabeth Brownrigg (d. 1767), a notorious 
 murderess, was executed for inhuman cruelty (resulting in death) to her 
 apprentices. 
 
 Page 276, 1. 105. Some humane Martin. See note to p. 9. 
 
 Page 280, 1. 16. Not Hawker. Colonel P. Hawker, described as ' one of the 
 best shots in England ', published his Instructions to Young Sportsmen in 18 16. 
 1. 17. Mantony. Joseph Manton was a celebrated London gunsmith, 
 whose name was given to a fowling-piece. 
 
 Page 281, 1.7. your Gamhier. See note to p. 456. 
 
 Page 287, 1. 19. Miss Crachami. See note to p. 16. 
 
 1.40. Sir Stamford, i.e. Sir T. Stamford Raffles (1781-1826), Colonial 
 Governor, and founder of the Zoological Society. 
 
750 NOTES 
 
 Page 292. Lines to a Lady. A parody of J. H. Reynolds's once popular 
 song, ' Go where the water glideth gently ever,' which was published anony- 
 mously in Friendship's Offering, 1824. 
 
 Page 293, 1. 14. What Bodkin. Secretary to the Society for the Suppression 
 of Mendicity. See p. 32. 
 
 Page 294, 1. 10. All things by turns. ' Was everything by starts, and nothing 
 long,' Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel. 
 
 Page 295 . Domestic Didactics. These were introduced by the following ; 
 
 ' It is not often when the Nine descend that they go so low as into areas ; 
 it is certain, nevertheless, that they were in the habit of visiting John Hum- 
 phreys, in the kitchen, of No. 189, Portland-Place, disguised, no doubt, from 
 mortal eye, as seamstresses or charewomen — at all events, as Winifred Jenkins 
 says " they were never ketch'd in the fact." Perhaps it was the rule of the 
 house to allow no followers, and they were obliged to come by stealth, and to go 
 in the same manner ; indeed, from the fragmental nature of John's verses, they 
 appear to have often left him very abruptly. Other pieces bear witness of the 
 severe distraction he suffered between his domestic duty to the Umphravilles, 
 twelve in family, with their guests, and his own secret visitors from Helicon. 
 It must have been provoking, when seeking for a simile, to be sent in search 
 of a salt-cellar ; or when hunting for a rhyme, to have to look for a 
 missing teaspoon. By a whimsical peculiarity, the causes of these lets and 
 hindrances are recorded in his verses, by way of parenthesis : and though 
 John's poetry was of a decidedly serious and moralising turn, these little 
 insertions give it so whimsical a character, as to make it an appropriate 
 offering in the present work. Poor John ! the grave has put a period to his 
 didactics, and the publication of his lays in Hood's Own, therefore, cannot 
 give him pain, as it certainly would have done otherwise, for the MSS. were 
 left by last will and testament " to his very worthy master, Joshua UmphravlUe, 
 Esq., to be printed in Elegant Extracts, or Flowers of English Poetry." The 
 Editor is indebted to the kindness of that gentleman for a selection from the 
 papers ; which he has been unable to arrange chronologically, as John always 
 wrote in too great a hurry to put dates. Whether he ever sent any pieces to 
 the periodicals is unknown, for he kept his authorship as secret as Junius's, 
 till his death discovered his propensity for poetry, and happily cleared up 
 some points in John's character, which had appeared to his disadvantage. 
 Thus when his eye was "in fine frenzy rolling," bemused only with Castalian 
 water, he had been suspected of being "bemused with beer " ; and when he 
 was supposed to indulge in a morning sluggishness, he was really rising with 
 the sun, at least with Apollo. He was accused occasionally of shamming 
 deafness, whereas it was doubtless nothing but the natural difficulty of hearing 
 more than Nine at once. Above all, he was reckoned almost wilfully un- 
 fortunate m his breakage ; but it appears that when deductions for damage 
 were made from his wages, the poetry ought to have been stopped, and not 
 the money. The truth is, John's master was a classical scholar, and so accus- 
 tomed to read of Pegasus, and to associate a Poet with a Horseman, that he 
 never dreamt of one as a Footman. 
 
 ' The Editor is too diffident to volunteer an elaborate criticism of the merits, 
 of Humphreys as a Bard— but he presumes to say thus much, that there are' 
 several Authors of the present day, whom John ought not to walk behind.' 
 
NOTES 751 
 
 Page 300, 1. 28. Mr. Roscoe's Liverpool museum. Presumably the Liverpool 
 Royal Institution, of which William Roscoe (i 753-1831) — author of the Life 
 of Lorenzo de Medici — was chief promoter and first president. 
 
 Page 301, 1. 88. as Beattie has it. ' At the close of the day when the hamlet 
 is still,' the opening line of Beattie's Hermit, 
 
 Page 302, 1. loi. the authoress of 'Psyche '. Mary Tighe {1772-1810). 
 
 Page 303. Lord Wharncliffe. James A. Stuart- Wortley-Mackenzie, Baron 
 Wharnclifie (1776-1845), first introduced his Bill to amend the Game Laws 
 in 1824, but it was not until eight years later that a similar measure was 
 passed. 
 
 Literary Reminiscences. In Hood's Own this sonnet precedes the author's 
 literary reminiscences, but lacks the motto which prefaced it on its first 
 appearance in the Comic Annual, 1833. 
 
 Page 307, 1. 6. ' The Undying One.' The Undying One and Other Poems, 
 by the Hon. Caroline Norton, 1830. 
 
 Page 309, 1. 23. ' throw Bark to the Bow-wows '. 'Throw physic to the dogs, 
 I'll none of it,' Macbeth, v. iii. 
 
 Page 312. The Sweep's Complaint. By an Act of 1834 sweeps were for- 
 bidden ' to call or hawk in the streets '. 
 
 Page 313, 1. 75. recommended by Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 ' Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.' 
 
 ' He that doth fear then should not climb at all.' 
 
 Page 314. The Sub-marine. Literary Gazette, September i, 1827. 
 
 Page 316. The Kangaroos. Literary Gazette, October 13, 1827. 
 
 Page 318, 1. 40. ' This is a sorry sight ', Macbeth, 11. ii. 
 
 1. 45. Angels ever bright and fair'. From Handel's oratorio of Theodora. 
 
 Page 320. Rondeau. In Hood's Own ; this is accompanied by a ' fancy por- 
 trait ', of an ass with one ear robed as a Lord Mayor. 
 
 Page 322, 1. 13. My Manton. See note to p. 280. 
 
 Page 323, 1. 29. Hawker's book. See note to p. 280. 
 
 Page 324. Trimmer's Exercise. Sarah Kirby Trimmer (1741-1810), aonce- 
 popular writer of moral tales for the young. 
 
 Page 326, 1. 3. The name of H******l 's, i.e. Herschel. 
 
 1. 14. A new Andre. Major John Andre (1751-1780), who was hanged 
 by Washington as a spy. 
 
 Page 328, 1. 40. Sir Francis Freeling {1764-1836), for nearly fifty years occu- 
 pied high official positions in the Post Office. Hood's surviving daughter 
 was named Frances Freeling after him. 
 
 Page 336, 1. 397. As wrote another. 
 
 ' Fare thee well ! and if for ever, 
 
 Still for ever, fare thee well.'— Byron. 
 
 Page 343, 1. 674. My Lord, they say. See note to p. 258. 
 
 Page 345, 1. 763. Send them to South-^or Children. Sir James South (1785- 
 
752 NOTES 
 
 1867), astronomer ; John George Children (1777-1852), Secretary of the Royal 
 Society. 
 
 Page 346. Those Evening Bells, A parody of Thomas Moore's song. 
 
 Page 347. The Quakers' Conversazione. These verses come at the close of 
 a long account of ' The Tottenham Friends' Conversazione ', and are prefaced 
 as follows : 
 
 ' The Record here breaks off. The society probably did not proceed farther, 
 but died on the spot, of a complication of Innocent Jocularity and Sister 
 Rumble, and was buried tacitly, with 'the fair Ruth Mumford for its chief 
 mourner. The other papers a;re in verse, and a reading of them will certainly 
 persuade the reviewers that they were premature in applying the designation 
 of " Quaker Poetry " to foregone lays and lyrics. The first is a genuine brown 
 study after nature ; the second a hint how Peace ought not to be proclaimed." 
 
 POEMS FROM 'UP THE RHINE' (Page 353). 
 
 , Up the Rhine. | By | Thomas Hood | [vignette bust of a German woman 
 crowned with sausages] 1 London: I A. H. Baily and Co., 81, Cornhill. I 
 MDCCCXL. I . .^ . o. 1 
 
 Page 352. To *****. Athenaeum, July 4, 1835. The lines are addressed 
 to the poet's wife. 
 
 WHIMSICALITIES : A PERIODICAL GATHERING (Page 363). 
 
 Whimsicalities, | a Periodical Gathering. | By | Thomas Hood, | author of 
 ' The Comic Annual," ' Whims and Oddities,' &c. | With numerous Illus- 
 trations, from Designs by Leech. | In Two Volumes. | Vol. I [II]. | London : | 
 Henry Colburn, Publisher, | Great Marlborough Street. | 1844. 
 
 The volume was made up of a selection from the poet's contributions to the 
 New Monthly Magazine. 
 
 Page 365. Mrs. Parkes's Pamphlet. Presumably a letter on the subject of 
 the Art Unions. 
 
 Page 367, 1. 155. May read it all in Schiller. Schiller's Fridolin. 
 
 Page 370, 1. 394. It beats the very Walpurgis Night. See Goethe's Faust 
 part i. ' 
 
 Page 372, 1. 15. 'modest, wee, and crimson-tipp' d ' . 'Wee modest crimson 
 tipped flower ', Burns, To a Mountain Daisy. 
 
 Page 373, 1. 5. famous Mississippi dreams. The 'Mississippi Scheme' of 
 the early eighteenth century. 
 
 Page 377. Lieutenant Eyre's Narrative. Lieut. Vincent Eyre issued in 184? 
 several books dealing with recent events in Cabul of which he had been an 
 
 eyewitness. 
 
 Page 380. On a Certain Locality. In 1842 Queen Victoria was twice shot 
 
 at wheri driving along Constitution Hill, and two years earlier a similar attempt 
 
 on her life had been made at the same place. ^■•i.t^mpi. 
 
 Laying Down the Law. This was published on a separate sheet when Sir 
 
 Edwin Landseer's picture of the same name was on exhibition. 
 
NOTES 753 
 
 Page 381, 1. 18. says Dr. Watts. 'Let dogs delight to bark and bite,' 
 Isaac Watts, Divine Songs for Children, xvi. 
 
 Page 384, 1. 6. Not described by the Countess of Wilton. The Countess of 
 Wilton edited The Art of Needlework, by Elizabeth Stone, 1840. 
 
 1. 24. spread very neatly. ' How skilfully she builds her cell, How neat 
 she spreads the wax,' Isaac Watts, Divine Songs for Children, xx. 
 
 Page 385, 1. 72. Retzsch's Infernals. Friedrich Retzsch's illustrations to 
 Fridolin, Faust, &c. 
 
 Page 389, 1. 239. as beset Lady Sale. The wife of Sir Robert Sale, ' the hero 
 of Jellalabad ' ; she was present during the Afghan disasters of '1841-2, of 
 which she published an account in 1843. 
 
 1. 7. Recalling only. Peel first re-imposed the Income Tax in 1842. 
 
 Page 390, 1, i. ' Come, gentle Spring,' &c. The opening line of Thomson's 
 Seasons. 
 
 1. 8. Spring the Fighter. See note to p. 18. 
 
 Page 391, 1. 4. ' Mistress of herself ' though China fall ! Pope, Moral Essays 
 iii. 268. ' 
 
 Page 392. The University Feud. This was , suggested by the contest at 
 Oxford in 1841-2 between, Messrs. Garbett and Williams for the Professorship 
 of Poetry. Hood wrote briefly in prose of the contest, but considering the 
 ' Feud ' as unsuited for serious consideration in the magazine wrote the verses. 
 1. 20. When Swiveller voas President. Few readers of the Old Curiosity 
 Shop will need reminding that Dick Swiveller was ' Perpetual Grand ' of 
 the ' Lodge of Glorious Apollos '. 
 
 Page 393, 1. 40. For Catnach swears. James Catnach (i 792-1 841), a Seven 
 Dials publisher of chapbooks and broadsides. 
 
 Page 398, 1. 135. 'longing lingering look '. Gray's Elegy, 1. 88. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS UNCOLLECTED POEMS (Page 399). 
 
 Page 399. To Hope. London Magazine, July, 1821. 
 
 Page 400. .Ode to Dr. Kitchener. ' London Magazine, November, 1821. 
 Although not acknowledged this has been unhesitatingly ascribed to Hood, 
 although he dealt with the same theme again in the Odes and Addresses. The 
 footnote to ' tewah-diddle ', it may be pointed out, is given in identical terms 
 in the two pieces. Dr. Kitchiner's Cook's Oracle had been reviewed by Rey- 
 nolds in the preceding issue of the London. See note to p. 27. 
 1. II. ' When like a lobster boiled,' &c. Butler's Hudibras. 
 1. 17. ' What baron, or squire,' &c. From John O'Keefe's song, I am 
 a Friar of Orders Grey. , 
 
 ^ 1. 39. Michael Kelly. (1764 ?-i 826), actor, vocalist, and composer. 
 
 Page 401. To a Critic. London Magazine, Februal'y,i822, signed ' Anthony 
 Rushtowne ' in the Lion's Head, where.it was introduced thus : 
 
 ' The remonstrance of Juvenis is indeed pathetic ; but in spite of the Sonnet 
 which he has quoted in his behalf, we must adhere, though with regret, to our 
 refusal : but if, as we Suspect, he is Old Anthony himself, we shall be happy 
 to hear from him again.' 
 
;54 NOTES 
 
 Page 401. To Celia. London Magazine, April, 1822, unsigned. 
 Page 402. Fare thee Well. London Magazine, September, 1822, in the 
 Lion's Head with these introductory words : ' The following verses are selected 
 from an Ode written in fear of the new Marriage Act.' 
 
 Midnight. London Magazine, December, 1822, signed ' T.' 
 On u Sleeping Child. London Magazine, December, 1822, signed ' T.' 
 The text given is that of the sonnets as they appeared in the magazine, but it 
 dififers in several particulars from the text generally reprinted — probably 
 originally from a manuscript in the possession of the poet's children. A copy 
 of the sonnets written by Hood for a member of the Reynolds family which 
 I have seen is entitled ' Sonnets to Mrs. Rice's Jittle boy ', and is almost exactly 
 the same as that usually printed. The chief changes in the sonnets in MS. 
 and as printed are these ; — 
 
 i. 4. ' unchanging ' for • unmoving '- 
 ii. 2. ' so beautiful as ' for ' more beautiful than '- 
 
 3. ' rosy ' for ' glossy ', and ' in such still slumbers ' for " so unim- 
 
 passioned '. 
 
 4. ' nor ever ' for ' and never '. 
 
 5. ' those ' for ' thy '. 
 
 6. ' I never thought ' for ' I did not think '. 
 
 7. ' chase ' for ' charm '. 
 
 12. ' sound ' for ' mirth '. 
 
 13. ' Now thou dost ' for ' How dost thou '. 
 
 The sonnets were written to the infant son of the Rev. James Rice, Master 
 of Christ's Hospital. 
 
 Page 403. Sonnet written in Keats's Endymion. London Magazine, May, 
 1823, signed ' T.' 
 
 Page 404. Epigram. London Magazine, June, 1823, unsigned. 
 
 Song. Forget-me-not, 1824, signed ' T. Meadows '. This was sent to 
 the Times after Hood's death, but its original appearance has not hitherto 
 been noted, though the poet's son conjecturally dated it 1824. 
 
 The Two Swans. New Monthly Magazine. February, 1824. 
 
 Page 411. Ode on u, Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy. New Monthly 
 Magazine, April, 1824. 
 
 Page 412. Add,ress to Mr. Cross. New Monthly Magazine, April, 1826. 
 Page 413, 1. 66. murder' d Marrs. See note to p. 78. 
 
 1. 82. Another C****. George Croly (1780-1860), author and divine. 
 1. 83. though F*********. One writer in Notes and Queries some years 
 ago suggested that F. stood for Fowell Buxton, but another made the more 
 probably accurate suggestion that it was W. T. Fitzgerald (1759 ?-i829), the 
 fertile versifier immortalized in the opeping lines of Byron's English Bards 
 and Scotch Reviewers. 
 
 Page 414. [In Memoriam.] These lines with a tiny curl of hair were found 
 among the poet's papers after his death. They were written on the birth and 
 death of his first child in May, 1827. It was the same event which inspired 
 Charles Lamb with his lines On an Infant Dying as soon as horn. Chronologically 
 the piece should come a few pages later, immediateNr preceding the Eleev 
 on the Death of David Laing. ^ ^^ 
 
NOTES 755 
 
 Page 414. Ode to the late Lord Mayor. The original appearance of this has 
 not been traced, but it must have appeared late in 1826 or early in 1827. The 
 book, which was also ridiculed by Theodore Hook (' Lord Wenables '), was 
 entitled The Lord Mayor's Visit to Oxford. Written at the desire of the Party by 
 the Chaplain of the Mayoralty, 1826. The author was Robert C. Dillon, D.D. 
 
 Page 415, 1. 9. King of Mogg's map. See note to p. 2. 
 
 1. 35. ' Strong, without rage ', ' Strong without rage, without o'erflowing 
 full,' Denham, Cooper's Hill. 
 
 Page 417. Ode to Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Atlas, 1826. Wakefield 
 (1796-1862), who became a distinguished Colonial statesman, in the spring of 
 1 826 abducted the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer from school and married 
 her at Gretna Green. He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, and 
 the marriage was cancelled by Act of Parliament. 
 
 Page 418, 1. 35. more wives than Buncle. See The Life and Opinions of John 
 Buncle, by Thomas Amory. 
 Vauxhall. Atlas, 1826. 
 
 Page 419. To Mr, Wrench. Atlas, 1826. 
 
 Page 420. To Miss Kelly. Atlas, 1826. 
 
 Page 421. Hints to Paul Pry. Atlas, 1826. 
 
 Page 422. To Thomas Bish. New Monthly Magazine. ' T. Bish, stock- 
 broker, 4, Cornhill, and 9, Charing Cross,' was one of the much-advertising 
 Lottery agents. Lotteries were finally prohibited in England in 1826. 
 
 Page 423. Time, Hope, and Memory. Friendship's Offering, 1827. 
 
 Page 424. Flowers. Friendship's Offering, 1827. 
 / Love Thee. Friendship's Offering, 1827. 
 Ballad. Literary Souvenir, 1827, signed. 
 
 Page 425. Elegy on David Laing. Literary Gazette, August 4, 1827, with 
 the following footnote : 
 
 ' On the third inst., died at Springfield, near Gretna Green, David Laing, 
 aged seventy-two, who had for thirty-five years officiated as high priest at 
 Gretna Green. He caught cold on his way to Lancaster to give evidence on 
 the trial of the Wakefields [see note to p. 417], from the effects of which he 
 never recovered.' 
 
 Page 426. Ode. Literary Gazette, August 25, 1827, of which William Jerdan 
 was the editor. 
 
 Page 427. A Lament for the Decline of Chivalry. Bijou, 1828. 
 
 1. I. Well hast thou cried. ' The age of Chivalry is gone,' Edmund Burke, 
 Reflections on the Revolution in France. 
 
 Page 428. Ode. Amulet, 1828, signed. 
 
 Page 429. Stanzas to Tom Woodgate, of Hastings, Literary Souvenir, 1828. 
 The Hastings fisherman, whom Lamb designated ' Lignum Janua ', with whom 
 Hood enjoyed sailing on more than one visit to Hastings. 
 
 Page 431. The Logicians, Forget-me-Not, 1828. 
 
 Page 432, 1. 57. Barbara Celdrent. Two terms in logic ; a syllogism in 
 
756 NOTES 
 
 barbam is one of which all the three propositions are universal afiirmatives, 
 the middle one being the subject of the first, and the predicate of the second ; 
 celarent is a syllogism having the second proposition a universal affirmative, 
 and the other two universal negatives. 
 
 Page 433. Death in the Kitchen. Forget-me-Not, 1828. 
 
 Page 434, 1. 34. The ' glass of fashion '. ' The glass of fashion and the mould 
 of form,' Hamlet, iii. i. 161. 
 
 Epistle to Miss Charlotte Reynolds. Now first printed. 
 
 Page 435., Birthday Verses. Gem, 1829, where they were printed as here 
 given. Hood's son gave the lines from manuscript, being unaware of the place 
 of their publication. Canon Ainger, while noting that they had appeared 
 in the Gem, did not note the differences. In the version given by young Hood, 
 and generally reprinted, we have in line 4, ' Since it makes ' in place of ' That 
 hath made ' ; in 1. 5, ' sweetest ' for ' Dearest ' ; in 1. 6, ' I could find no flowers, 
 dear' for 'Summer lies upon her bier'; in 1. 9, 'I've brought thee jewels, 
 dearest,' for ' I bring thee jewels. Fairest ! ' and in 1. 11, ' shows ' for ' seem '. 
 The Farewell. Gem, 1829. 
 
 Page 436. On a Picture of Hero and Leander. Gem, 1829. 
 For the Fourteenth of February. Forget-me-Not, 1830. 
 A Bunch of Forget-me-nots. Forget-me-Not, 1830. 
 1. 3. ' to dumb forgetfulness a prey ' Gray's Elegy. 
 
 Page 438. The Poet's Portion. Athenaeum, July 3, 1830. 
 
 ' I'm not a Single Man.' Written in the album of the daughter of Horace 
 Smith. 
 
 Page 439. Playing at .Soldiers. Juvenile Forget-me-Not, 1831. 
 
 Page 440. The Sweets of Youth. Comic Annual, 1831. 
 
 Vag-e ^^i. Ode to N. A. Vigors. Comic Annual, iS 31. N. A. Vigors (1785- 
 1840), the first Secretary to the Zoological Society, published his book in the 
 autumn of 1829. 
 
 Page 443, 1. 108. Harvey, &c. William Harvey, the artist ; Branston and 
 Wright being the engravers. 
 
 The Painter Puzzled. Forget-me-Not, 1831. 
 
 Page 444. The Death-Bed. Englishman's Magazine, August, 1S31. These 
 lines are supposed to have been written on the death of the poet's sister. 
 Anticipation. Englishman's Magazine, Septeraher, 1831. 
 
 Page 445. The Stage-Struck Hero. Forget-me-Not^ 1832. 
 
 Page 446. Ode to Joseph Hume. Comic Annual, 1832. Joseph Hume 
 (1777-1855) was for thirty years leader of the Radical party in the House of 
 Commons ; it was chiefly through his efforts that ' retrenchment ' was added 
 to the words ' peace and reform ' as the party watchwords. 
 
 Page 447, 1. 83. Expose each Peachum. See note to p. 269. 
 
 Page 448. The Ballad. Ackerman's Juvenile Forget-me-Not, 1S32. 
 To a Child embracing His Mother. Athenaeum, January 7, 1832. 
 
 Page 449. Epigram on a Picture. Athenaeum, January 7, 1832, immediately 
 after the previous poem. ■' 
 
NOTES 757 
 
 Page 449. Answer to Pauper. Athenaeum, February 18, 1832, three weeks 
 after there had appeared verses entitled 'Reply to a Pastoral Poef, signed 
 ' Pauper '. Young Hood thought that the earher verses were by Reynolds. 
 _ Jarvis and Mrs. Cope. New Sporting Magazine, March, 1832, signed 
 C. O. B.' 
 
 Page 450. Miss Fanny's Farewell Flowers. — Athenaeum, July 7, 1832, signed. 
 These were immediately followed by other lines to Miss Kemble, signed ' Curl- 
 Pated Hugh '. According to Hood's son the second verses were by Reynolds— 
 they are much like Hood's own— and I have put them in the Appendix. 
 
 Page 451. The China-Mender. Forget-me-Not, 1833. 
 
 Page 453. Ode to Spencer Perceval. Athenaeum, February 18, 1832, and 
 Comic Annual, 1833. 
 
 On the Death of Sir Walter Scott. Comic Annual, 1833. 
 
 Page 454. A Public Dinner. Comic Annual, 1833. 
 
 Page 456. Ode to Admiral Lord Gambier. Athenaeum, March 3, 1832, and 
 Comic Annual, 1833. James, Lord Gambier (1756-1833), an undistinguished 
 naval officer, who was a zealous temperance reformer. 
 
 Page 458. The Cigar. Comic Annual, li^^^. 
 
 Page 459. A Charity Sermon. Comic Annual, 1833. 
 
 Pace 460, 1. 24. Mr. Martin's Act. See note to p. 9. 
 A Happy New Year ! Comic Annual, 1833. 
 
 Page 461, 1. 30. die like a Weave. See note to p. 12. 
 
 Page 462. Ode to Miss Kelly. Athenaeum, February 2, 1833. 
 
 1.21. what a housekeeper for Mr. Rogers! Samuel Rogers, the poet, 
 author of The Pleasures of Memory. 
 
 Page 463. Ode to Sir Andrew Agnew. Comic Annual, 1834. Sir Andrew 
 Agnew of Lochnaw (1793-1849) was a zealous promoter of Sabbatarian legis- 
 lation. His Bill for prohibiting all Sunday labour was four times presented 
 to Parliament before securing a majority, and then it was prevented from 
 becoming law by the death of William IV. 
 
 Page 465. Ode to J. S. Buckingham. Comic Annual, 1835. James Silk 
 Buckingham (1786-185 5), author and traveller; he started the Athenaeum 
 at the beginning of 1828, and took an active part in promoting the temperance 
 movement. 
 
 Page 473. The United Family. Comic Annual, 1835. 
 
 Page 475, 1. 132. Adelphi prizes. The prizes offered by the Society of Arts. 
 
 Page 477. Poetry, Prose, and Worse. Comic Annual, 1836. 
 ' Page 479. Song for the Nineteenth. Written for the poet's German friend, 
 Franck, of the 19th Polish Infantry. 
 
 Page 480. Drinking Song. Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 Page 482. Domestic Poems. Comic Annual, 1837. With the following 
 prefatory prose : - 
 
 ' It has often been remarked — and never more likely than after hearing 
 " John Anderson, my Jo," sung by Broadhurst, at a public dinner — that there 
 
758 NOTES 
 
 is a species of Poetry, indigenous to Scotland, which might emphatically be 
 called Domestic. The Land of Cakes, is, indeed, peculiarly rich in songs and 
 ballads of household interest, which like their stock Tragedy of Douglas,- may 
 be said to be Home-made. The Caledonian Muse does not merely take a walk 
 round the premises, speculating on the domestic comforts, or discomforts, 
 the household affections, or disaffections, within ; but she is invited, and goes 
 ben, far ben ; makes herself quite at home ; and is " treated as one of the 
 family." She sits down, like a gossip, as she is, at the ingle side ; takes a 
 peep into the muckle pat ; pries into the cradle ; and does not hesitate to 
 spier into the dubious parentage of " young wee Donald." She gauges the 
 meal tub ; and informs herself of the stock of siller in hand. There are no 
 secrets with her. The gude wife and gude man unfold to her their most 
 private affairs. They describe to her how they sleep, with a pint stoup at 
 their bed-feet ; and confide to her all their particular gratifications and griev- 
 ances. Johnny complains of a weary pound of tow, — that his wife does not 
 drink hooly and fairly, — and hints that he should not be sorry to see the ter- 
 magant dished up in her winding sheet : — Jeanie tells of his extravagance 
 in not wanting to take his old cloak about him ; and asks counsel on the state 
 of his gray breeks. The Daughter, if she be at home, gets the Muse in a corner, 
 lets her into the names and number of her lovers ; describes the modes and 
 freedoms of their wooings ; and repeats all their love-nonsense verbatim. 
 In short a Familiar of the Inquisition could not be more familiar with all the 
 recesses of their private life : only what the Muse knows she publishes ; and, 
 in the shape of ballads and songs, spreads her home news, scandal and all, 
 throughout the parishes. 
 
 ' The English on the contrary, have few Poems of this nature. The Muse 
 does not .sing like a cricket from our hearths ; and with an abundance of home- 
 made ^ines, we have scarcely a home-made song. This is a gap in our litera- 
 ture, a vacant shelf in our Family Library, that ought to be filled up. I cannot 
 suppose that we are nationally deficient in the fireside feelings and homely 
 affections which inspire a domestic ditty ; — but take it for granted that the 
 vein exists, though it has not been worked. In the hope of drawing the atten- 
 tion of our Bards to the subject, I venture to offer a few specimens of Domestic 
 Poems, " such as " — to use the words of Doctor Watts — " I wish some happy 
 and condescending genius would undertake and perform much better." ' 
 
 Page 483. ,A Parental Ode. Blackwood's Magazine, February, 1837, as well 
 as Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 Page 485. John Jones. Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 Page 486. Ode to Messrs. Green, &c. Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 Page 489. The Blue Boar. Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 1. 69. Waithman's column. The obelisk in the northern half of Ludgate 
 Circus, erected in 1833 in memory of Robert Waithman (i 764-1 833), Lord 
 Mayor in 1823. 
 
 Page 490, 1. iii. as the Dove, so stanch. See p. 507. 
 
 Page 492. Ode to Doctor Hahnemann. Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 Page 495, 1. 134. Drown, drown your book. 
 
 ' Deeper than did ever plummet sound 
 I'll drown my book.' — Tempest, v. i. 
 
NOTES 759 
 
 Page 495. The Dead Robbery. Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 Page 499. The Desert-Born. Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 Page 504. Agricultural Distress. Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 Page 506. Love Lane. Comic Annual, 1837. 
 
 Page 507. Ode to Rae Wilson. Athenaeum, August 12, iSjy. Rae Wilson 
 was a moneyed traveller, who wrote discursive books with no merit in them 
 beyond a. zealous attempt to glorify the narrowest Protestantism. In these 
 books he repeatedly attacked Hood in a manner betraying a total absence 
 of any sense of humour. He is remembered to-day only as the subject of 
 this Ode. 
 
 Page 508, 1. 42. ' Within the limits of becoming mirth.' 
 
 Love's Labour 's Lost, 11. i. 
 
 Page 509, 1. 62. sham-Abr'am saints. Abraham-men were beggars who 
 feigned madness, hence sham-Abraham for those guilty of hypocritical pre- 
 tences. 
 
 Page 5 10, 1. 98. The Scottish member's, i.e. Sir Andrew Agnew. See note 
 to p. 463. 
 
 Page 511, 1. 157. ' sat at good men's feasts,' &c. As You Like It, 11. vii. 
 
 Page 512,1. 203. Church is ' a little heav'n below ', 
 
 ' I have been there, and still would go ; 
 'Tis like a little Heav'n below.' 
 
 Isaac Watts, Divine Songs for Children, xxviii. 
 
 1. 212. homage to the Sun. ' gun ' in the Athenaeum, but this has been 
 treated as a misprint in all reprints. 
 
 1. 225. Cuddie Headrigg's mother. See Scott's Old Mortality. 
 
 Page 513, 1. 254. like male Mrs. Trollopes. Frances TroUope (1780-1863), 
 the author of many novels and boots of travel. 
 
 1. 261. Hurlothrumbo. A burlesque of that name by Samuel Johnson, 
 an actor, 1730. 
 
 Page 516, 1. 381. For choir. ' For choice ' in the .r4/Ae«aeMm is obviously a 
 misprint. 
 
 Page 518. Napoleon's Midnight Review. Comic Annual, 1838. 
 
 Page 519. Hit or Miss. Comic Annual, 1838. 
 
 Page 524. The Old Poler's Warning. Comic Annual, 1838. 
 
 Page 525. Stanzas. Comic Annual, 1838. 
 
 Page 526. Clubs. Comic Annual, 1838. 
 
 Page 527. A Rise at the Father of Angling. Comic Annual, 1838. 
 
 Page 529. The Forlorn Shepherd's Complaint. Comic Annual, 1838. 
 
 Page 531. Morning Meditations. Amaranth, 1839. 
 
 1. 29. An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn. See Gray's Elegy. 
 
 Page 532. The Beadle's Annual Address. Comic Annual (preface), 1839. 
 All, excepting the italicized lines, is of course from Gray's Elegy. 
 
yOo NOTES 
 
 Page 533. ^ Table of Errata. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 534. All Round my Hat. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 535. Ben Bluff. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 537. A Plain Direction. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 538, 1. 93. George Robins. George Henry Robins (1^78-1847), a 
 famous auctioneer. 
 
 Page 539. The Bachelor's Dream. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 540. Rural Felicity. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 543. A Flying Visit. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 545, 1. 177. But Bowring. Sir John Bowring (1792- 18 72), a celebrated 
 linguist. 
 
 1. 189. the Feast of Belshazzar. The most remarkable of the paintings 
 by John Martin (1789-1854). 
 
 Page 547. The Doves and the Crows. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 548. The Doctor. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 54$. The Vision. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 
 Page 550. The Assistant Drapers' Petition. Comic Annual, 1839, with the 
 following introduction : 
 
 iOf all the agitations of the time — and agitation is useful in disturbing 
 the duckweed that is apt to gather on the surface of human affairs — the 
 ferment of the assistant shopmen in the metropolis is perhaps the most bene- 
 ficial. Many vital queries have lately disturbed the public mind ; for instance, 
 ought the fleet of the Thames Yacht Club to be reinforced in the event of 
 a. war with Russia, or should the Little Pedlington Yeomanry be called oiit, in 
 case of a rupture with Prussia ? But these are merely national questions ; 
 whereas the Drapers' movement suggests an inquiry of paramount importance 
 to mankind in general — namely, " When ought we to leave off ? " 
 
 ' It is the standard complaint against jokfers, and whist players, and children, 
 whether playing or crying — that they " never know when to leave off." 
 
 ' It is the common charge against English winters and flannel waistcoats — 
 it is occasionally hinted of rich and elderly relations — it is constantly said of 
 snuff-takers, and gentlemen who enjoy a good glass of wine — that they " do 
 not know when to leave off." 
 
 ' It is the fault oftenest found with certain preachers, sundry poets, and all 
 prosers, scolds, parliamentary orators, superannuated story-tellers, she-gossips, 
 morning-callers, and some leave-takers, 'that they "do not know when to 
 leave off." It is insinuated as to gowns and coats, of which waiting-men and 
 waiting-women have the reversion. 
 
 ' It is the characteristic of a Change Alley speculator — of a beaten boxer — 
 of a builder's row, with his own name to it — of Hollando-Belgic protocols — 
 of German metaphysics — of works in numbers — of buyers and sellers on credit 
 — of a theatrical cadence. — of a shocking bad hat — and of the Gentleman's 
 Magazine, that they " do not know when to leave off." 
 
 ' A romp^all Murphy's frosts, showers, storms, and hurricanes — and the 
 Wandering Jew, are in the same predicament. 
 
 ' As regards the Assistant Drapers, they appear to have arrived at a very 
 general conclusion, that their proper period for leaving Off is at or about seven 
 
NOTES 761 
 
 o'clock in the evening ; and it seems by the following poetical address that 
 they have rhyme, as well as reason, to offer in support of their resolution.' 
 
 The opening words seem to have been suggested by those of the popular 
 ' Beggar's Petition ' — ' Pity the sorrows of a poor old man.' 
 
 Page 551, 1. 52. Knight, i.e. Charles Knight, one of the pioneers of cheap 
 high-class literature. 
 
 Lord Durham's Return. Comic Annual, 1839. In the spring of 1838 
 Durham (1792-1840) was sent to Canada as Governor-General in conse- 
 quence of an insurrection of French Canadians. He returned in the following 
 November. 
 
 Page 552. Verses Mistaken for an Incendiary Song. Comic Annual, 1839. 
 These verses, ' which, perhaps very naturally under the circumstances of the 
 times, our Recorder mistook for an incendiary song,' are given at the end of 
 a prose skit entitled ' The Corresponding Club ', telling how trouble had broken 
 out at Stoke Pogis. 
 
 1. 3. Sing old Rose. This was a Cavalier drinking song, beginning : 
 ' Now we're met like jovial fellows, 
 Let us do as wise men tell us ; 
 Sing old Rose and burn the bellows — 
 Let us do as wise men tell us.' 
 
 Page 553. The Green Man. Comic Annual, iSjg. 
 
 Page 557, 1. 179. As "rashes growing green '. Burns's Green grow the rashes. 
 1. 195. the odd gross from little Moses. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. 
 
 Page 558. Pompey's Ghost. New Monthly Magazine, August, 1840. 
 
 Page 559, 1. 75. You know black beetles. Measure for Measure, iii. i. 
 
 Page 560. An Open Question. New Monthly Magazine, August, 1840, and 
 Comic Annual, 1842. To it the author appended the following : 
 
 ' Note. — There is an anecdote of a Scotch Professor who happened during 
 a Sunday walk to be hammering at a geological specimen which he had picked 
 up, when a peasant gravely accosted him, and said, very seriously, " Eh ! Sir, 
 you think you are only breaking a stone, but you are breaking the Sabbath." 
 
 ' In a similar spirit, some of our over-righteous sectarians are fond of attri- 
 buting all breakage to the same cause — from the smashing of a parish lamp, 
 up to the fracture of a human skull ; — the " breaking into the bloody house 
 of life," or the breaking into a brick-built dwelling. They all originate in the 
 breaking of the Sabbath. It is the source of every crime in the country — the 
 parent of every illegitimate child in the parish. The picking of a pocket is 
 ascribed to the picking of a daisy— the robbery on the highway to a stroll in 
 the fields — the incendiary fire to a hot dinner^on Sunday. All other causes 
 
 the want of education — the want of moral culture — the want of bread itself, 
 
 are totally repudiated. The criminal hiniself is made to confess at the gallows 
 that he owes his appearance on the scaffold to a walk with " Sally in our alley " 
 on the " day that comes between a Saturday and Monday." 
 
 ' Supposing this theory to be correct, and made like the law " for every 
 deTee " the wonder of Captain Macheath that we haven't " better company 
 atTyb'urn -tree " (now the New Drop) must be fully shared by everybody who 
 has visited the Ring in Hyde Park on the day in question. But how much 
 greater must be the wonder of any person who has happened to reside, like 
 
762 NOTES 
 
 myself, for a year or two in a continental city, inhabited, according to the 
 strict construction of our Mawworms, by some fifteen or twenty thousand of 
 habitual Sabbath-breakers, and yet, without hearing of murder and robbery 
 as often as of blood-sausages and dollars ! A city where the Burgomaster 
 himself must have come to a bad end, if a dance upon Sunday led so inevitably 
 to a dance upon nothing ! 
 
 ' The " saints " having set up this absolute dependence of crime on Sabbath- : 
 breaking, their relative proportions become a fair statistical question ; and, 
 as such, the inquiry is seriously recommended to the rigid legislator, who 
 acknowledges, indeed, that the Sabbath was " made for man," but, by a singu- 
 lar interpretation, conceives that the man for whom it was made is himself ! ' 
 
 Page 563. Miss Kilmansegg and Her Precious Leg. New Monthly Magazine, 
 September, 1840, and Comic Annual, 1842. 
 
 Page 565, 1. 104. Robins. See note to p. 538. 
 
 Page 5,66, 1. 197. the Naples Spider, i.e. the tarantula. 
 1. 199. It had scared King John. See note to p. 258. 
 
 Page 57S, 1. 936. the present Post-Ofjice covers. A reference to the drawing 
 on the Mulready envelope of the time. 
 
 Page 582,1. 1196. the Great Enchanter, i.e. George Robins. See note to 
 P- 538. 
 
 Page 596, 1. 2134. the Miller's name was Mendoza. Daniel Mendoza, a 
 notable pugilist. 
 
 Pagp 600. On a Late Immersion. Athenaeum, February 13, 1841. 
 
 A Tale of a Trumpet. New Monthly Magazine, Maj'; 1841, and Comic 
 Annual, 1842. The following note was appended : 
 
 'Note. — The following curious passage is quoted for the benefit of such 
 Readers as are afflicted, like Dame Spearing, with Deafness,- and one of its 
 concomitants, a singing or ringing in the head. The extract is taken from 
 " Quid Pro Quo ; or a Theory of Compensations., By P. S." (perhaps Peter 
 Shard), folio edition. 
 
 " Soe tenderly kind and gratious is Nature, our Mother, that She seldom 
 or never puts upon us any Grievaunce without making Us some Amends, 
 which, if not a full and perfect Equivalent, is yet a great Solace or Salve to 
 the Sore, As is notably displaid in the Case of such of our Fellow Creatures 
 as undergoe the Loss of Heering, and are thereby deprived of the Comfort and 
 Entertainment of Natural Sounds. In lew whereof the Deaf Man, as testified 
 by mine own Experience, is regaled with an inward Musick that is not vouch- 
 safed unto a Person who hath the compleet Usage of his Ears. For note, 
 that the selfsame Condition of Boddy which is most apt to bring on a Surdity, 
 — namely, a general Relaxing of the delicate and subtile Fibres of the Human 
 Nerves, and mainly such as belong and propinque to the Auricular Organ, 
 this very Unbracing which silences the Tympanum, or drum, is the most 
 instrumental Cause in producing a Consort in the Head. And, in particular, 
 that affection which the Physitians have called Tinnitus, by reason of its 
 Resemblance fo a Ring of Bells. The Absence of which, as a National Musick, 
 would be a sore Loss and Discomfort to any Native of the Low Countryes, 
 
NOTES 763 
 
 where the Steeples and Church-Towers with their Carillons maintain an allmost 
 endlesse Tingle ; seeing that before one quarterly Chime of the Cloke hath 
 well ended, another must by Time's Command strike up its Tune. On which 
 Account, together with its manye waterish Swamps and Marshes, the Land 
 of Flandres is said by the Wits to be Ringing Wet. Such campanulary Noises 
 would alsoe be heavily mist and lamented by the Inhabitants of that Ringing 
 Island described in Rabelais his works, as a Place constantly filled with 
 a Corybantick Jingle Jangle of great, middle-sized, and little Bells : where- 
 with the People seem to be as much charmed as a Swarm of Bees with the 
 Clanking of brazen Kettles and Pans. And which Ringing Island cannot of 
 a surety be Barbadoes, as certain Authors have supposed, but rather our own 
 tintinnabulary Island of Brittain, where formerly a Saxon could not soe much 
 as quench a Fire or a Candle but to the tune of a Bell. And even to this day, 
 next to the Mother Tongue, the one mostly used is in a Mouth of Mettal, and 
 withal so loosely hung, that it must needs wag at all Times and on all Topicks. 
 For your English Man is a Mighty Ringer, and besides furnishing Bells to 
 a Bellfry, doth hang them at the Head of his Horse, and at the Neck of his 
 Sheep — on the Cap of his Fool, and on the Heels of his Hawk. And truly 
 I have known more than one amongst my Country Men, who would under- 
 take more Travel, and Cost besides, to hear a Peal of Grandsires, than they 
 would bestow to look upon a Generation of Grandchildren. But alake ! all 
 these Bells with the huge Muscovite, and Great Tom of Lincoln to boot, be 
 b>it as Dumb Bells to the Deaf Man : wherefore, as I said. Nature kindly steps 
 in with a Compensation, to wit a Tinnitus, and converts his own Head into 
 a Bellfry, whence he hath Peals enow, and what is more, without having to 
 pay the Ringers." ' 
 
 Page 602, 1. 82. Yearsley's Work. On Deafness, by James Yearsley, 1839. 
 
 Page 61 i, 1. 644. ' whispering tongues can poison Truth '. Coleridge, Chris- 
 label, Part I, 1. 409. 
 
 Page 613, 1. 768. like Harry Gill. See the opening lines of Wordsworth's 
 Goody Blake and Harry Gill. 
 
 1. 777. the parish Charley, i.e. watchman. 
 
 Page 614. A Bull. New Monthly Magazine, October, 1841, and Comic 
 Annual, 1842. 
 
 A Reflection. Comic Annual, 1842. 
 
 On a Royal Demise. Comic Annual, 1842. 
 
 ' Up the Rhine.' Comic Annual, 1842. 
 
 The Pursuit of Letters. Comic Annual, 1842. 
 
 Page 615. Epigram. Comic Annual, 1842. 
 
 On a Native Singer. New Monthly Magazine, January, 1842. 
 To C. Dickens. New Monthly Magazine, February, 1842, which has two 
 verbal differences from a MS. of this in the British Museum. In line 7 ' the 
 river ' is ' our river ', and in line 8, ' I will ' for ' I would '- 
 
 Night Song-Written at Sea. New Monthly Magazine, July, 1842, where 
 it occurs in Horace Smith's Rides in an Author's Omnibus. In the index it 
 is twice credited to Hood. 
 
 Page 616. The Elm Tree. New Monthly Magazine, September, 1842. 
 
764 NOTES 
 
 Page 622. Rondeau. New Monthly Magazine, December, 1842. 
 
 Epigram. New Monthly Magazine, December, 1842. 
 
 1. 4. such top-gallant Sales I See note to p. 389. 
 
 Address. Morning Chronicle, August 3, 1843 ; it wasdelivered at a benefit 
 performance on behalf of the family of Elton, a popular actor, who had been 
 drowned in the wreck of the Pegasus on July 19, 1843. 
 
 Page 623. Sonnet. New Monthly Magazine, September, 1843. 
 A Drop of Gin. Punch, November 18, 1843. 
 
 Page 625. The Song of the Shirt. Punch, Christmas Number, 1843. In- 
 spired by an incident which had newly drawn public attention to the condition 
 of some workers in London. A woman with a starving infant at the breast 
 ' was charged at the Lambeth Police-court with pawning her master's goods, 
 for which she had to give two pounds security. Her husband had died by an 
 accident, and 'eft her with two children to support, and she obtained by her 
 needle for the maintenance of herself and family what her master called 
 the " good living " of seven shillings a week.' Having written the Song, Hood 
 found difficulty in getting it accepted, but his wife was confident that it would 
 tell wonderfully ' as one of the best things he had ever done ', and having been 
 refused elsewhere Hood sent it to Mark Lemon with a note, saying that he 
 feared it would scarcely suit Punch, and that if Lemon thought the same 
 he had better put it in the waste-paper basket. Lemon, despite the protests 
 of some of his colleagues, insisted on dignifying Punch with the Song. Its 
 success was instantaneous. The verse marked with brackets was not given 
 in Punch, being presumably crowded out. 
 
 Page 626. The Pauper's Christmas Carol. Punch, Christmas Number, 
 1843. 
 
 Page 627. The Mary. Hood's Magazine, January, 1844, signed ' B." 
 1. 31. Woodgate. See note to p. 429. 
 
 Page 629. The Haunted House. Hood's Magazine, January, 1844. 
 
 Page 630, 1. 52. • shocking lameness.' ' Their tameness is shocking to me,' 
 Cowper, Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk. 
 
 Page 635. A Discovery in Astronomy. Hood's Magazine, January, 1844. 
 
 A Song for the Million. Hood's Magazine, January, 1844. 
 Page 637. Skipping. A Mystery. Hood's Magazine, January, 1844. 
 Page 638. A Tale of Temper. Hood's Magazine, January, 1844. 
 Page 640. Epigram. Hood's Magazine, January, 1844. 
 
 Reflections on New Year's Day. Punch, January 6, 1844. 
 Page 641. The Lady's Dream. Hood's Magazine, February, 1844. 
 Page 642. Magnetic Musings. Hood's Magazine, February, 1844. 
 
 1. 19. Mr. Eyre . . . Lady Sale. See notes to pp. 377 and 389. 
 
 1. 23. 'tis Brockedon. William Brockedon (1787-1854), painter andauthor, 
 published Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps. 
 
 Page 643. A Dream. Punch, March 9, 1844 ; a propos of the State trials 
 in Ireland. 
 
 1. 81. 'change came o'er.' Byron, The Dream. 
 
NOTES 765 
 
 Page 644. Epigram. Hood's Magazine, Ma-vch, 1844. 
 
 1. 3. that by Poole. ' Solomon Eagle exhorting the People to Repentance 
 during the Plague of the year 1665,' by Paul Falconer Poole (1807-1879). 
 The Key. Hood's Magazine, March, 1844. 
 
 Page 646. The Captain's Cow. Hood's Magazine, March, 1844. 
 
 Page 648. The Workhouse Clock. Hood's Magazine, April, 1844. 
 
 Page 649. An Explanation. Hood's Magazine, May, 1844. 
 
 The Bridge of Sighs. Hood's Magazine, May, 1844. From some frag- 
 mentary verses found among Hood's papers by his son, it looks as though 
 the poet had intended to write another ' part ' to this poem, in which should 
 be told the story of the mother who threw her illegitimate child into the 
 river and was then ' legitimately ' done to death. These three scraps run : 
 
 Bridge of Sighs. 
 Part II. 
 Weary with troubles 
 The Death must deliver 
 Once more life bubbles 
 Away in the river — 
 
 « 9iE « * « i|C 
 
 The moon in the river shone 
 And the stars some six or seven — 
 Poor child of sin, to throw it therein 
 Seemed sending it to Heaven. 
 ****** 
 
 Cover her, cover her. 
 Throw the earth over her— 
 Victim of murder inhumanly done ; 
 With gravel and sod — 
 Hide — hide her from God, 
 And the light of the sun ! 
 Page 65 i. Epigrams. Hood's Magazine, the first in October, and the others 
 in November, 1844. 
 
 The Lay of the Labourer. Hood's Magazine, November, 1844. 
 
 Page 652. Sonnet to u Sonnet. Hood's Magazine, November, 1844. 
 Page 653. Epigrams. Hood's Magazine, the first two in November, and 
 the third in December, 1844. 
 
 The Sausage-Maker's Ghost. Hood's Magazine, December, 1844. 
 
 Page 655. The Lark and the Rook. Hood's Magazine, December, 1844. 
 Page 656. Suggestions by Steam. Hood's Magazine, January, 1845. 
 
 Anacreontic. Hood's Magazine, January, 1845. 
 
 Epigram. Hood's Magazine, February, 1845. 
 Page-657. Stanzas. Hood's Magazine, February, 1845. 
 
 The Surplice Question. Hood's Magazine, February, 1845. 
 
 Epigram. Hood's Magazine, March, 1845. 
 
 Ballad. From manuscript ; an incomplete version is given in some 
 earlier editions of Hood's poems. 
 
766 NOTES 
 
 Page 660. To My Dear Marianne. Now first printed. 
 \_Song.'\ Now first printed. 
 Give me a pen. Now first printed. 
 
 Page 661. [Fragment.] Now first printed. 
 
 Pages 661-699. These pieces are of unascertained dates; some of them 
 were published posthumously. 
 
 Page 664. Song. To these two stanzas Barry Cornwall (B. W. Procter) 
 added two more at Mrs. Hood's request : 
 
 ' There is care that will not leave us, 
 And pain that will not flee ; 
 But on our hearth unalter'd 
 Sits Love— 'tween you and me. 
 
 Our love it ne'er was reckon'd. 
 
 Yet good it is and true, 
 It's half the world to me, dear. 
 
 It's all the world to you.' 
 
 Page 666. Youth and Age. A rough draught of this in manuscript gives 
 several alternative beginnings : 
 
 ' Ambitious of the future,' 
 ' Forgetful of the present,' 
 ' Impatient of his blessings,'. 
 Sir John Bowring. See note to p. 54;. 
 
 Page 667. To Henrietta. Addressed to the daughter of William Harvey, 
 the artist. 
 
 Page 674. Lamia. First printed at the end of vol. i of the Autobiography 
 of William Jerdan (1852). ' 
 
 Page 700. The Bandit. Probably written about 1815-17, first printed in 
 Hood in Scotland by Alex. Elliot (1885), and reprinted here by permission. 
 Page 730. Lines to Miss F. Kemhle. See p. 450, and note to that page. 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A certain gentleman, whose 
 
 yellow cheek .... 277 
 A lake and a fairy boat . .180 
 A little fairy comes at night . 668 
 A Lord bought 6t late an out- 
 landish estate .... 656 
 A Mechanic his labour will often 
 
 discard ..... 382 
 A pair of married kangaroos . 316 
 A Poodle, Judge-like, with em- 
 phatic paw 380 
 
 A poor old king, with sorrow for 
 my crown .... 663 
 
 A pretty task. Miss S , to ask 438 
 
 A sorry tale of sorry plans. . 377 
 A spade ! a rakp ! a hoe ! . .651 
 A very pretty pjiblic stir . . 657 
 A wanderer, Wilson, from my 
 native land .... 507 
 
 After such years of dissension 
 and strife . . . .615 
 
 Ah me! those old familiar bounds 411 
 Ah me ! what causes such com- 
 plaining breath . . .425 
 Ah, sweet, thou little knowest 
 how ..... 661 
 
 Alack ! 'tis melancholy theme 
 to think . . . .60 
 
 Alas ! of all the noxious things . 268 
 Alas ! that breathing Vanity 
 should go ..... . 170 
 
 Alas ! the flames of an unhappy 
 
 lover 218 
 
 Alas, the moon should ever beam 1 86 
 AU Ben Ali (did you never read . 54 
 All you that are too fond of Wine 204 
 Alone, across a foreign plain . 372 
 Along the Woodford road there 
 
 comes a noise . . . .231 
 Amongst pirofessors of astronomy 326 
 Amongst the great inventions of 
 
 this age . . . • 377 
 
 Amongst the sights that Mrs. 
 
 Bond .1. . . .228 
 And has the earth lost its so spa- 
 cious round .... 477 
 
 PAGE 
 
 And is it thus ye welcome Peace 348 
 As human fashions change about 668 
 As I sate the other night . .549 
 As latterly I chanced to pass . 392 
 As Mister B. and Mistress B. 216 
 As sweet as the Bird that by 
 
 calm Bendemeer . . .615 
 At seven you just nick it . . 454 
 
 Before our banns be published 
 
 like a tax .... 402 
 Ben Battle was a soldier bold . 68 
 Ben Bluff was a whaler, and 
 
 many a day . . . . . 535 
 Bianca ! — fair Bianca ! — who 
 
 could dwell . . . .70 
 Bill Blossom was a . nice , young 
 
 man . . . ., . 321 
 By ev'ry sweet tradition of true 
 
 hearts . . . 194 
 
 Cables entangling her . -53 
 
 Charm'd with a drink which 
 
 Highlanders compose . .651 
 Clasp me again ! My soul is very 
 
 sad 669 
 
 Come ! a health ! and it 's not to 
 
 be slighted with sips . . 480 
 Come, all conflagrating fellows .552 
 Come all ye sable little girls and 
 
 boys . . . . . 547 
 Come all you jolly dogs, in the 
 
 Grapes, and King's Head . 213 
 
 Come, come, I am very . .418 
 Come, fill up' the Bowl, for if ever 
 
 the glass . . . . . 363 
 ' Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal 
 
 mildness come ! ' . . . 390 
 Come, let us set our careful 
 
 breasts. ..... 190 
 
 Come, messmates, attend to a 
 
 warning . . . ; 524 
 
 Come, my Crony, . let 's think 
 
 upon far-away days . .95 
 
 Come, my old hat, my steps 
 
 attend . . . • .. . 534 
 
768 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Come, pass round the pail, boys, 
 and give it no quarter . . 480 
 
 Dear Fanny ! nine long years 
 ago . ... . .364 
 
 Dear Graham, whilst the busy 
 crowd ..... I 
 
 Dear Murphy, to improve her 
 charms 233 
 
 Don't tell me of buds and blos- 
 soms ..... 449 
 
 Even is come ; and from the dark 
 Park, hark . . . .221 
 
 Fairest Lady and Noble, for once 
 
 on a time .... 384 
 Far above the hollow . . . 664 
 Fare thee well . . . -435 
 ' Farewell — Farewell ' — it is an 
 
 awful word .... 672 
 Farewell, Life ! My senses swim . 657 
 Farewell, Sir Walter Scott, 
 
 secured . . . . .453 
 Farewell then, ray golden repeater 269 
 Forget me not ! It is the cry of 
 
 clay 436 
 
 From seventy-two North latitude 234 
 Full of drink and full of meat . 626 
 
 Gin ! Gin ! a Drop of Gin ! . . 623 
 Give me a pen that 's charg'd with 
 
 dews . . . . . 660 
 Giver of glowing light . .182 
 
 Go where the waves run rather 
 
 Holborn-hilly . . . 292 
 
 Good morning, Mr. What-d'ye- 
 
 call ! Well ! here 's another . 45 1 
 Good-morrow to the golden 
 
 Morning ! . . . -435 
 
 Hail, King of Shreds and Patches, 
 
 hail . . . . .32 
 
 Hail ! seventy-four cut down ! 
 
 Hail, Top and Lop . . . 294 
 Hark, the boatswain hoarsely 
 
 bawling .... 232 
 
 He has shav'd off his whiskers 
 
 and blacken 'd his brows . , 261 
 Here, come. Master Timothy 
 
 Todd ..... 324 
 Here I'll sit down and watch ; till 
 
 his dear foot .... 674 
 
 PAGE 
 
 How bravely Autumn paints 
 
 upon the sky .... 192 
 How many sing of wars . . 9 
 How Monarchs die is easily ex- 
 
 plain'd 614 
 
 How oft in families intrudes . 473 
 How sweet thus clad, in Autumn's 
 
 mellow Tone .... 347 
 How well I remember the ninth 
 
 of November .... 207 
 Hush ! not a sound ! no whisper! ' 
 
 no demur ! . . . . 622 
 Hush I silence in School^-not a 
 
 noise ..... 284 
 
 I'm an extremely charitable man 
 
 — no coll'ar and long hair . 459 
 
 I'm fond of partridges, I'm fond 
 
 of snipes . . . . 303 
 
 I 'ra sick of gruel, and the dietetics 669 
 I'mthetightlittleBoyattheNore 282 
 I came to town a happy man . 456 
 I gaze upon a city . . . 352 
 I had a dream — the summer 
 
 beam ..... 673 
 I had a Gig-Horse, and I called 
 
 him Pleasure . . . 236 
 
 I had a vision in the summer light 444 
 I heard a gentle maiden, in the 
 
 Spring 423 
 
 I like you, Mrs. Fry ! I like your 
 
 name ..... 5 
 I like your German singers well . 355 
 I love thee — I love thee 1 . . 424 
 I really take it very kind . . 222 
 I remember, I remember . .185 
 I saw old Autumn in the misty 
 
 morn 180 
 
 I saw pale Dian, sitting by the 
 
 brink . . . . . 403 
 I sawe a Mayd sitte on a Bank . 267 
 I say, little Boy at the Nore . 281 
 I steamed from the Downs in the 
 
 Nancy . . - . . 232 
 I think it was Spring — but not 
 
 certain I am . . . .236 
 I will not have the mad Clytie . 424 
 I'll tell you a story that 's not 
 
 in Tom Moore . . . .38 
 I wish I livd a Thowsen year Ago 215 
 If I shoot any more I'll be shot . 280 
 If I should love a maiden more . 506 
 If I were used to writing verse . 391 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 769 
 
 PAGE 
 
 If kindly words could warm th' 
 
 unkindly air . . . . 660 
 If Nelson looks down on a couple 
 
 of Kva^s .... 640 
 
 If to believe that dreams were 
 
 truth 212 
 
 Immortal - Imogen, crown'd 
 
 queen above .... 404 
 Impatient of his childhood . , 666 
 ^n Brentford town, of old renown 273 
 In Bunhill Row, some years ago 449 
 In his bed, bolt upright . .518 
 In London once I lost my way . 537 
 In Middle Row, some years ago . 256 
 In raising names to noble rank . 622 
 In the dead of the night, when, 
 
 from beds that are turfy . . 240 
 In the famous old times . .356 
 Is there a bitter pang for love 
 
 removed . . . •* 663 
 Is this your faith, then, Fanny , 267 
 It can't be minced, I'm quite 
 
 convinced . . .1 . 322 
 It is a jolly Mariner . . . 646 
 It 's a shame, so it is — men can't 
 
 Let alone . . . . 21 
 It is not death, that sometime in 
 
 a sigh . . ... 194 
 It is not with a hope my feeble 
 
 praise . . . . • 1 39 
 It 's very hard ! — and so it is .227 
 It's very hard! oh, Dick, my boy 445 
 It's wery well to talk in praise . 656 
 It was a brave and jolly wight . 314 
 It was a jolly mariner .' . 66 
 It was a merry company . . loi 
 It was a young maiden went 
 
 forth to ride . . - • 52 
 It was July the First, and the 
 
 great hill of Howth . . 240 
 
 It was not in the winter . .■ 424 
 It will seem an odd whim . . 223 
 
 J[erda]n, farewell ! farewell to all 426 
 
 John Day he was the biggest man 226 
 
 John Huggins was as bold a man 198 
 John Jopes he was a builder's 
 
 clerk 485 
 
 John Trot he was as tall a lad . 170 
 Joseph ! they say thou'st left the 
 
 stage 17 
 
 Kelly, two quiet hours agone . 420 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lady, wouldst thou heiress be .182 
 Let Exeter Change lament its 
 
 change 435 
 
 Let Taylor preach, upon a morn- 
 ing breezy .... 531 
 Let us make a leap, my dear . 665 
 Like a dead man gone to his 
 
 shroud . . . . . 365 
 Little Children skip . . . 637 
 Little eyes that scarce did see , .414 
 Long Life and hard frosts to the 
 
 fortunate Prince . . . 600 
 Look how the golden ocean shines 
 
 above . . . ... 194 
 
 Look how the lark soars upward 
 
 and is gone .... 661 
 Love, dearest Lady, such as I 
 
 would speak . . . . ; 195 
 Love, I am jealous of a worthless 
 
 man 662 
 
 Love, see thy lover humbled at 
 
 thy feef . . . . 662 
 
 Love thy Mother, little one . 448 
 
 Lov'st thou not, Alice, with the 
 
 early tide .... 627 
 'Lullaby, oh, lullaby ! ' . . 484 
 
 M'Adam.hail!' •. . ' . .718 
 Mary, I believ'd you quick . . 661 
 Mary, you know I've no love- 
 nonsense . . . . 297 
 Methought — for Fancy is the 
 
 strangest gadder . . . 269 
 Methought I saw . . .183 
 Mr. Dymoke! Sir Knight ! if I, 
 
 may be so bold . ■; .'721 
 Mr. Scrub — Mr. Slop — or who- 
 ever you be . . . . 19 
 Mr. WaltoUj it 's harsh to say it, 
 
 but as a Parent . . .527 
 Most delicatie Ariel ! submissive 
 
 thing . .* ... 193 
 Mother of light ! how fairly dost 
 
 thou go . . . . . 187 
 My Bish, since fickle Fortune 's 
 
 dead ..... 422 
 My dear, do pull the bell . .275 
 My dear Lot . . .■ . 434 
 Myhairisbrown,myeyesareblue 247 
 My heart is sick with longing, 
 
 tho' I feed . . . . 623 
 My heart 's wound up just like a 
 watch 668 
 
770 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 My mother bids me bind my lieir 350 
 My mother bids me spend my 
 
 smiles . . . . ■ . 666 
 My pipe is lit, my grog is mix'd . 539 
 My temples throb, my pulses boil .669 
 
 Near 'Battle, Mr. Peter Baker .253 
 Never go to France ■ . . .'263 
 No more, no more will I resign . 364 
 No morning ever seemed so long 239 
 No popular respect will I omit . 436 
 No sun — no moon ! '. . . 364 
 Now ' the loud Crye is up, and 
 harke . . . . -So 
 
 O Andrew Fairservice^ — but I 
 
 beg pardon . . ,; . . 463 
 O Betty— T-I .beg. pardon — Fanftiy ■ 
 
 K. I ... . . .. 462 
 
 O! come, all. ye who love to hear 214 
 O come, dear Barney Isaacs, 
 
 come . . . . . . 250 
 
 O cruel One how littel dost thou 
 
 knowe ... . . . 401 
 
 O curious ;:eade!r, didst thou ne'er 320 
 O days of old, O days of Knights 277 
 O .Gretel, my Dove, my heart's' , 
 
 Trumpet- .... t 362 
 O happy,time ! — Art's early days jS 
 O heavy day ! oh day of woe ! . 348 
 O Kate ! my dear Partner, 
 
 through joy and through strife 482 
 O Lady, leave thy silken thread . 404 
 O lofty-minded, inen . ,. . 486 
 O, London is the place for all .235 
 O Love ! what art thou. Love ? 
 
 the ace of hearts . . . ' 37 
 O Lud ! O Lud 1 O Lud ! .. . 317 
 O Mary, I believ'd you true . 260 
 O, Mr. Buckingham) if I may take 466 
 O ! Patent, Pen-inyenting Per- 
 
 rian Perry . . : . .'304 
 O philanthropic men . . . 348 
 O saw ye not fair Ines . . .177 
 O .! take, young Seraph, take 
 
 thy harp .... 399 
 
 O, 'tis a touching thing to make 
 
 one weep .... 402 
 
 O Turkey ! how mild are thy 
 
 manners .... 477 
 
 O, when I was a little boy . . 448 
 O, wither'd winter Blossoms . 52 
 
 PAGE 
 
 O Worthy Mayor ! — I mean to 
 
 say Ex-Mayor ! . . . 414 
 O'er hill, and dale, and distant sea 186 
 Of all cross breeds of human 
 
 sinners . . . . . 63B 
 Of all old women hard of hearing 600 
 Of all our painsj since man was 
 
 curst . . . . .85 
 Of all the causes that induce man- 
 kind . . : . . 49J. 
 Of all the modern, schemes of Man 526 
 Of all the poor, old Tobits a- 
 
 groping' in the street ^ . 206 
 Of all the verses, grave or gay . 307 
 Of public changes, good or ill . 380 
 Of wedded bliss , : ■. - 272 
 Oh a pistol, or a knife . . -45 
 Oh ! Admiral Gam 1 dare not 
 
 mention bier , . . . -456 
 Oh Bards of old ! what sorrows 
 
 have.ye sung . . . . 13^ 
 Oh, blessed ease ! no more of 
 
 heaven I ask . . . : : - . 268 
 Oh ! cruel heart ! ere these post- ; 
 
 humous papers . . ' . 36 
 Oh ! Great Lessee ! Great 
 
 Manager ! Great Man ! . . 725 
 Oh, Mr. Cross! . . . .412 
 Oh, Mr. Gibbon ! . . .417 
 Oh, Mr. Hume, thy name . . 446 
 Oh, Mr. Mathews ! Sir ! . .57 
 Oh, Mr. Spencer ! . . -453 
 Oh ! Mr. Urban ! never must 
 
 thou lurch . . . . 723 
 Oh, Mrs. Hengler ! — Madame, — ^I 
 
 beg pardon . . . . 257 
 Oh I multifarious man . . 27 
 Oh Peace ! oh come with me and 
 
 dwell 296 
 
 Oh, pleasing, teasing, Mr. Pry . 421 
 Oh very pleasant Mr. Wrench . 419 
 Oh, very, reverend Dean and 
 
 Chapter .... 728 
 
 Oh ! well may poets make a fuss 428 
 Oh ! what 's befallen Bessy Brown 47 
 Oh ! what is that comes gliding in 230 
 Oh what shall I do for a dog ? .315 
 Oh, when I was a tiny boy . 176 
 
 Old Farmer Bull is taken sick . 377 
 Old Fictions say that Love hath 
 
 eyes 401 
 
 On Hounslow Heath — and close 
 
 beside the road . . .48 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 771 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On Margate beach, where the 
 
 sick one roams . . .45 
 On that first Saturday in May . 245 
 Once on a time — ^no matter where 655 
 One close of day — 'twas in the 
 
 •bay . . > . . '..-270 
 One day, as I was going by 1 . 22 J 
 One day — I had it from a hasty 
 
 mouth '. 63s 
 
 One day, it was before a civic ^ ■ 
 
 dinner . • . , . . 396 
 One day — no' matter for the ' 
 
 month or year . . . 383 
 One day, no matter where or ■ ■ 
 
 when ..... 614 
 One day, or night, no matter 
 
 where or when ... 325 
 One day the dreary old King of 
 
 Death 92 
 
 One more Unfortunate . . 649 
 One morn — it was the very morn 519 
 One morning ere my usual time . 312 
 One Sunday morning — service 
 
 done . . . . : . 504 
 One widow at a grave will sob . 105 
 Our hands have met, but not our 
 
 hearts 664 
 
 Our village, that's to say not 
 
 Miss Mitford's village ■ . . 263 
 Our wars are ended-r— foreign bat- 
 tles cease . ■ . , . 391 
 
 Parry, my man ! has thy brave 
 
 leg . . . . ■ . 24 
 
 Passing my brow, and passing 
 
 my eyes 642 
 
 Pity the sorrows of a class of men 550 
 Play on, ye timid Rabbits . .212 
 Pshaw ! away with leaf and 
 
 berry . . . . 615 
 
 Pure water it plays a good part in 243 
 
 Rare Composition of a Poet- 
 Knight 652 
 
 Rat-tat it went upon the lion's 
 chin 259 
 
 Run ! — run for St. Clement's 
 engine 103 
 
 Said Nestor, to his pretty wife, 
 quite sorrowful one day . ■ S' 
 
 Says Blue-and-Buff, to Drab- 
 and-Pink . . . -649 
 
 PAGE 
 
 See here two cavillers . .431 
 Shall I rebuke thee. Ocean, my 
 
 old love .... 476 
 
 She 's up and gone, the graceless 
 
 Girl . . . . .184 
 She stood breast high amid the 
 
 com . ' . .it . . :83 
 She was a woman peerless in her 
 
 station . . • ' . ■. . 192 
 Shoveoffthere ! — ship the rudder, 
 
 Bill-i-castofi! she sunder way!' 297 
 Sigh on, sad heart, for Love's ' 
 
 eclipse .1 . ' . ' . ' . 185 
 Sir, let me just your tasteful eye 
 
 enveigle . . ' . . 644 
 
 Sleet ! and hail ! and thunder ! 395 
 So Mr. v., — no Vigors — I beg 
 
 pardon ; . . . . 441 
 Some dreams we have are nothing 
 
 else but dreams . . . 629 
 Some sigh for this and that .458 
 Somewhere in Leather Lane . 653 
 Spring it is cheery . . .182 
 Still glides the gentle streamlet 
 
 on . . ' . . .' 213 
 
 Sueh strictures as these . . 365 
 Summer 's gone and over . . 392 
 Summer is gone on swallows' 
 
 wings 178 
 
 Sure the measure is strange . 65 3 
 Surely the mornin' Cupid was 
 
 born in . . . - ■ . . 206 
 Surely, those sages err who 
 
 teach 38 
 
 That flesh is grass is now as clear 
 as day 222 
 
 That Picture-Raffles will ■ con- 
 duce to nourish . . . 372 
 
 The Autumn is old ' . . . 190 
 
 The Autumn skies are flush'd 
 with gold . . . . 183 
 
 The by-gone September . . 543 
 
 The cold transparent ham is on 
 my fork . . . .' . 274 
 
 The Curfew tolls the knell of part- 
 ing day . . . . . 532 
 
 The curse of Adam, the old curse 
 of all . . . . . 195 
 
 The Dawn is overcast, the morn- 
 ing low'rs . . . . 282 
 
 The day is bright, the wind is 
 light . . ... .205 
 
772 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 are to their 
 
 PAGE 
 
 silent 
 
 190 
 
 The .dead 
 
 graves . . 
 The doubtful sneeze! a failure 
 
 quite . . '. • ; • 404 
 The Germans for Learning enjoy 
 
 great repute . . . . 614 
 The history of human-kind to 
 
 trace . : . . . .3/3 
 ' The Inconstant is come ! .' .551 
 
 The lady lay in her bed . , 641 
 The man that pays his pence, and 
 
 goes .35 
 
 The .March of Mind upon its 
 
 mighty stilts ... . , . 299 
 The Moon, — who does not love 
 
 the silver moon . . .. 328 
 The Moor leans on his cushion 1 644 
 Theraorningskyishungwithmist 479 
 The old Catholic City was still . 354 
 The poor dear . dead . have been 
 
 laid out in vain .; . ; .223 
 The sky is glowing ia one ruddy , 
 
 sheet .... . . . 320 
 
 The stars are with the voyager . 187 
 The Summer — the Summer . 660 
 The sun was slumbering in the 
 
 West . . . i , ,-483 
 The swallow with summer . .186 
 The world is with me, and its 
 
 many cares . . . . 372 
 There 's a murmur in the air , 648 
 There 's a music aloft in the air. 635 
 There is a silence where hath 
 
 been no sound . . . 196 
 
 There is dew for the flow'ret . 664 
 There is nothing but plague in 
 
 this house 460 
 
 There's some is born with their 
 
 straight legs by natur ■■■•''•. . 96 
 There once was a Doctor . >• 548 
 There was a Fairy lived in a well 657 
 They may talk of the plugging 
 
 and sweating . , . . 395 
 They say, God wot . ; . 435 
 Thine eyelids slept so beauteously, 
 
 I deem'd .; . . o . . 403 
 Think, sweetest, if my lids are 
 
 not now wet . . . . 476 
 This picture very plainly shows 449 
 Those Evening Bells, those 
 
 Evening Bells . . . 346 
 
 ' Those Evening Bells — those 
 
 Evening Bells ! ' . . . 389 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thoseeyesthatweresobright,love 665 
 Those who much read advertise- 
 
 .mentsand bills . . . 309 
 Thou art come back again to the 
 
 stage . . . . i 33 
 Thou Greajt Unknown . .11 
 Thou. happy, happy elf ! . .483 
 Three traitors, Oxford — Francis 
 
 ,. — Bean ^' . .398 
 
 Tim Turpin he was gravdi blind ■ 87 
 Time was,. I always had a. drop . 321 
 Time was I' liked a cheesecake 
 
 well enough . . ■ . . 440 
 Time was, I sat upon a lofty stool 303 
 Tis awful to behold the midnight 
 
 stars . ... . 672 
 'Tis even— on the pleasant banks 
 
 of Shine 354 
 
 'Tis known to man, 'tis known to 
 
 woman . . . . . -. 489 
 'Tis night — my bark is on the 
 
 ocean . ■. . . .615 
 'Tis pleasant, vrhea we've absent - 
 
 friends . . . . . . 347 
 
 'Tis said of Lord B., none is 
 
 keener than he . . . 657 
 'Tis strange how like a verydunce 93 
 'Tis strange, what awkward 
 
 figures and odd capers . .89 
 'Tis very hard when men forsake 98 
 ToBowring,manof manytongues 666 
 To note the symptoms of the 
 
 times ... .. . . 673 
 
 To trace the Kilmansegg pedigree 563 
 To Waterloo, with sad aido . . 279 
 To-day it is my natal day , . 243 
 Today it is my natal day . . 622 
 Tom! are you still within this land 429 
 Tom Simpson was as nice a kind 
 
 of man . . . . -. 553 
 Too small for any marketable 
 
 shift 651 
 
 Trembling, as Father Adam 
 
 stood ..... -,525 
 Trim, thou art right ! — 'Tis sure 
 
 that I 
 
 433 
 
 'Twas August — Hastings every 
 
 day was filling . . . 287 
 'Twas in a shady Avenue . . 616 
 'Twas in that mellow season of 
 
 the year 1 1 1 
 
 'Twas in that memorable year . 104 
 'Twas in the middle of the night 77 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 773 
 
 PAGE 
 
 'Twasintheprimeof summertime 209 
 'Twas in the reign of Lewis, call'd 
 
 the Great . . . .79 
 'Twas in the wilds of Lebanon, 
 
 amongst its barren hills . . 499 
 'Twas in the year two thousand 
 
 and one , . , '41 
 
 'Twas night — the Globe was 
 
 folded up ... . 643 
 'Twas off the Wash — the sun 
 
 went down — the sea . .83 
 'Twas twelve o'clock by Chelsea 
 
 chimes ..... 285 
 'Twas twelve o'clock, not twelve 
 
 at night 558 
 
 Two swains or clowns — but call 
 
 them swains .... 294 
 
 Unfathomable Night ! how dost 
 thou sweep .... 402 
 
 Veil ! Here I am — no Matter how 
 it suits ... . 529 
 
 We did not wear a leafy crown . 665 
 We've heard of comets, blazing 
 
 things 653 
 
 We met — 'twas in a mob — and I 
 
 thought he had done me . 262 
 
 We watch'd her breathing thro' 
 
 the night .... 444 
 
 Welcome, dear Heart, and a 
 
 most kind good -morrow . .189 
 Welcome to Freedom's birth- 
 place — and a den . . .108 
 Well, Doctor . . . .492 
 Well done and wetly, thou Fair 
 
 Maid of Perth . . .293 
 
 Well hast thou cried, departed 
 
 Burke 4^7 
 
 Well, I confess, I did not guess . 238 
 Well ! I think it is time to put up 242 
 Well! — Monsieur Brunei . .217 
 Well, something must be done 
 
 for May 443 
 
 Well! thanks be to Heaven .533 
 Well, the country's a pleasant 
 
 place, sure enough . . 540 
 
 Well — this flower - strewing I 
 
 must say is sweet . . . 73° 
 Whatever Doctor Robert's skill 
 
 be worth . . • -651 
 
 PAGE 
 
 What is a mine — a treasury — a 
 
 dower 438 
 
 What 's life but full of care and 
 
 doubt ..... 295 
 What little urchin is there never 439 
 What ! shut the Gardens ! lock 
 
 the lattic'd gate ! . . . 560 
 When Eve upon the first of Men 614 
 When I reflect, with serious sense 296 
 When I resign this world so briary 223 
 When little people go abroad, 
 
 wherever they may roam . 667 
 When woman is in rags, and poor 656 
 When would-be Suicides in pur- 
 pose fail . . . .653 
 While the red glaring torches 
 
 illumine the cave . . . 700 
 Who does not know that dread- 
 ful gulf, where Niagara falls . 230 
 Who hath ever been lured and 
 
 bound by a spell . . . 161 
 Who ruined me ere I was born . 233 
 Whoe'er has crossed the Mosel 
 
 Bridge 360 
 
 Whoe'er has gone thro' London 
 
 Street 102 
 
 Whoever has looked upon Wel- 
 lington's breast . . .651 
 Whoe'er has seen upon the human 
 
 face 265 
 
 ' Why did you not dine,' said a 
 
 Lord to a Wit . . .384 
 
 Why, Gog, I say, it 's after One . 205 
 Why, Love, why . . . 436 
 
 Why, Mr. Rider, why . . . 349 
 Why, Tourist, why . . . 614 
 With dew upon its breast . . 672 
 With fingers weary and worn . 625 
 With the good of our country 
 before us . . . . 664 
 
 Ye Muses nine inspire . . 400 
 
 Ye Tourists and Travellers, 
 
 bound to the Rhine . -353 
 
 Yes, there are her features I her 
 
 brow, and her hair . . . 395 
 Yes, yes, it 's very true and very 
 
 clear 640 
 
 Young ardent soul, graced with 
 
 fair Nature's truth . . 193 
 
 Young Ben he was a nice young 
 
 man . . . . -44 
 
OXFORD : HORACE HART 
 PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY