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 RSAAC foot] 
 I LIBRARY I
 
 POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS HOOD, 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXLVI.
 
 LONDON: 
 ERADBVBT AND EVANS, PBINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
 ^, ^ lUSIVERSli i 01 CALIFORNU 
 
 u. / 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 This collection of Mr. Hood's serious Poems is 
 made in fulfilment of liis own desire. It was among 
 his last instructions to those who were dearest to 
 him. 
 
 If its reception should justify the earnest hope 
 which the writer had allowed himself to entertain, 
 it will be followed by a volume composed of the 
 more thoughtful pieces in his Poems of wit and 
 humour. 
 
 It is believed that the most sacred duty which 
 his friends owed to his memory will thus have been 
 discharged ; and that in any future recital of the 
 names of writers who have contributed to the stock
 
 of genuine English Poetry, Thomas Hood will find 
 honourable mention. 
 
 Some minor pieces printed for the first time are 
 placed at the commencement of the Second Volume. 
 
 December, 1845.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME THE FIRST. 
 
 PAGE 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM ..... 1 
 
 THE ELM tree: A DREAM IN THE WOODS . . . . 14 
 
 PART II 23 
 
 PART III 32 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. A ROMANCE . . . .41 
 
 • PART II. . . . . . . 49 
 
 PART III ..... 56 
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS . . . . . . . 64 
 
 THE SONG OP THE SHIRT ...... 70 
 
 THE lady's dream . 75 
 
 THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. AN ALLEGORY . . .81 
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE ..... 87 
 
 THE TWO SWANS. A FAIRY TALE . . . . . 113 
 
 ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY . 129 
 
 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. A GOLDEN 
 
 LEGEND 136
 
 POEMS. 
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 'TwAS in tlie prime of summer time, 
 
 An evening calm and cool, 
 And four-and-twenty happy boys 
 
 Came bomiding out of school : 
 There were some that ran and some that leapt, 
 
 Like troutlets in a pool. 
 
 Away they sped with gamesome minds. 
 
 And souls untouched by sin ; 
 To a level mead they came, and there 
 
 They drave the wickets in : 
 Pleasantly shone the setting sun 
 
 Over the town of Lynn.
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 I^kc sportive deer tliey com-s'd about, 
 And shouted as they ran, — 
 
 Turning to mirth all things of earth. 
 As only boyhood can ; 
 
 But the Usher sat remote from aU, 
 A melancholy man ! 
 
 His hat was off, his vest apart. 
 
 To catch heaven's blessed breeze ; 
 
 For a biu'ning thought was in his brow, 
 And his bosom ill at ease : 
 
 So he Ican'd his head on his hands, and read 
 The book between his knees ! 
 
 Leaf after leaf he tm-n'd it o'er. 
 
 Nor ever glane'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.
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGEXE ARAM. 
 
 At last he shut the ponderous tome, 
 With a fast and fervent grasp 
 
 He strain'd the dusky covers close, 
 And fix'd the hrazen hasp : 
 
 " Oh, God ! coidd I so close my mind. 
 And clasp it with a clasp ! " 
 
 Then leaping on his feet upright. 
 Some moody tm-ns he took, — 
 
 Now up the mead, then down the mead. 
 And past a shady nook, — 
 
 And, lo ! he saw a httle hoy 
 That pored upon a book I 
 
 " My gentle lad, what is 't you read — 
 Romance or fairy fahle ? ' 
 
 Or is it some historic page, 
 
 Of kings and crowns unstable ? ' ' 
 
 The young boy gave an upward glance,- 
 "Itis 'The Death of Abel,'" 
 b2
 
 TIIE DREAM OF EUGENE AKAM. 
 
 The Usher took six hasty strides, 
 As smit with sudden pain, — 
 
 Six hasty strides beyond the place. 
 Then slowly back again ; 
 
 And down he sat beside tlie lad. 
 And talk'd with liim of Cain ; 
 
 And, long since tben, of bloody men, 
 Wliose deeds tradition saves ; 
 
 Of lonely folk cut off unseen. 
 And bid in sudden graves ; 
 
 Of homd stabs, in groves forlorn. 
 And murders done in caves ; 
 
 And how the sprites of injur'd men 
 Shriek upward from the sod, — 
 
 Aye, how the ghostly hand will point 
 To shew the bmial clod ; 
 
 And imknown facts of guilty acts 
 Are seen in di'eams from God !
 
 THE DREAM OP EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 He told liow murderers walk the earth 
 Beneath the curse of Cain, — 
 
 With crimson clouds before their eyes, 
 And flames about their brain : 
 
 For blood has left upon their souls 
 Its everlastine- stain ! 
 
 '* And well," quoth he, " I know, for truth, 
 Their pangs must be extreme, — 
 
 Woe, woe, unutterable woe, — 
 
 Who spiU hfe'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 ; 
 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 aold !
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " Two sudden blows with a ragged stick, 
 And one with a heavy stone, 
 
 One hiu'ried gash with a hasty knife, — 
 And then the deed was done : 
 
 There was nothing lying at my foot 
 But hfeless flesh and bone ! 
 
 " Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, 
 That could not do me iU ; 
 
 And yet I fear'd him all the more, 
 For lying there so still : 
 
 There was a manhood in his look, 
 That mm-der could not kill ! 
 
 " And, lo ! the universal air 
 
 Seem'd ht with ghastly flame ; — 
 Ten thousand thousand di'eadful eyes 
 
 Were looking down in blame : 
 I took the dead man by his hand, 
 
 And caU'd upon his name !
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 '■ Oh, God ! it made me quake to see 
 Such sense within the slain ! 
 
 But when I touch 'd the hfeless cla}-, 
 The hlood gushed out amain ! 
 
 For every clot, a burning s2)ot 
 Was scorching in my brain ! 
 
 " My head was like an ardent coal, 
 
 My heart as sohd ice ; 
 My wretched, wretched soid, I knew. 
 
 Was at the Devil's price : 
 A dozen times I groan 'd ; the dead 
 
 Had never g-roau'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 ! '
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM, 
 
 " I took the dreary botlj 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 di-eam ! 
 
 " 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, 
 And sat among the urchins young, 
 
 That evening in the school. 
 
 " Oh, Heaven ! to think of their white soiUs, 
 And mine so black and grim ! 
 
 I coiild not share in childish prayer. 
 Nor join in Evening Hymn : 
 
 Like a Devil of the Pit I seem'd, 
 ' Mid holy Cherubim !
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE AIIAM. 
 
 " And peace went with them, one and all, 
 And each calm pillow spread ; 
 
 But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain 
 That hghted me to bed ; 
 
 And di-ew my midnight cm-tains roimd. 
 With fingers bloody red ! 
 
 " 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 ! 
 
 " AU night I lay in agony, 
 
 From weary chime to chime, 
 
 With one besetting horrid hint. 
 That rack'd me aU the time ; 
 
 A mighty yearning, like the first 
 Fierce impvdse unto crime !
 
 10 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " One stem tyrannic tliouglit, tliat made 
 All other thoughts its slave ; 
 
 Stronger and stronger every pulse 
 Did that temptation crave, — 
 
 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 hlack accm-sed pool 
 With a wild misgiving eye ; 
 
 And I saw the Dead in the river hed, 
 For the faithless stream was dry ! 
 
 " Merrily rose the lark, and shook 
 The dew-drop from its wing ; 
 
 But I never mark'd its morning flight, 
 I never heard it sing : 
 
 For I was stooping once again 
 Under the horrid thing.
 
 TIIE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. Jl 
 
 " With breathless speed, like a soiil in chase, 
 
 I took him up aud rau ; — 
 There was no time to dig a grave 
 
 Before the day began : 
 In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, 
 
 I hid the mm-der'd man ! 
 
 " And all that day I read in school. 
 But my thought was other where ; 
 
 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 my face. 
 And first began to weep. 
 
 For I knew my secret then was one 
 That earth refused to keep : 
 
 Or land or sea, though he shoidd bo 
 Ten thousand fathoms deep.
 
 12 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 " So wills the fierce avenging Sprite, 
 Till blood for blood atones I 
 
 Ay, tbough he 's buried in a cave, 
 And trodden down with stones, 
 
 And years have rotted ofi" his flesh, — 
 The world shall see his bones ! 
 
 " Oh, God ! that honid, horrid di-eam 
 
 Besets me now awake ! 
 Again^ — again, with dizzy brain. 
 
 The human Ufe I take ; 
 And my red right hand grows raging hot, 
 
 Like Cranmer's at the stake. 
 
 " And still no peace for the restless clay, 
 WiU wave or mould allow ; 
 
 The horrid thing pm-sues my soid, — 
 It stands before me now !" 
 
 The fearful Boy look'd up, and saw 
 Huge drops upon his broAv.
 
 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 13 
 
 That very night, while gentle sleep 
 
 The m-cliin eyehds kiss'd, 
 Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, 
 
 Thi-ough the cold and heavy mist ; 
 And Eugene Aram walked between, 
 
 With gyves upon his wrist.
 
 THE ELM TREE 
 
 A DREAJI IN" THE WOODS. 
 
 AnA this our life, exempt from public liaunt. 
 
 Finds tongues in trees. . ~.~ -r 
 
 As \ on Like It. 
 
 'TwAS in a shady Avenue, 
 Where lofty Ehns abound — 
 And from a Tree 
 There came to me 
 A sad and solemn sound, 
 That sometimes murmur 'd overhead. 
 And sometimes undergroimd. 
 
 Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh, 
 Amid the houghs to moan ; 
 
 It mutter 'd in the stem, and then 
 The roots took up the tone ; 
 
 As if beneath the dewy grass 
 The dead began to groan.
 
 THE ELM TREE. 15 
 
 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, 
 
 To rustle with its wing ; 
 No squiiTcl, in its sport or fear, 
 From bough to bough to spring ; 
 The solid bole 
 Had ne'er a hole 
 To hide a Hving thing ! 
 
 No scooping hollow cell to lodge 
 A furtive beast or fowl. 
 The martin, bat. 
 Or forest cat 
 That nightly loves to prowl. 
 Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud 
 The moping, snoring owl.
 
 16 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 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. 
 
 hath the Dryad still a tongue 
 In this ungenial clime ? 
 
 Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice 
 As in the classic prime — 
 
 To make the forest voluble. 
 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 Nympb is dumb — 
 From ash, and beech, and aged oak, 
 
 No classic whispers come.
 
 THE ELM TREE. 17 
 
 From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch, 
 And fragrant Linden Trees ; 
 No living soimd 
 E 'er hovers round, 
 Unless the vagrant breeze, 
 The music of the men-y bird, 
 Or hum of busy bees. 
 
 But busy bees forsake the Elm 
 
 That bears no bloom aloft — 
 The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush. 
 
 The Blackbird in the croft ; 
 And among the firs the brooding Dove, 
 
 That else might miu-mur soft. 
 
 Yet still I heard that solemn sound, 
 
 And sad it was to boot, 
 From ev'ry overhanging bough, 
 
 And each minuter shoot ; 
 From the rugged trunk and mossy rind 
 
 And from the twisted root.
 
 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 From these, — a melancholy moan : 
 From those, — a dreary sigh ; 
 
 As if the boughs wei'e wintry hare, 
 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 zephyi- had not breath enough 
 The thistle-down to swerve. 
 
 Or force the filmy gossamers 
 To take another curve. 
 
 In stUI and silent slumber hush'd 
 
 All 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 !
 
 TIIB ELM TREE. 19 
 
 A hollow, hollow, hollow sound. 
 
 As is that dreamy roar 
 When distant hillows hoil 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 tiunult of the beach. 
 However they might foam and fret. 
 
 The bounded sense could reach — 
 Methought the trees in mystic tongue 
 
 Were talking each to each ! — 
 
 Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales 
 Of greenwood love or guilt, 
 Of whisper 'd vows 
 Beneath their boughs ; 
 Or blood obscm-ely spilt ; 
 Or of that near-hand Mansion House 
 A Royal Tudor built. 
 c2
 
 20 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 Perchance, of booty won or shared 
 Beneath the starry cope — 
 
 Or where the suicidal wretch 
 Hung up the fatal rope ; 
 
 Or Beauty kept an evil tryste, 
 Insnared by Love and Hope. 
 
 Of graves, perchance, untimely scoop'd 
 
 At midnight dark and dank — 
 And what is imderneath the sod 
 Wliereon the grass is rank — 
 Of old intrigues, 
 And privy leagues. 
 Tradition leaves in blank. 
 
 Of traitor hps that mutter'd plots — 
 Of Kin who fought and fell — 
 
 God knows the imdiscover'd schemes. 
 The arts and acts of HeU, 
 
 Perfoi-m'd long generations since. 
 If trees had tongues to tell I
 
 THE ELM TREE. 21 
 
 With wary eyes, and ears alert, 
 
 As one who walks afraid, 
 I wander 'd down the dappled path 
 
 Of mingled hght and shade — 
 How sweetly gleam '3 that arch of hlue 
 
 Beyond the green arcade ! 
 
 How eheerly shone the glimpse of Heav'n 
 
 Beyond that verdant aisle ! 
 All overarch'd with lofty elms, 
 
 That quench 'd the Ught, the while. 
 As dim and chill 
 As serves to fill 
 Some old Cathedral pile I 
 
 And many a gnarled trunk was there, 
 
 That ages long had stood, 
 Tdl Time had wrought them into shapes 
 
 Like Pan's fantastic hrood ; 
 Or still more foid and hideous forms 
 
 That Pagans carve in wood !
 
 TIIE ELM TREE. 
 
 A crouching Satjr lurking here — 
 And there a Goblin grim — 
 
 As staring fuU of demon life 
 As Gothic sculptor's whim — 
 
 A marvel it had scarcely been 
 To hear a voice from him ! 
 
 Some whisper from that horrid mouth 
 Of strange, uneartUy tone ; 
 
 Or wild infernal laugh, to chiU 
 One's marrow in the bone. 
 
 But no it grins Hke rigid Death, 
 
 And sUent as a stone ! 
 
 As silent as its fellows be, 
 
 For all is mute with them — 
 The branch that chmbs the leafy roof- 
 The rough and mossy stem — 
 The crooked root, 
 And tender shoot. 
 Where hangs the dewy gem.
 
 THE ELM TREE. 23 
 
 One mystic Tree alone there is, 
 Of sad and solemn sound — 
 
 That sometimes mm-mm-s ovei'head, 
 And sometimes underground — 
 
 In all that shady Avenue, 
 Wliere lofty Elms abound. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Scene is changed ! No green Arcade- 
 No Trees all ranged a-row — 
 
 But scatter'd hke a heaten 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 spoU, 
 Hard by its wooden stump, whereon 
 
 The adder loves to coil.
 
 24 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 Alone he works — his ringing blows 
 Have banish 'd bird and beast ; 
 
 The Hind and Fawn have canter 'd off 
 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 ; 
 
 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 
 Re-echo many a rood.
 
 THE ELM TREE. 25 
 
 His axe is keen, his arm is strong ; 
 
 The muscles serve him well ; 
 His years have reach 'd an extra span, 
 
 The numher none can teU ; 
 But stiU his Ufelong task has been 
 
 The Timber Tree to fell. 
 
 Through Simimer's parching sultriness, 
 And Winter's freezing cold, 
 From sapling youth 
 To virile growth, 
 And Age's rigid mould, 
 His energetic axe hath rung 
 Within that Forest old. 
 
 Aloft, upon his poising steel 
 The vivid sunbeams glance — 
 
 About his head and round his feet 
 The forest shadows dance ; 
 
 And boimding from his russet coat 
 The acorn drops askance.
 
 TIIE ELM TREE. 
 
 His face is like a Dniid's face, 
 
 With wrinkles furrow 'd deep, 
 And tann'd by scorching suns as brown 
 
 As com that's ripe to reap ; 
 But the hair on brow, and cheek, and chin, 
 
 Is white as wool of sheep. 
 
 His frame is hke a giant's frame ; 
 
 His legs are long and stark ; 
 His arms like hmbs of knotted yew ; 
 His hands like rugged bark ; 
 So he felleth still 
 With right good wiU, 
 As if to build an Ark ! 
 
 Oh ! well within His fatal path 
 The fearful Tree might quake 
 Thi'ough every fibre, twig, and leaf. 
 With aspen tremour shake ; 
 
 Through trunk and root. 
 And branch and shoot, 
 A low complaining make !
 
 THE ELM TREE. 27 
 
 Oh ! well to Eim the Tree might breathe 
 
 A sad and solemn somid, 
 A sigh that mnrmm-'d overhead. 
 
 And groans from underground ; 
 As in that shady Avenue 
 
 Where lofty Elms abound ! 
 
 But cahn and mute the Maple stands. 
 The Plane, the Ash, the Fir, 
 
 The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch, 
 Without the least demur ; 
 
 And e'en the Aspen's hoary leaf 
 Makes no unusual stir. 
 
 The Pines — those old gigantic Pines, 
 That writhe — recalling soon 
 
 The famous Human Group that writhes 
 With Snakes in wild festoon — 
 
 In ramous wresthngs interlaced 
 A Forest Laocoou —
 
 28 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 Like Titans of primeval girth 
 
 By tortures overcome, 
 Their hrown enormous limhs they twine 
 
 Bedew 'd with tears of gum — 
 Fierce agonies that ought to yell, 
 
 But, hke the marhle, dumh. 
 
 Nay, yonder Wasted Elm that stands 
 
 So like a man of sin, 
 Who, frantic, flings his arms ahroad 
 
 To feel the Wonn within — 
 For aU that gesture, so intense, 
 
 It makes no sort of diu ! 
 
 An imiversal silence reigns 
 
 In rugged bark or peel, 
 Except that very trunk which rings 
 
 Beneath the biting steel — 
 Meanwhile the Woodman phes his axe 
 
 With unrelenting zeal !
 
 THE ELM TREE. ' 29 
 
 No rustic song is on liis tongue, 
 
 No whistle on his hps ; 
 But with a quiet thoughtfuhiess 
 
 His trusty tool he grips, 
 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 crash. 
 And on the dull resounding turf 
 
 The jarring branches lash ! 
 
 Oh ! now the Forest Trees may sigh. 
 
 The Ash, the Poplar taU, 
 
 The Elm, the Birch, the drooping Beech, 
 
 The Aspens — one and all, 
 
 With solemn groan 
 
 And hollow moan 
 
 Lament a comrade's fall !
 
 30 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 A goodly Elm, of noble girtli, 
 That, thrice the human span — 
 
 While on their variegated com-se 
 The constant Seasons ran — 
 
 Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt. 
 Had stood erect as Man. 
 
 But now, Hke mortal Man hunself, 
 Struck down by hand of God, 
 
 Or heathen Idol tumbled prone 
 Beneath th' Eternal's nod, 
 
 In all its giant bulk and length 
 It Ues alone: the sod ! — 
 
 Ay, now the Forest Trees may grieve 
 And make a common moan 
 
 Around that patriarchal trunk 
 So newly overthrown ; 
 
 And with a murmur recognise 
 A doom to be their own !
 
 THE ELM TREE. 31 
 
 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. 
 
 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 mm-mitrs overhead. 
 And sometimes imderground ; 
 
 As in that shady Avenue, 
 Where lofty Ehns abound !
 
 32 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 PART 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 
 Secm-ely hunts the worm. 
 
 The Cony from the sandy hank 
 
 Has run a rapid race, 
 Through thistle, hent, and tangled fern, 
 
 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 hough 
 The Ousel whistles clear ; 
 But checks the note 
 Within his throat, 
 As choked with sudden fear !
 
 THE ELM TREE. 33 
 
 Witli 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 ; 
 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 hmnan Terror thrills with cold. 
 
 And draws a shorter breath — 
 An miiversal panic owns 
 
 The di-ead approach of DEATH !
 
 34 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 With silent pace, as shadows come. 
 And dark as shadows be. 
 
 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, 
 Wliere mirth is void and niill, 
 
 As hollow as its echo sovmds 
 Within the hollow skull — 
 
 " Whoever laid this tree along 
 His hatchet was not dull ! 
 
 " The hmuan ann 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 !
 
 THE ELM TREE. 35 
 
 " No passive unregarded tree, 
 
 A senseless tting of wood, 
 Wherein the sluggish sap ascends 
 
 To swell the vernal bud — 
 But conscious, moving, breathing trunks 
 
 That throb with hvins: 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 jewell'd crown. 
 
 " Ah ! little recks the Royal mind. 
 
 Within his Banquet Hall, 
 While tapers shine and Music breathes 
 
 And Beauty leads the Ball, — 
 He httle recks the oaken plank 
 
 Shall be his palace wall ! 
 d2
 
 36 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 " Ah, little dreams the haughty Peer, 
 The while his Falcon flies — 
 
 Or on the hlood-hedahhled turf 
 The antler'd quarry dies — 
 
 That in his ovm ancestral Park 
 The narrow dwelling hes I 
 
 " But haughty Peer and mighty King 
 One doom shaU 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 ! 
 
 " 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 !
 
 THE ELM TREE. 37 
 
 " Yea, this reciimbent rugged trunk, 
 
 That hes so long and prone, 
 With many a fallen acorn-cup. 
 
 And mast, and firry cone — 
 This rugged trunk shaU hold its share 
 
 Of mortal flesh and hone ! 
 
 " A Miser hoarding heaps of gold, 
 But pale with ague-fears — 
 
 A Wife lamenting love's decay, 
 With secret cruel tears, 
 
 DistiUing bitter, bitter drops 
 From sweets of foraier years — 
 
 " A Man within whose gloomy mind, 
 
 Offence had darkly^ sunk. 
 Who out of fierce Revenge's cup 
 
 Hath madly, darkly drunk — 
 Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep 
 
 Within this very trunk I
 
 38 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 " This massy trunk that Ues 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 ! 
 
 " The taU 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 weU th' abounding Elm may grow 
 
 In field and hedge so rife. 
 In forest, copse, and wooded park, 
 
 And mid the city's strife, 
 For, every hour that passes by. 
 
 Shall end a hiunan life ! "
 
 THE ELM TREE. 3.9 
 
 The Phantom euds : 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 ; 
 
 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 stiU 
 
 The Shadow leaves a shade.
 
 40 THE ELM TREE. 
 
 A secret, vague, prophetic gloom, 
 As though by certain mark 
 
 I knew the fore-appointed Tree, 
 Within whose rugged bark 
 
 This wami and living frame shall find 
 Its narrow house and dark. 
 
 That mystic Tree which breathed to me 
 
 A sad and solemn sound, 
 That sometimes murmur 'd overhead 
 
 And sometimes underground ; 
 Within that shady Avenue 
 
 Where lofty Ehns abound.
 
 THE hau:n^ted house. 
 
 A ROMANCE. 
 
 ' A jiilly place," said he, "in times of old ! 
 But sometliing ails it now : the place is curst." 
 
 IIabt-leap Well, bv Wordsworth. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Some dreams we have are nothing else but di'eams, 
 Unnatural, and full of contradictious ; 
 Yet others of oiu- most romantic schemes 
 Are somethino- more than fictions. 
 
 It might be only on enchanted ground ; 
 
 It might be merely by a thought's expansion ; 
 
 But in the spirit, or the flesh, I found 
 
 An old deserted Mansion.
 
 42 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 A residence for woman, cliild, and man, 
 A dwelling place, — and yet no habitation ; 
 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 criunbled 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 demurely dozing on the wall — 
 Not one domestic feature. 
 
 No hvunan figm*e stirr'd, to go or come, 
 No face look'd forth from shut or open casement ; 
 No chimney smoked — there was no sign of Home 
 From parapet to basement.
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 43 
 
 With shatter 'd panes the grassy court was starr'd ; 
 The time-worn coping-stone had timibled after ; 
 And through the ragged roof the sky shone, harr'd 
 With naked beam and rafter. 
 
 'er all there hung a shadow and a fear ; 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is Haunted ! 
 
 • 
 
 The flow'r grew wild and rankly as the weed, 
 Roses with thistles struggled for espial. 
 And vagrant plants of parasitic breed 
 Had ovorairown 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 stao-nant desolation.
 
 44 THE HAUNTED HOUSE, 
 
 The wren had built within the Porch, she found 
 Its quiet lonehness so sure and thorough ; 
 And on the lawn, — within its turfy moimd, — 
 The rabbit made his burrow. 
 
 The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted through 
 
 The shrubby clumps, and frisk'd, and sat, and vanish'd, 
 
 But leisurely and bold, as if he knew 
 
 His enemy was banish'd. 
 
 The wary crow, — the pheasant from the woods- 
 Lull'd by the still and everlasting sameness, 
 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 afi"righted ; 
 And in the weedy moat the heron, fond 
 Of soUtude, ahghted.
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 45 
 
 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. 
 
 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 himian 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 marked the damp and mossy gravel, 
 Each walk as green as is the mantled pool. 
 For want of human travel.
 
 46 TlIE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 The vine unprun'd, and the neglected peach, 
 
 Droop 'd fi'om the wall with which they used to grapple 
 
 And on the canker 'd tree, in easy reach, 
 
 Rotted the golden apple. 
 
 But awfully the truant shimn'd the ground. 
 The vagrant kept aloof, and daring Poacher ; 
 In spite of gaps that through the fences round 
 Invited the encroacher. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 The pear 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 HAUNTED HOUSE. 47 
 
 The marigold amidst the nettles blew, 
 
 The gom"d embraced the rose bush in its ramble, 
 
 The thistle and the stock together grew, 
 
 The holly-hock and bramble. 
 
 The bear-bine with the hlac interlac'd, 
 
 The stm-dy bm'-dock choked its slender neighbour, 
 
 The spicy pink. AU tokens were efiac'd 
 
 Of human care and labour. 
 
 The very yew Foi-mahty had train 'd 
 To such a rigid pyramidal stature. 
 For want of trimming had almost regain "d 
 The raggedness of nature. 
 
 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.
 
 48 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 The Statue, fallen from its marble base, 
 Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage rotten, 
 Lay like the Idol of some by-gone race. 
 Its name and rites forffotten. 
 
 On ev'ry side the aspect was the same, 
 AU ruin'd, desolate, forlorn, and savage: 
 No hand or foot within the precinct came 
 To rectify or ravage. 
 
 For over aU there hung a cloud of fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit damited, 
 And said as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is Haunted !
 
 PART II. 
 
 0, VERY gloomy is tlie House of Woe, 
 Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling. 
 With aU the dark solemnities wliich show 
 That Death is in the dwelling I 
 
 very, very di-eary is the room 
 Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles, 
 But smitten by the common stroke of doom. 
 The Coi-pse lies on the trestles ! 
 
 But House of Woe, and hearse, and sable pall. 
 The narrow home of the departed mortal, 
 Ne'er look'd so gloomy as that Ghostly Hall, 
 With its deserted portal ! 
 
 The centipede along the threshold crept, 
 The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle. 
 And in its ^vinding-sheet the maggot slept. 
 At every nook and angle. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 TIIE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 The keyhole lodged the earwig and her hrood, 
 The emmets of the steps had old possession, 
 And march'd in search of their diurnal food 
 In undisturb'd procession. 
 
 As xmdisturb'd as the prehensile cell 
 Of moth or maggot, or the spider's tissue. 
 For never foot upon that thi-eshold fell, 
 To enter or to issue. 
 
 '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. 
 
 Howbeit, the door I push'd — or so I dream 'd — 
 Which slowly, slowly gaped, — the liinges creaking 
 With such a rusty eloquence, it seem'd 
 That Time himself was speaking.
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 51 
 
 But Time was dumb within that Mansion old, 
 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 December. 
 
 The startled bats flew out — bird after bird — 
 The screech-owl overhead began to flutter, 
 And seem'd to mock the cry that she had heard 
 Some dying victim utter ! 
 
 A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof, 
 And up the stair, and further still and fui-ther, 
 Till in some ringing chamber far aloof 
 It ceased its tale of murther ! 
 e2
 
 52 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 Meanwhile the rusty armour rattled round, 
 The banner shudder 'd, and the ragged streamer ; 
 All tilings the horrid tenor of the sound 
 Acknowledged with a tremor. 
 
 The antlers, where the helmet himg and belt, 
 Stirr'd as the tempest stirs the forest branches, 
 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 hoUow sighings came, 
 Like those of dissolution. 
 
 The wood-louse dropp'd, and roUed into a ball, 
 Touch 'd by some impiilse occult or mechanic ; 
 And nameless beetles ran along the wall 
 In universal panic.
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 53 
 
 The subtle spider, that from overhead 
 Hung like a spy on hiunan guilt and error, 
 Suddenly turn'd, and up its slender thread 
 Ran with a nimble terror. 
 
 The very stains and fractui'es on the wall 
 Assuming featm'es 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 duU and Uvid, 
 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 ev'iy thriUing nerve and fibre feel 
 So ague-hke a shiver.
 
 54 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 If but a rat had linger 'd in the house, 
 To lure the thought into a social channel ! 
 But not a rat remain 'd, or tiny mouse. 
 To squeak behind the pannel. 
 
 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 Uzard crept 
 On that damp hearth and chilly. 
 
 For years no cheerfid blaze had sparkled there, 
 Or glanced on coat of buff or knightly metal ; 
 The slug was crawling on the vacant chair, — 
 The snail upon the settle.
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 55 
 
 The floor was redolent of mould and must, 
 The fungus in the rotten seams had quicken 'd ; 
 While on the oaken tahle coats of dust 
 Perennially had tliicken'd. 
 
 No mark of leathern jack or metal cann, 
 No cup — no horn — no hospitable token,— 
 All social ties between that board and Man 
 Had long ago been broken. 
 
 There was so foul a nmioiu" in the air, 
 The shadow of a Presence so atrocious ; 
 No human creature coidd have feasted there, 
 Even the most ferocious. 
 
 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 III. 
 
 'Tis hard for limnau actions to account, 
 Whether from reason or from impulse only — 
 But some internal prompting hade me mount 
 The gloomy stairs and lonely. 
 
 Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and damp, and cold. 
 With odours as from hones and rehes carnal, 
 Deprived of rite, and consecrated mould, 
 The chapel vaidt, or charnel. 
 
 Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress 
 Of ev'ry step so many echoes hlended, 
 The mind, with dark misgivings, fear'd to guess 
 How many feet ascended. 
 
 The tempest with its spoUs had drifted in, 
 TiD each miwholesome stone was darkly spotted. 
 As thickly as the leopard's dappled sldn. 
 With leaves that rankly rotted.
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 The air was thick — and in the upper gloom 
 The bat — or something in its shape — was Avinging- ; 
 And on the wall, as cliiUy as a tomb, 
 The Death 's-Head moth was clinging. 
 
 That mj'stic moth, which, with a sense profound 
 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 Apparifion 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 car, 
 The place is Haunted !
 
 58 TIIE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 Yet uo portentous Shape the sight amazed ; 
 Each object phiin, and tangible, and valid ; 
 But from their tarnish 'd frames dark Figures gazed, 
 And Faces spectre-paUid. 
 
 Not merely with the mimic hfe that Ues 
 Within the compass of Art's simulation ; 
 Their souls were looking thro' their painted eyes 
 With awful speculation. 
 
 On ev'ry Up a speechless horror dwelt ; 
 On ev'ry brow the bm-then of affliction ; 
 The old Ancestral Spirits knew and felt 
 The House's malediction. 
 
 Such earnest woe their features overcast, 
 
 They might have stirr'd, or sigh'd, or wept, or spoken 
 
 But, save the hollow moaning of the blast. 
 
 The stillness was unbroken.
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 59 
 
 No other sound or stir of life was there, 
 Except mj steps in sohtary clamber, 
 From fliojht to flio'ht, from himiid stair to stair. 
 From chamber into chamber. 
 
 Deserted rooms of luxm-y and state, 
 That old magnificence had richly furnish'd 
 With pictures, cabinets of ancient date, 
 And carvings gilt and bm-nish'd. 
 
 Rich hangings, storied by the needle's art. 
 With scriptm-e history, or classic fable ; 
 But all had faded, save one ragged part, 
 Where Cain was slaying Abel. 
 
 The silent waste of mildew and the moth 
 Had marr'd the tissue with a partial i-avage 
 But uudecaying frown 'd upon the cloth 
 Each feature stern and savage.
 
 60 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 The sky was pale ; the cloud a thing of doubt ; 
 Some hues were fresh, and some decay 'd and duUer ; 
 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, 
 Projected from the casement's painted pane, 
 Where all beside was broken. 
 
 The BLOODY HAND significant of crime. 
 That glaring on tbe old heraldic banner, 
 Had kept its crimson unimpair'd by time. 
 In such a wondrous manner ! 
 
 '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 !
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 61 
 
 The Death Watch tlck'cl behind the pannel'd oak, 
 Inexphcable tremors shook the arras, 
 And echoes strange and mystical awoke, 
 The fancy to embarrass, 
 
 Prophetic hints that fill'd the soul witli dread, 
 But thro' one gloomy entrance pointing mostly. 
 The while some secret inspiration said, 
 That Chamber is the Ghostly ! 
 
 Across the door no gossamer festoon 
 Swung pendidous — no web — no dusty fringes. 
 No silky chrysalis or white cocoon 
 About its nooks and hinges. 
 
 The spider shunn'd the interdicted room. 
 The moth, the beetle, and the fly were banish 'd, 
 And where the sunbeam feU athwart the gloom 
 The very midge had vanish 'd.
 
 62 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 One lonely ray that glanced upon a Bed, 
 As if with awful aim 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 piUow in its place had slowly rotted ; 
 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 casement- 
 Oh what a tale they told of fear intense, 
 Of horror and amazement ! 
 
 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, 
 Strivino- for dear existence ?
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 63 
 
 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 waU, 
 But painted on the air so very dimly, 
 It hardly veil'd the tapestry at all, 
 Or portrait frowning grimly. 
 
 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 Haimted !
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 
 
 ' Prown'd ! drown'd ! " — Hamlet. 
 
 One more Unfortunate, 
 Weary of breath, 
 Rashly importunate, 
 Gone to her death ! 
 
 Take her up tenderly. 
 Lift her with care ; 
 Fashion 'd so slenderly. 
 Young, and so fair ! 
 
 Look at her garments 
 Chuging Hke cerements ; 
 Wliilst the wave constantly 
 Drips from her clothing ; 
 Take her up instantly, 
 Loving, not loathing. —
 
 THE BRIDaE OF SIGHS. 
 
 Touch her not scornfully ; 
 Think of her mournfully. 
 Gently and humanly ; 
 Not of the stains of her, 
 AU that remains of her 
 Now is pure womanly. 
 
 Make no deep scrutiny 
 Into her mutiny 
 Rash and undutiful : 
 Past all dishonour, * 
 Death has left on her 
 Only the beautifid. 
 
 Still, for all slips of hers. 
 One of Eve's family — 
 Wipe those poor hps of hers 
 Oozing so clammily. 
 
 Loop up her tresses 
 Escaped from the comb, 
 Her fair auburn tresses ;
 
 (i6 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 
 
 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 sim ! 
 Oh ! it was pitiful ! 
 Near a whole city full, 
 Home she had none. 
 
 Sisterly, brotherly, 
 Fatherly, motherly 
 Feelings had changed : 
 Love, by harsh evidence,
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 67 
 
 Tlirown from its eminence ; 
 Even God's providence 
 Seeming estranged. 
 
 Where the lamps quiver 
 So far in the river, 
 With many a hght 
 From vrindow and casement. 
 From garret to basement, 
 She stood, with amazement, 
 Houseless by night. 
 
 The bleak wind of March 
 Made her tremble and shiver 
 But not the dark arch, 
 Or the black flowing river : 
 Mad from hfe's history. 
 Glad to death's mystery. 
 Swift to be hurl'd — 
 Any where, any where 
 Out of the world ! 
 
 F 2
 
 fig THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 
 
 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, (h-ink of it, 
 Then, if you can ! 
 
 Take her up tenderly. 
 Lift her vith care ; 
 Fashion 'd so slenderly, 
 Yoimg, and so fair ! 
 
 Ere her hmbs frigidly 
 Stiffen too rigidly, 
 Decently, — kindly, — 
 Smoothe, and compose them ; 
 And her eyes, close them, 
 Staring so bUndly ! 
 
 Dreadfidlj staring 
 Thro' muddy impuiity.
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 69 
 
 As when with the daring- 
 Last look of despairing- 
 Fix 'd on futurity. 
 
 Perishing gloomily, 
 Spm-r'd by contumely, 
 Cold inhumanity, 
 Burning insanity. 
 Into her rest.- — 
 Cross her hands humbly, 
 As if praying diunbly, 
 Over her breast ! 
 
 Owning her weakness, 
 Her evil behaviour, 
 And leaving, with meekness, 
 Her sins to her Saviour !
 
 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 
 
 With fingers weary and worn. 
 
 With eyelids heavy and red, 
 A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, 
 
 Plying her needle and thread — 
 Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt. 
 
 And stiU with a voice of dolorous pitch 
 She sang the " Song of the Shirt ! " 
 
 " Work ! work I work ! 
 While the cock is crowing aloof ! 
 
 And work — work — work, 
 Till the stars sliine tlu'ough the roof ! 
 It 's ! to be a slave 
 
 Along with the barbarous Tiu-k, 
 Where woman has never a soiU to save, 
 
 If this is Christian work !
 
 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 71 
 
 " Work — work — work 
 Till tlie brain begins to swim ; 
 
 Work — work — work 
 Till tbe eyes are heavy and dim ! 
 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 
 
 " ! Men, with Sisters dear ! 
 
 ! Men ! with Mothers and Wives ! 
 It is not hnen you 're wearing out. 
 
 But hxmian creatures' Uves ! 
 Stitch — stitch — stitch, 
 
 In poverty, himger, and dirt, 
 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 —
 
 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 
 
 It seems so like my own, 
 Because of tlie fasts I keep, 
 Oh ! God ! that bread should be so dear, 
 And flesh and blood so cheap ! 
 
 " Work — work — work ! 
 My labour never flags ; 
 And what are its wages ? A bed of straw, 
 
 A crust of bread — and rags. 
 That shatter 'd roof — and this naked floor — 
 
 A table — a broken chair — 
 And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank 
 For some.times falling there ! 
 
 " Work — work — work ! 
 From weaiy cliime to chime. 
 
 Work — work — work — 
 As prisoners work for crime ! 
 
 Band, and gusset, and seam. 
 
 Seam, and gusset, and band, 
 TiU the heart is sick, and the brain bemmib'd. 
 
 As well as the weary hand.
 
 THE SONG OF THE SHmT. 
 
 " Work — work — work. 
 In the dull December light, 
 
 And Avork — work — work. 
 When the weather is warm and bright- 
 While underneath the eaves 
 
 The brooding swallows cling 
 As if to show me their simny 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. 
 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 !
 
 74 THE SOXG OF THE SHIRT. 
 
 A little weeping would ease my lieart. 
 
 But in their briny bed 
 My tears must stop, for every drop 
 
 Hinders needle and thread ! " 
 
 . With fingers weary and worn, 
 With eyeUds heavy and red, 
 A Woman sate in unwomanly rags, 
 Plying her needle and thread — 
 
 Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! 
 In poverty, himger, and dirt, 
 And still with a voice of dolorous pitch. 
 Would that its tone could reach the Rich 
 She sang this " Song of the Shirt ! "
 
 THE LADY'S DREAM. 
 
 The lady lay iu her bed, 
 
 Her couch so warm and soft, 
 But her sleep was restless and broken still ; 
 
 For tui'niug often and oft 
 From side to side, she mutter 'd and moan'd, 
 
 And toss'd her amis 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 — 
 And then in the pillow she buried her face 
 
 From visions ill to bear.
 
 76 TIIE LADY S DREAM. 
 
 Tlie very curtain shook, 
 
 Her terror was so extreme ; 
 And the light that fell on the hroider'd qmlt 
 
 Kept a tremulous gleam ; 
 And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried 
 
 " Oh me ! that awful di-eam ! 
 
 " That weary, weary walk, 
 
 In the churchyard's dismal ground ! 
 And those horrihle things, with shady wings. 
 
 That came and flitted round, — 
 Death, death, and nothing hut death. 
 
 In every sight atid sound ! 
 
 " And oh ! those maidens young, 
 
 Wlio wrought in that dreary room, 
 With figures drooping and spectres thin. 
 
 And cheeks without a bloom ;— 
 And the Voice that cried, ' For the pomp of pride. 
 
 We haste to an early tomb !
 
 THE LADY S DREAM, 77 
 
 " ' For the pomp and j)lcasui'e of Pride, 
 
 We toil like Afric slaves, 
 And only to earn a home at last. 
 
 Where yonder cypress waves ; ' — 
 And then they pointed — I never saw 
 
 A ground so full of graves I 
 
 " And stiU the coffins came, 
 
 With their sorrowfid trains and slow ; 
 Coffin after coffin stiU, 
 
 A sad and sickening show ; 
 From grief exempt, I never had di'camt 
 
 Of such a World of Woe ! 
 
 " Of the hearts that daily break, 
 
 Of the tears that hom-ly fall, 
 Of the many, many troubles of life, 
 
 That grieve this earthly ball — 
 Disease and Hmiger, and Pain, and Want, 
 
 But now I dreamt of them all !
 
 78 THE LADY S DREAM. 
 
 " For tlie blind and the cripple were there, 
 And the babe that pined for bread, 
 
 And the houseless man, and the widow poor 
 Who begged — to bui-y the dead ; 
 
 The naked, alas, that I might have clad. 
 The famish 'd I might have fed ! 
 
 " The son-ow I might have soothed, 
 
 And the unregarded tears ; 
 For many a thronging shape was there. 
 
 From long forgotten years, 
 Ay, even the poor rejected Moor, 
 
 Who rais'd my childish fears ! 
 
 " 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 !
 
 THE LADY S DREAM. 79 
 
 " No need of sulphureous lake, 
 
 No need of fiery coal, 
 But only that crowd of human kind 
 
 Wlio wanted pity and dole — 
 In everlasting retrospect — 
 
 Will wring my sinful soul ! 
 
 " Alas ! I have walk'd through life 
 
 Too heedless where 1 trod ; 
 Nay, helping to trample my fellow worm. 
 
 And fiU the burial sod — 
 Forgetting that even the sparrow falls 
 
 Not umnark'd of God ! 
 
 " I drank the richest draughts ; 
 
 And ate whatever is good — 
 Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit, 
 
 Supplied my hungry mood ; 
 But I never remember 'd the wretched ones 
 
 That starve for want of food !
 
 80 THE LADY S DREAM, 
 
 " I dress 'd as the noble dress, 
 
 In clotli of silver and gold, 
 With silk, and satin, and costly furs. 
 
 In many an ample fold ; 
 But I never rememher'd the naked limbs 
 
 That froze with winter's cold. 
 
 " The wounds I might have heal'd I 
 The himaan sorrow and smart ! 
 
 And yet it never was in my soid 
 To play so iU a part : 
 
 But evil is wrought by want of Thought, 
 As weU as want of Heart ! " 
 
 She clasp 'd her fervent hands. 
 And the tears began to stream ; 
 
 Large, and bitter, and fast they fell. 
 Remorse was so extreme ; 
 
 And yet, oh yet, that many a Dame 
 Would dream the Lady's Dream !
 
 THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 
 
 AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 There 's a murmur in the air, 
 And noise in every street — 
 The mm-mur of many tongues, 
 The noise of numerous feet — 
 While round the Workhouse door 
 The Lahom-ing Classes flock, 
 For why ? the Overseer of the Poor 
 Is setting the Workhouse Clock. 
 
 Who does not hear the tramp 
 Of thousands speeding along 
 Of either sex and various stamp, 
 Sickly, crippled, or strong, 
 
 VOL. 1. G
 
 THE WOKKHOUSE CLOCK, 
 
 Walking, limping, creeping 
 
 From com-t, and alley, and lane, 
 
 But all in one direction sweeping 
 
 Like rivers that seek the main ? 
 
 Who does not see them saUy 
 
 From miU, and garret, and room. 
 
 In lane, and com-t and alley, 
 
 From homes in poverty's lowest valley, 
 
 Fm"nished 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 hy toil ; 
 
 Dingy with smoke and dust and oil, 
 
 And smirch 'd hesides with vicious soil, 
 
 Clustering, mustering, all in a swarm. 
 
 Father, mother, and carefid child. 
 
 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 WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 83 
 
 The grim aud sooty Artisan ; 
 Every soul — child, woman, or man, 
 Who Uves— or dies — by laboiu-. 
 
 StiiTed by an overwhelming zeal. 
 
 And social impidse, a terrible throng ! 
 
 Leaving shuttle, and needle, and wheel, 
 
 Furnace, and grindstone, spindle, and reel. 
 
 Thread, and yarn, and iron, and steel — 
 
 Yea, rest and the yet imtasted meal — 
 
 Gushing, rushing, cinishing along, 
 
 A very torrent of Man ! 
 
 Urged by the sighs of sorrow and wrong, 
 
 Grown at last to a hiu-ricane strong. 
 
 Stop its covirse who can ! 
 
 Stop who can its onward course 
 
 And irresistible moral force ; 
 
 ! vain and idle dream ! 
 
 For surely as men are aU akin. 
 
 Whether of fair or sable skin, 
 
 According to Natm'e's scheme,
 
 84 THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 
 
 That Hiunan Movement contains mthin 
 A Blood-Power stronger than Steam. 
 
 Onward, onward, with hasty feet. 
 They swarm — and westward still — 
 Masses horn to drink and eat, 
 But starving amidst Whitechapel's meat, 
 And famishing down Cornhill ! 
 Through the Poultry — hut still unfed — 
 Christian Charity, hang your head I 
 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 ! 
 
 At last, before that door 
 That bears so many a knock 
 Ere ever it opens to Sick or Poor, 
 Like sheep they huddle and flock — 
 And would that aU the Good and Wise 
 Could see the Million of hoUow eyes.
 
 THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 85 
 
 With a gleam deriv'd from Hope and the skies, 
 Uptm-n'd to the Workhouse Clock ! 
 
 Oh ! that the Parish Powers, 
 Who regulate Lahom"'s hours, 
 The daily amount of human trial, 
 Weariness, pain, and self-denial 
 Would tm-n from the artificial dial 
 That striketh ten or eleven, 
 And go, for once, by that older one 
 That stands in the hght of Nature's sun 
 And takes its time from Heaven !
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATHEN^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 hear- 
 say that some of my verses are characterised as " profaneness and 
 ribaldry " — citing, in proof, the description of a certain sow, from 
 whose jaw a cabbage sprout — 
 
 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 
 misapphcation of types, I should have been surprised by this mis- 
 apprehension 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 figm-ed 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 fisher for faults, pre- 
 disposed to carp at some things, to dab at others, and to flounder 
 in all. But I am possibly in ei'ror. It is the female swine, per- 
 haps, that is profaned ia 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 wovdd only be going tlie whole sow. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, yom's very truly, 
 
 Thos. Hood. 
 
 ]837.
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 Close, close your eyes with holy dread, 
 And weave a circle round him thrice ; 
 For he on honey-dew hath fed. 
 And di'unk the milk of Paradise ! 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 It 's very hard them kind of men 
 Won't let a body be. 
 
 Old Ballad. 
 
 A WANDERER, Wilson, from my native land, 
 Remote, Rae, from godliness and thee, 
 Where roUs between us the eternal sea. 
 Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand, — 
 Beyond the broadest Scotch of London WaU ; 
 Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call ; 
 Across the wavy waste between us stretch 'd, 
 A friendly ^^missive warns me of a stricture, 
 Wlierein my likeness you have darkly ctch'd. 
 And tho' I have not seen the shadow sketch 'd, 
 Thus I remark prophetic on the picture.
 
 88 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 I guess the features : — in a line 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 hke 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 curhng of the nether lip. 
 In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky ; 
 In brief it is an aspect deleteiious, 
 A face decidedly not serious,
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 89 
 
 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-light of grace ! 
 
 Well ! — be the graceless lineaments confest ! 
 I do enjoy this bomitcous beauteous earth ; 
 
 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 gi'ace — 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 
 That 's turn'd by application to a libel. 
 My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven, 
 AU creeds I view with toleration thorough,
 
 90 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 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, 
 
 I 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 ! 
 
 I 've no ambition to enact the spy 
 
 On feUow soids, a Spiritual Pry — 
 
 'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses 
 
 Who thrust them into matters none of theirs ; 
 
 And, tho' no dehcacy discomposes 
 
 Your Saint, yet I consider faith and pray'rs 
 
 Amongst the privatest of men's affairs. 
 
 I do not hash the Gospel in my books, 
 And thus upon the pubhc mind intrude it,
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. .01 
 
 As if 1 thought, hke Otaheitan cooks. 
 No food was fit to eat till I had chew'd it. 
 On Bible stilts I don't afi'ect to stalk ; 
 Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk, — 
 
 For man may pious texts repeat, 
 And yet rehgion have no inward seat ; 
 'Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth, 
 A man has got liis belly full of meat 
 Because he talks with victuals in his mouth ! 
 
 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 Polly -theist of a Parrot ! 
 
 A mere professor, spite of all his cant, is 
 Not a whit better than a Mantis, — 
 An insect, of what chme I can't determine. 
 That hfts its paws most parson-like, and thence. 
 By simple savages — thro' sheer pretence — 
 Is reckon 'd quite a saint amongst the vermin.
 
 92 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 But where 's the reverence, or where the nou?, 
 To ride on one's religion thro' the lobby, 
 Whether as staUdng-horse or hobby, 
 To show its pious paces to " the House " ? 
 
 I honestly confess that I would hinder 
 The Scottish member's legislative rigs, 
 
 That spiritual Pinder, 
 Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs. 
 That must be lash'd by law, wherever found, 
 And di'iv'n to church as to the parish pound. 
 ■ I 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. 
 
 On such a vital topic sure 'tis odd 
 
 How much a man can differ from his neighbom- 
 
 One wishes worship freely giv'n to God, 
 
 Another wants to make it statute-labom- — 
 
 The broad distinction in a Une to draw. 
 
 As means to lead us to the skies above,
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 93 
 
 You say — Sir Andrew and his love of law, 
 And I — the Savioui- with his law of love. 
 
 Spontaneously to God shoiild 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 ? 
 
 I do confess that I abhor and slu'ink 
 From schemes, with a rehgious willy-nilly. 
 That frown upon St. Giles's sins, but bhnk 
 The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly — 
 My soul revolts at such 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 
 May go to heav'n, whereas the poor and lowly 
 Must work their passage, as they do in ships.
 
 94 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 One place there is — beneath the burial sod 
 Where all mankind are equalised by death ; 
 Another place there is — the Fane of God, 
 Where aU are equal who draw Hving breath ;- 
 Jiiggle who wiU elsewhere with his own soul, 
 Playing the Judas with a temporal dole — 
 He who can come beneath that awfid cope, 
 In the di'ead presence of a Maker just, 
 Who metes to ev'ry pinch of hmnan dust 
 One even measm'e of immortal hope — 
 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 I 
 
 Such are the solemn sentiments, Rae, 
 In yom* last Journey- Work, perchance, you ravage, 
 Seeming, but in more com'tly terms, to say 
 I 'm but a heedless, creedless, godless, savage ; 
 A very Guy, deserving fire and faggots, — 
 A Scoffer, always on the grin,
 
 ODE TO KAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 9.5 
 
 And sadly given to the mortal sin 
 
 Of liking Mawwomis less than meiTV maggots ! 
 
 The himihle records of my life to search, 
 
 I have not herded "with mere pagan Leasts ; 
 
 But sometimes I have " sat at good men's feasts," 
 
 And I have been "where hells have knoU'd to church." 
 
 Dear hells ! how sweet the soimds of village hells 
 
 ^^^len on the imdidating air they swim ! 
 
 Now loud as welcomes ! faint, noAv, as farewells I 
 
 And tremhhng all about the breezy dells, 
 
 As flutter 'd by the wings of Cherubim. 
 
 Meanwhile the bees are chaimting a low hj-mn ; 
 
 And lost to sight th' extatic lark above 
 
 Sings, hke a soid beatified, of love,— 
 
 With, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon ; — 
 
 Pagans, Heathens, Infidels, and Doubters ! 
 
 If such sweet soimds can't woo you to religion, 
 
 Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters ? 
 
 A man may cry Chm-ch ! Chm-ch ! at ev'ry word, 
 With no more piety than other people —
 
 96 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 A daw 's not reckon 'd a religious bird 
 Because it keeps a-eawing from a steeple. 
 The Temple is a good, a holy place, 
 But quacking only gives it an iU savour ; 
 While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace, 
 And bring rehgion's self into disfavoiu- ! 
 
 Behold yon servitor of God and Mammon, 
 Who, binding up his Bible with his Ledger, 
 
 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 ? ' ' 
 
 In proof how over-righteousness re-acts, 
 Accept an anecdote weU bas'd on facts.
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 97 
 
 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. 
 
 " Ay," cried our coachman, with oiu- talk to grapple, 
 
 " You 're right ! no house along the road comes nigh it ! 
 
 'Twas huilt 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-It/ a sum pm'digious ! 
 But being so particular rehgious, 
 Wliy, that, you see, put master on his guard ! " 
 
 Church is " a Httle 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 iu fonna pauperis to God. 
 
 As for the rest, — intolerant to none. 
 Whatever shape the pious rite may bear.
 
 98 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 Ev'n the poor Pagan's homage to the Sun 
 I would not hai'shly 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 futihty, 
 A sense of need, and weakness, and indeed 
 That very thing so many Christians want — 
 Humility. 
 
 Such, unto Papists, Jews, or turhan'd Tm-ks, 
 Such is my spu'it — (I don't mean my wraith !) 
 Such, may it please you, is my hiunble faith ; 
 I know, full well, you do not like my worJcs ! 
 
 I have not sought, 'tis true, the Holy Land, 
 As fidl of texts as Cuddie Headrigg's mother, 
 
 The Bible in one hand. 
 And my own common-place-hook in the other- 
 But you have been to Palestine — alas ! 
 Some minds improve by travel, others, rather. 
 
 Resemble copper wire, or brass, 
 Which gets the narrower by going farther !
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 99 
 
 Worthless are all such Pilgrimages — very ! 
 If Palmers at the Holy Tomh contrive 
 The Inmian heats and rancour to revive 
 That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury. 
 A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, 
 To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, 
 Then homeward, of the saintly pastm-e full, 
 Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, 
 At crippled Papistry to butt and poke. 
 Exactly as a skittish Scottish buU 
 Himts an old woman in a scarlet cloke ? 
 
 Why leave a serious, moral, pious home, 
 Scotland, renown 'd for sanctity of old, 
 Far distant Cathohcs to rate and scold 
 For — doing as the Romans do at Rome ? 
 With such a bristling spirit wherefore quit 
 The Land of Cakes for any land of wafers, 
 About the graceless images to flit, 
 And buzz and chafe importunate as chafers. 
 Longing to carve the carvers to Scotch coUops — ? 
 People who hold such absolute opinions
 
 100 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 Should stay at home, in Protestant dominions, 
 Not travel like male Mrs. TroUopes. 
 
 Gifted with 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. 
 Consider, then, before, hke Hurlothrumbo, 
 You aim your club at any creed on earth, 
 That, by the simple accident of birth. 
 You might have been High Priest to Miunbo Jumbo. 
 
 For me — thro' heathen ignorance perchance, 
 
 Not having knelt in Palestine, — I feel 
 
 None of that griffinish excess of zeal, 
 
 Some travellers woidd blaze with here in France 
 
 Dolls I can see in Virgin-Uke array. 
 
 Nor for a scuffle with the idols hanker 
 
 Like crazy Quixotte at the puppet's play, 
 
 If their " offence be rank," should mine be rancour ?
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE, 101 
 
 Mild light, and by degrees, slioidd 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 bhnd ? 
 
 Suppose the tender but luxuriant hop 
 Around a canker 'd stem should twine, 
 What Kentish boor woidd tear away the prop 
 So roughly as to wound, nay kiU the bine ? 
 
 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 or loss, 
 One bright and balmy morning, as I went
 
 102 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUffiE. 
 
 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 m-ge 
 
 More forcibly, along with Faith and Hope, 
 
 The pious choice had pitch 'd upon the verge 
 
 Of a delicious slope, 
 Giving the eye much variegated scope ; — 
 " Look round," it whisper 'd, " on that prospect rare, 
 Those vales so verdant, and those hills so blue ; 
 Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh, and fair. 
 But " — (how the simple legend pi ere 'd me tliro' !) 
 
 " Priez pour les Malheureux." 
 
 With sweet kind natures, as in honey 'd cells. 
 
 Religion lives, and feels herself at home ; 
 
 But only on a formal visit dwells 
 
 Where wasps instead of bees have form'd the comb.
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 103 
 
 Shun pride, Rae ! — whatever sort heside 
 You take in heu, shim 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, 
 Fancy a peacock in a poidtry yard. 
 Behold him in conceited circles sail. 
 Strutting and dancing, and now planted stiff. 
 In aU his pomp of pageantry, as if 
 He felt " the eyes of Europe " on his tail ! 
 As for the hmnble breed retain'd by man. 
 
 He scorns the whole domestic clan — 
 
 He bows, he bridles, 
 
 He wheels, he sidles, 
 At last, with stately dodgings, in a corner 
 He pens a simple russet hen, to scorn her 
 Full in the blaze of his resplendent fan !
 
 104 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 " Look here," he cries, (to give liim words,) 
 
 " Thou feather 'd clay, — thou scum of birds !" 
 Flirting the rusthng 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 amove — 
 A Bird of Paradise ? — a pretty story ! 
 / am that Saintly Fowl, thou paltry chick ! 
 
 Look at my crown of glory ! 
 Thou dingy, dirty, dabbled, 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 — 
 But put the wicked, naked, barelegg'd poor, 
 In parish stocks instead of breeches.
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 105 
 
 The Saints ! — the Bigots that in public spout, 
 Spread phosphorus of zeal on scraps of fustian, 
 And go like walking " Lucifers " about 
 Mere Hving bimdles of combustion. 
 
 The Saints ! — the aping Fanatics that talk 
 All cant and rant and rhapsodies highflown — 
 
 That bid you baulk 
 
 A Sunday walk, 
 And shun God's work as you should shun your own. 
 
 The Saints ! — the Fonnahsts, the extra pious. 
 Who think the mortal husk can save the soul, 
 By trundling, with a mere mechanic bias. 
 To church, just hkc a ligniun-vitse bowl ! 
 
 The Saints ! — -the Pharisees, whose beadle stands 
 
 Beside a stern coercive kirk, 
 
 A piece of himian mason-work, 
 Calhng all sermons contrabands. 
 In that great Temple that 's not made mth hands I
 
 106 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE, 
 
 Thrice blessed, rather, is the man with whom 
 The gracious prodigahty of nature, 
 The bahn, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom, 
 The bounteous providence in ev'ry featiu-e, 
 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 ; 
 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 ! 
 
 Sufficiently b}» stern necessitarians 
 
 Poor Nature, with her face begrim'd by dust,
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQITIRE. 107 
 
 Is stok'd, cok'd, smok'd, and almost chok'd ; but must 
 
 Religion have its own Utilitarians, 
 
 Labell'd witli 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 meet, 
 The willing advent of the rich and poor ! 
 And while to God the loud Hosannas soar, 
 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 House and pubhc mind, 
 We always meet with some humane suggestions 
 Of gentle measm-es of a heahng kind, 
 Instead of harsh severity and vigo\ir,
 
 108 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 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 affiliation, 
 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, 
 As thus : 
 
 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 kiUing 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,
 
 ODK TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 109 
 
 As if he dee-dash-dee 'd some other flocks 
 Besides those woolly-headed stuhhorn blocks 
 That stood before him, in vexatious huddle — 
 Poor httle lambs, with bleating wethers group 'd, 
 While, now and then, a thirsty creature stoop 'd 
 And meekly snuff 'd, but did not 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 declin'd it, — 
 And shunn'd the tainted door as if they smelt 
 Onions, mint sauce, and lemon juice behind it. 
 At last there came a pause of brutal force. 
 
 The cm- was silent, for his jaws were full 
 
 Of tangled locks of tarry wool, 
 The man had whoop 'd and beUow'd till dead hoarse. 
 The time was ripe for mild expostulation, 
 And thus it stammer 'd from a standcr-by — 
 " Zounds ! — my good fellow, — it quite makes me — why 
 It reaUy — my dear fellow — do just try 
 Conciliation ! "
 
 110 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 Stringing liis nerves like flint, 
 The sturdy butclier 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 off 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've cowcihated him !" 
 
 Again — good-humouredly to end our quarrel — 
 (Good humour shoidd prevail !) 
 I 'U 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 decHne, 
 
 Cough, hectic flushes, ev'ry evil sign. 
 
 That, as their wont is at such desperate pass. 
 
 The Doctors gave her over — to an ass.
 
 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. Ill 
 
 Accordingly, the grisly Shade to bilk, 
 Each morn the patient quaff'd a frothy howl 
 
 Of asinine new milk, 
 Robhing a shaggy suckhng of a foal 
 Which got proportionably spare and skinny — 
 Meanwhile the neighhom-s 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 wetnurse Jenny. 
 
 To aggravate the case, 
 There were but two grown donkeys in the place ; 
 And most imluckily 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 Guhbins on his back, — 
 " Your sarvant. Miss, — a worry spring-hkc day, — 
 Bad time for hasses tho' ! good lack ! good lack !
 
 112 ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. 
 
 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 woidd sneer at Gubbins for his bhndness- 
 But what the better are their pious saws 
 To aiUng souls, than dry hee-haws. 
 Without the milk of human kindness ?
 
 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 A FAIRY TALE. 
 
 Immortal Imogen, crown 'd queen above 
 The lilies of thy sex, vouchsafe to hoar 
 A fairy di'eam in honour of true love — 
 True above iUs, and frailty, and all fear — 
 Perchance a shadow of his own career 
 Whose youth was darkly prison'd and long- twined 
 By serpent-sorrow, tiU white Love drew near, 
 And sweetly sang him free, and round his mind 
 A bright horizon threw, wherein no grief may wind.
 
 114 TILE TWO SWAXS. 
 
 I saw a tower builded on a lake, 
 Mock'cl by its inverse shadow, dark and deep — 
 That seem'd a still intenser night to make, 
 Wherein the quiet waters sunk to sleej), — 
 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 tm-ret crown 'd. 
 
 From whence he shot fierce light against the stars, 
 Making the pale moon paler with affright ; 
 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 trembhngs in the skies : 
 And that he might not slumber in the night. 
 The curtain-Uds were pluck 'd from his large eyes, 
 So he might never di'owse, but watch his secret prize.
 
 THE TWO SWANS. 115 
 
 Prince or princess in dismal durance pent, 
 Victims of old Enchantment's love or hate, 
 Their hves must all in painful sighs be spent. 
 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, hut in darksome fears 
 They weep and pine away as if immortal years. 
 
 No gentle bird with gold upon its wing 
 WiU perch upon the grate — the gentle bird 
 Is safe in leafy dell, and will not bring 
 Freedom's sweet key-note and commission word 
 Learn 'd of a fairy's lips, for pity stirr'd — 
 Lest while he trembling sings, imtimely guest ! 
 Watch 'd by that cruel Snake and darkly heard. 
 He leave a widow on her lonely nest, 
 To press in silent grief the darhngs of her breast. 
 i2
 
 116 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 No gallant knight, adventurous, in his bark, 
 WiU seek the fruitful perils of the place. 
 To rouse with dipping oar the waters dark 
 That hear that serpent-image on their face. 
 And Love, brave Love ! though he attempt the base. 
 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 — hke Eve enthrall'd by the old Sin. 
 
 But there is none- — no knight in panoply, 
 Nor Love, intrench 'd in his strong steely coat : 
 No httle 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, — 
 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.
 
 THE TWO SWANS. 117 
 
 And bright and silvery the willows sleep 
 Over the shady verge — no mad winds tease 
 Their hoary heads ; but quietly they weep 
 There sprinkling leaves — half fountains and half trees : 
 There lihes be — and fairer than all these, 
 A solitary Swan her breast of snow 
 Launches against the wave that seems to freeze 
 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 : — aU around her grew 
 A radiant circlet, like a fairy ring ; 
 And all behind, a tiny little clue 
 Of hght, to guide her back across the waters blue.
 
 118 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 And sui-e 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 moouhght wand I saw her wake, 
 And cut her leafy slough, and so forsake 
 The verdant prison of her hly 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. 
 
 And now she clasps her wings around her heart, 
 And near that lonely isle begins to glide 
 Pale as her fears, and oft-times 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 shadow's steep 
 That in the gloomy wave go diving fathoms deep.
 
 THE TWO SWANS. 119 
 
 And well she may, to spy that fearful thing- 
 All down the dusky walls in circlets wound ; 
 Alas ! 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, 
 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 !
 
 120 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 She droops — she sinks — she leans upon the lake, 
 Fainting again into a lifeless flower ; 
 But soon the chilly springs anoint and wake 
 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, trembhng all the sweeter for its fears, 
 Fills with imploring moan that cruel monster's ears. 
 
 And, lo ! the scaly beast is all deprest. 
 Subdued Hke Argus by the might of sound — 
 What time Apollo his sweet lute addrest 
 To magic converse with the air, and bound 
 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 !
 
 THE TWO SWANS. 121 
 
 His prickly crest lies prone upon Lis crown, 
 And thirsty lip from lip disparted flies, 
 To di'ink that dainty flood of music down — 
 His scaly throat is big with pent-up sighs — 
 And whilst his hollow ear entranced lies. 
 His looks for envy of the charmed sense 
 Are fain to listen, tiU his steadfast eyes, 
 Stung into pain by their own impotence, 
 Distil enormous tears into the lake immense. 
 
 Oh, tmiefid Swan ! oh, melancholy bird ! 
 Sweet was that midnio;ht miracle of 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, 
 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.
 
 1-2-2 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 Therefore no poet will ungently touch 
 The water-Ulj, on whose eyelids dew 
 Trembles like tears ; but ever hold it such 
 As human pain may wander through and thi'ough, 
 Turning the pale leaf paler in its hue — 
 Wlierein Ufe dwells, transfigured, not entomb 'd, 
 By magic spells. Alas ! who ever knew 
 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 hke 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 
 From sense of its own ill, and tenderly assuage.
 
 THE TWO SWANS. 123 
 
 And forth into the hght, small and remote, 
 A creature, like the fair son of a king, 
 Draws to the lattice in his jeweU'd coat 
 Against the silver moonlight ghstening, 
 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 tunefid moan. 
 Singing beneath the walls as if for him alone ! 
 
 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 tremhhng reach 
 His earnest ear, and through the shadows dun 
 He missions hkc rephes, and each to each 
 Their silver voices mingle into one, 
 Like blended streams that make one music as they run.
 
 124 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 " All ! Love, my hope is swooning in my heart,— 
 Ay, sweet, my cage is strong and himg full high- 
 Alas ! 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, neai'er thee. Love's martyr, I will die ! — 
 Alas, alas ! that w^ord has made me weep ! 
 For pity's sake remain safe in thy marhle keep ! 
 
 My marhle keep ! it is my marble tomb — 
 Nay, sweet ! but thou hast there thy living breath- 
 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 death, 
 Making his stony ribs thy stony stairs. — 
 Behold his ruby eye, how fearfully it glares ! "
 
 THE TWO SWANS. 125 
 
 Full sudden at these words, the princely youth 
 Leaps on the scaly back that slumbers, still 
 Unconscious of his foot, yet not for ruth, 
 But numb'd to didness 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 uatinal dismay. 
 Then down, down the serpent-track begins his darksome 
 way. 
 
 Now dimly seen — now toihng 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 ; 
 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.
 
 126 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 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 ! 
 But Love, that holds the mastery of dread, 
 Braces his spirit, and with constant toil 
 He wins his way, and now, with arms outspread. 
 Impatient plunges from the last long coU : 
 So may all gentle Love ungentle MaUce foil. 
 
 The song is hush'd, the charm is all complete, 
 And two fair Swans are swimming on the lake : 
 But scarce their tender biUs have time to meet. 
 When fiercely drops adown that cruel Snake — 
 His steely scales a fearful rusthng make. 
 Like autumn leaves that tremble and foretell 
 The sable storm ; — the plumy lovers quake — 
 And feel the troubled waters pant and swell, 
 Heaved by the giant bulk of their pm-suer fell.
 
 THE TWO SWANS. 127 
 
 His jaws, wide yawning like the gates of Death, 
 Hiss horrible pui'suit — his red eyes glare 
 The waters into blood — liis eager breath 
 Grows hot upon their plumes : — now, minstrel fair I 
 She drops her ring into the waves, and there 
 It widens all around, a fairy ring- 
 Wrought of the silver hght — the fearful pair 
 Swim in the very midst, and pant and chng 
 The closer for their fears, and tremble wing to wing. 
 
 Bending their com-se 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 iuv ade 
 The sanctuary ring — his sable mail 
 Roll'd darkly through the flood, and writhed and made 
 A shining track over the waters pale, 
 Lash'd into boiling foam by liis enormous tail.
 
 128 THE TWO SWANS. 
 
 And so tliey sail'd into the distance dim, 
 Into the very distance — small and white, 
 Like snowy hlossoms of the spring that swim 
 Over the hrooHets — follow'd hy 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 'hght, 
 And change, anon, a gentle girl and hoy, 
 Lock'd in emhrace of sweet unutterable joy I 
 
 Then came the Morn, and with her pearly showers 
 Wept on them, like a mother, in whose eyes 
 Tears are no grief ; and from liis rosy bowers 
 The Oriental sun began to rise. 
 Chasing the darksome shadows from the skies ; 
 Wherewith that sable Serpent far away 
 Fled, hke a part of night — delicious sighs 
 From waking blossoms purified the day. 
 And httle birds were singing sweetly from each spray.
 
 ODE 
 
 ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OP 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 ! 
 
 Its chimneys in the rear ! 
 And there 's the iron rod so high, 
 That drew the thunder from the sky 
 
 And turn'd our table-beer ! 
 
 * No connexion with any other Ode.
 
 130 ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF 
 
 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 siunmon'd class ! — the awful bow !- 
 I wonder who is master now 
 
 And wholesome anguish sheds ! 
 How many ushers now employs, 
 How many maids to see the hoys 
 
 Have nothino" 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 devoiu-. 
 
 And sAvill her prize ^bohea ?
 
 CLAPHAM ACADEMY. 131 
 
 Ay, there 's the play-groimd ! there 's the hme, 
 Beneath whose shade in summer's prime 
 
 So wildly I have read ! — 
 Wlio 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 ? 
 Where 's Poynter ? Hams ? Bowers ? Chase ? 
 
 Hal Bayhs ? bUthe 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 di-ives the wane of Ufe ; 
 
 And blithe Carew — is hung ! 
 ic2
 
 132 ODE OX A DISTANT PROSPECT OF 
 
 Grave Bowers teaches ABC 
 To savages at Owhyee ; 
 
 Poor Chase is with the worms ! — 
 All, all are gone — the olden breed ! — 
 New crops of mushroom hoys succeed, 
 
 ' ' And push us from our forms ! ' ' 
 
 Lo ! where they 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 ! 
 
 Lo there what mix'd conditions run ! 
 The orphan lad ; the widow's son ; 
 
 And Fortune's favoiu-'d care — 
 The wealthy born, for whom she hath 
 Mac-Adamised the futm-e path — 
 
 The Nabob's pamper 'd heir !
 
 CLAPHAM ACADEMY. \?,?, 
 
 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 ! 
 Look, here 's a White, and there 's a Black I 
 
 And there 's a Creole brown ! 
 
 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 fuU-grown doings of the man. 
 
 And pant for years to come ! 
 
 A foolish wish ! There 's one at hoop ; 
 And fom- at Jives ! and five who stoop 
 
 The marble taw to speed ! 
 And one that curvets in and out, 
 Reining his fellow Cob about, — 
 
 Would I were in his steed !
 
 134 ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF 
 
 Yet he would gladly halt and drop 
 That boyish harness off, to swop 
 
 With this world's heavy van — 
 To toil, to tug. little fool ! 
 While thou canst be a horse at school 
 
 To wish to be a man ! 
 
 Perchance thou deem'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 
 To Drury-lane when — ■ — plays, 
 
 And see how forced our fun !
 
 CLAPHAM ACADEMY, 135 
 
 Thy taws are brave ! — thy tops are rare ! — 
 Our tops are spun with coils of care, 
 
 Our dumps are no dehght ! — 
 The Elgin marbles are but tame, 
 ' And 'tis at best a sorry game 
 
 To fly the Muse's kite ! 
 
 Our hearts are dough, our heel^ are lead, 
 Our topmost joys fall dull and dead 
 
 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-hue in thy cup ! 
 Thou 'It find thy Manhood all too fast — 
 Soon come, soon gone ! and Age at last 
 
 A sorry breaJcing-up !
 
 136 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 A GOLDEN LEGEND. 
 
 " What is here? 
 Gold ? yellow, glittering, precious gold ? " 
 
 TiMON OF Athens. 
 
 To trace the Kibnansegg pedigree. 
 To tlie 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 ;
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 137 
 
 But waving all such, digressions, 
 Suffice it, according to family lore, 
 A Patriarch Ivilmansegg lived of yore. 
 
 Who was famed for his great possessions. 
 
 Tradition said he feather 'd his nest 
 Through an Agricvdtural 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 sterUng kind 
 Of Hesperus — now so hard to find — 
 
 Made Horticulture quite charming ! 
 
 A Lord of Land, on his own estate. 
 He lived at a very lively rate. 
 
 But his income woidd hear carousing ; 
 Such acres he had of pastm'e and heath, 
 With herbage so rich from the ore beneath, 
 The very ewe's and lambkin's teeth 
 
 Were turn'd into gold by browsing.
 
 138 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 He gave, without any extra thrift, 
 A flock of sheep for a birthday gift 
 
 To each son of his loins, or daughter : 
 And his debts — if debts he had — at will 
 He liquidated by giving each biU 
 
 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 liis piggery. 
 And as for cattle, one yearhng bull 
 Was worth all Smithfield-market full 
 
 Of the Golden BuUs of Pope Gregory. 
 
 The high-bred horses within his stud, 
 Like human creatiu-es 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.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 139 
 
 Moreover, he had a Golden Ass, 
 Sometimes at stall, and sometimes at grass, 
 
 That was worth his own weight in money — 
 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 roll'd. 
 Himself and wife and sons so hold ; — 
 And his daughters sang to their harps of gold 
 
 " bella eta del' oro ! " 
 
 Such was the tale of the Kihnansegg Kin, 
 
 In golden text on a veUum skin, 
 
 Though certain people would wink and grin.
 
 140 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 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 — 
 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, 
 
 Then at war by land and water : 
 Wliile 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 quarter !
 
 HER rRECIODS LEG. 141 
 
 Icr 38trt^. 
 
 What different dooms om- birthdays bring ! 
 For instance, one little manikin thing 
 
 Sm-vives to wear many a wi-inkle ; 
 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 hke ships. 
 
 Launch 'd from the docks, and stocks, and slips, 
 
 For fortune fair or fatal ; 
 And one little craft is cast away 
 In its very fii-st 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 shunn'd like a leper ! 
 One, to the world's wine, honey, and corn, 
 Another, like Colchester native, born 
 
 To its vinegar, only, and pepper.
 
 142 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 One is litter 'd under a roof 
 Neither wind nor water proof,^ — 
 
 That 's the prose of Love in a Cottage, — 
 A puny, naked, sliivering 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 aU bright and burnish 'd : 
 No tenant he for life's back slums — 
 He comes to the world as a gentleman comes 
 
 To a lodging ready furnish'd. 
 
 And the other sex — the tender — the fair — 
 What wide reverses of fate are there ! 
 Whilst Margaret, charm 'd by the Bidbul 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 !
 
 IIER PRECIOUS LEG. 143 
 
 Not SO with the infant Kihnansegg ! 
 She was not born to steal or beg, 
 
 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 fiU their insides with stitches ! 
 
 She was not doom'd, for bread to eat, 
 
 To be put to her hands as well aa her feet — 
 
 To carry home Unen from mangles — 
 Or heavy-hearted, and weary-hmb'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 
 Are born, as they say, with a silver spoon 
 
 In her mouth, not a wooden ladle : 
 To speak according to poet's wont, 
 Plutus as sponsor stood at her font, 
 
 And Midas rock'd the cradle.
 
 144 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 At her first dehut she found her head 
 On a pillow of down, in a downy bed, 
 
 With a damask canopy over. 
 For although by the vulgar popular saw 
 All mothers are said to be " in the straw," 
 
 Some childi-en are born in clover. 
 
 Her very first draught of vital air 
 It was not the common chamehon fare 
 Of plebeian lungs and noses, — 
 No — her earhest sniff 
 Of this world was a whiff 
 Of the genuine Otto of Roses ! 
 
 When she saw the light — it was no mere ray 
 Of that light so common — so everyday — 
 
 That the sun each morning launches — 
 But six wax tapers dazzled her eyes, 
 From a thing— a gooseberry bush for size — 
 
 With a golden stem and branches.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 145 
 
 She was born exactly at lialf-past two, 
 As witness'd a timepiece in or-molu 
 
 That stood on a marble table — 
 Showing at once the time of day, 
 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 ; 
 Wliich 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 ! 
 It shook the next heir 
 In his library chair, 
 And made liim cry, " Confound her ! 
 
 Of signs and omens there was no dearth, 
 Any more than at Owen Glendower's birth,
 
 146 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 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, 
 
 And the village-bells such a peal rang out, 
 That they crack 'd the village-steeple. 
 
 In no time at aU, hke 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 Rabelais. 
 
 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,
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 147 
 
 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, 
 
 To have seen the maroons, 
 
 And the whirhng moons, 
 
 And the serpents of flame. 
 
 And wheels of the same. 
 That according to some were " whizzable." 
 
 Oh, happy Hope of the Kilmanseggs ! 
 Thrice happy in head, and body, and legs 
 
 That her parents had such full pockets ! 
 For had she been born of Want and Thrift, 
 For care and niu"sing all adrift, 
 It 's ten to one she had had to make shift 
 
 With rickets instead of rockets ! 
 L 2
 
 148 MISS KILMAXSEGG AND 
 
 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 lull'd on a Gros de Naples lap, 
 By a nui'se in a modish Paris cap, 
 
 Of notions so exalted. 
 She drank nothing lower than Cura^oa, 
 Maraschino, or pink Noyau, 
 
 And on principle never malted. 
 
 From a golden boat, with a golden spoon, 
 The babe was fed night, 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 
 
 For the horse of Hehogabalus.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 149 
 
 And when she took to squall and kick — 
 For pain will wring and pins will prick 
 
 E'en the wealthiest nahob's daughter — 
 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, 
 
 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 Althorp's — now Earl Spencer. 
 
 Though Shakspcare 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,
 
 150 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 That servant at once of Mammon and God, 
 
 Who found four thousand pounds and odd, 
 
 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 rejoice ? 
 
 Or any such nauseous blazon ? 
 Not to mention many a vulgar name. 
 That would make a doorplate 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 — 
 
 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 
 
 TiU turn'd into Rupertino. 
 
 Now to christen the infant Kilmansegg, 
 For days and days it was quite a plague.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 151 
 
 To hunt the hst in the Lexicon : 
 And scores were tried, Hke coin, by the ring, 
 Ere names were found just the projier thing 
 
 For a minor rich as a Mexican. 
 
 Then cards were sent, the presence to beg 
 Of all the kin of Kilmansegg, 
 
 White, yeUow, 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 — 
 Nieces whose doweries knew no hitch — 
 Aunts as certain of dying rich 
 
 As candles in golden sockets — 
 Cousins German, and cousin's sons. 
 All thriving and opulent — some had tons 
 
 Of Kentish hops in their pockets !
 
 152 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 For money had stuck to tlie race through Hfe 
 (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 Kilmanseggs, 
 As if they had come out of golden eggs, 
 
 Were aU as wealthy as " Goshngs." 
 
 It would fiU a Court Gazette to name 
 Wliat East and West End people came 
 
 To the rite of Christianity : 
 The lofty Lord, and the titled Dame, 
 
 AU di'monds, plumes, and lu-banity : 
 His Lordship the May'r with his golden chain. 
 And two Gold Sticks, and the Sheriffs twain. 
 Nine foreign Counts, and other great men 
 With their orders and stars, to help M or N 
 
 To renounce all pomp and vanity. 
 
 To paint the maternal Kilmansegg 
 The pen of an Eastern Poet would beg.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 153 
 
 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, 
 And smiled to himself, and laugh 'd aloud, 
 
 To think of his heiress and daughter — 
 And then in his pockets he made a grope, 
 And then, in the fulness of joy and hope, 
 Seem'd washing his hands with invisible soap. 
 
 In imperceptible water. 
 
 He had roU'd in money hke pigs in mud, 
 TiU it seem'd to have enter 'd into his blood 
 
 By some occult projection : 
 And his cheeks, instead of a healthy hue, 
 As yellow as any guinea grew. 
 Making the common phrase seem true 
 
 About a rich complexion.
 
 154 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 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 ahout the babe to buss, 
 
 She seem'd to be nothing but bustle. 
 
 A wealthy Nabob was Godpapa, 
 
 And an Indian Begum was Godmamma, 
 
 Whose jewels a Queen 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. 
 
 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 overrun 
 With gilt devices, it shone in the sun 
 Like a copy — a presentation one — 
 
 Of Humboldt's " El Dorado."
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 155 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! and nothing but gold ! 
 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 dehght a miner's eye 
 
 With seams of the precious metal. 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! and besides the gold. 
 The very robe of the infant told 
 A tale of wealth in every fold, 
 
 It lapp'd her hke a vapour ! 
 So fine ! so thin ! the mind at a loss 
 Could compare it to nothing except a cross 
 
 Of cobweb with bank-note paper. 
 
 Then her pearls — 'twas a perfect sight, forsooth. 
 To see them, hke " the dew of her youth," 
 
 In such a plentiful sprinkle. 
 Meanwhile, the Vicar read through the form, 
 And gave her another, not overwarm. 
 
 That made her little eyes twinkle.
 
 156 MISS KILMANSEG6 AND 
 
 Then the babe was cross 'd and bless 'd amain ; 
 But instead of the Kate, or Ann, or Jane, 
 
 Which the humbler female endorses — 
 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. 
 The gems that sparkled like fairy boons. 
 It was one of the Kilmansegg's own saloons, 
 
 But look'd Uke RundeU and Bridge's ! 
 
 Gold ! and gold ! the new and the old ! 
 The company ate and drank from gold, 
 
 They reveU'd, they sang, and were merry ; 
 And one of the Gold Sticks rose from his chair, 
 And toasted " the Lass with the golden hair " 
 
 In a bumper of golden Sherry.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 157 
 
 Gold ! Still gold ! it rain'd on the nm-se, 
 Who, unlike Danae, was none the worse ; 
 There was nothing but guineas glistening ! 
 Fifty were given to Doctor James, 
 For calhng the httle Baby names, 
 And for saying, Amen ! 
 The Clerk had ten. 
 And that was the end of the Christening. 
 
 Our youth ! oui- childhood ! that spring of springs ! 
 '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 Phelim, he sings like a thrush. 
 In the selfsame pair of patchwork plush. 
 With the selfsame empty pockets.
 
 158 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 That tempted his daddy so often to cut 
 His throat, or jurap in the water-butt — 
 But what cares Phehm ? 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 sUce of bread, Avith a taste of dirt, 
 
 That 's Poverty's Irish butter. 
 And what does he lack to make him blest ? 
 Some oyster-sheUs, or a sparrow's nest, 
 
 A candle-end and a gutter. 
 
 But to leave the happy Phelim alone. 
 Gnawing, perchance, a marrowless bone. 
 
 For which no dog would quarrel — 
 Turn we to httle 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.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 159 
 
 Born in wealth, and wealthily nursed, 
 
 Capp'd, papp'd, napp'd and lapp'd from the first 
 
 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 DoUy " set, 
 
 Was a DoUy of gold — and soUd ! 
 
 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 Highbrny.
 
 160 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Bon-bons she ate from the gilt cornet ; 
 And gilded queens on St. Bartlemy's day ; 
 
 Till her fancy was tinged by her presents- 
 And first a goldfinch excited her wish, 
 Then a spherical bowl with its Golden fish, 
 
 And then two Golden Pheasants. 
 
 Nay, once she squaU'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 
 
 On the top of the Fish Street column ? 
 
 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,
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG, 161 
 
 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, 
 
 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 Kilmansegg, 
 Before she learnt her E for egg, 
 
 Ere her Governess came, or her Masters — 
 T eachers of quite a diflferent kind 
 Had " cramm'd" her beforehand, and put her mind 
 
 In a go-cart on golden castors. 
 
 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.
 
 lfi-2 MISS KILMANSE6G AND 
 
 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 golden lore for our golden age, 
 
 Or lessons from Barbauld and Trimmer, 
 Teaching the worth of Virtue and Health, 
 AU that she knew was the Virtue of Wealth, 
 Provided by vulgar nm-sery stealth 
 
 With a Book of Leaf Gold for a Primer. 
 
 The veiy metal of merit they told. 
 
 And praised 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 hke grapes by the pound. 
 Till she had an idea from the very sound 
 
 That people with nought were naughty. 
 
 They praised — poor childi'en with nothing at all ! 
 Lord ! how you twaddle and waddle and squall
 
 HER TRECIOUS LEG. 163 
 
 Like common-bred geese and ganders ! 
 What sad little bad little figures you make 
 To tlie ricb Miss K., whose plainest seed-cake 
 
 Was stuff'd with corianders ! 
 
 They praised her falls, as well as her walk. 
 
 Flatterers make cream cheese of chalk. 
 
 They praised — how they praised — her very small talk. 
 
 As if it fell from a Solon ; 
 Or the girl who at each pretty phrase let drop 
 A ruby comma, or pearl fxill-stop, 
 
 Or an emerald semi-colon. 
 
 They praised her spirit, and now and then. 
 The Nurse brought her own httle " nevy " Ben, 
 
 To play with the future May'ress, 
 And when he got raps, and taps, and slaps, 
 Scratches, and pinches, snips, and snaps. 
 
 As if from a Tigress or Bearess, 
 They told him how Lords would court that hand. 
 And always gave him to understand,
 
 1C4 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 While he rubb'd, poor soul, 
 His carroty poll, 
 That his hair had been pull'd by " a Hairess/' 
 
 Such were the lessons from maid and nurse, 
 A Governess help'd to make stUl worse, 
 Giving an appetite so perverse 
 
 Fresh diet wbereon to batten — 
 Beginning witb A. B. C. to hold 
 Like a royal playbill printed in gold 
 
 On a square of pearl-white satin. 
 
 The books to teach tbe verbs and noims, 
 And those about countries, cities, and towns, 
 Instead of their sober di'abs and browns. 
 
 Were in crimson silk, with gilt edges ; — 
 Her Butler, and Enfield, and Entick — in short 
 Her " Early Lessons " of every sort, 
 
 Look'd like Souvenirs, Keepsakes, and Pledges. 
 
 Old Johnson shone out in as fine array 
 
 As he did one night when he went to the play ;
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 16.5 
 
 Chambaud like a beau of King Charles's day — 
 
 Lindley Miu-ray in like conditions — 
 Each weary, unwelcome, irksome 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 affluent match-making kind 
 
 That ends with Promessi Sposi, 
 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 off hand. 
 
 And ffives the Groom Potosi. 
 
 Plays she perused — but she liked the best 
 Those comedy gentlefolks always possess 'd 
 
 Of fortunes so truly romantic — 
 Of money so ready that right or wrong 
 It always is ready to go for a song,
 
 166 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Throwing it, going it, pitcliing it strong — 
 They ought to have purses as green and long 
 As the cucumber called the Gigantic. 
 
 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 feU 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. 
 
 What more ? She learnt 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 building — 
 And she painted shells, and flowers, and Turks, 
 But her great dehght 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
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. KJ? 
 
 She work'd in gold, as if for licr bread ; 
 
 The metal had so undermined her, 
 Gold ran in her thoughts and fill'd her brain. 
 She was golden-headed as Peter's cane 
 
 With which he walk'd behind her. 
 
 ^er ^cctlrettt. 
 
 The horse that carried Miss Kilmansegg, 
 And a better never hfted leg. 
 
 Was a very rich bay, called Banker — 
 A horse of a breed and a metal so rare, — 
 By Bullion out of an Ingot mare, — 
 That for action, the best of figures, and air. 
 
 It made many good judges hanker. 
 
 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 smother 'd with gold, and a hat 
 
 With more gold lace than beaver.
 
 168 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 And then when Banker obtain 'd a pat, 
 To see how he arch'd his neck at that ! 
 
 He snorted with pride and pleasure ! 
 Like the Steed in the fable so lofty and grand, 
 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 EngUsh grass. 
 
 And sheltered in Yorkshire spinneys, 
 Had he scom-'d the sand with the Desart Ass, 
 
 Or where the American whinnies — 
 But a hunter from Erin's tm-f 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, hke the bolt of a rabbit. 
 Away went the horse in the madness of fright,
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 1G9 
 
 And away went tlie horsewoman mocking tlie sight — 
 Was yonder blue flash a flash of hhie hght. 
 Or only the skirt of her habit ? 
 
 Away she flies, with the groom behind, — 
 It looks Uke a race of the Calmuck kind, 
 
 When Hymen himself is the starter : 
 And the Maid rides first in the fom-footed strife, 
 Riding, striding, as if for her life, 
 While the Lover rides after to catch him a wife. 
 
 Although it 's catcliing a Tartar. 
 
 But the Groom has lost his ghttering hat ! 
 Though he does not sigh and pull up for that — 
 Alas ! his horse is a tit for Tat 
 
 To sell to a very low bidder — 
 His wind is ruin'd, his shoulder is sprung, 
 Things, though a horse be handsome and young', 
 
 A purchaser icill consider. 
 
 But still flies the Heiress through stones and dust, 
 Oh, for a fall, if fall she must.
 
 MISS KILMANSE6G AND 
 
 On the gentle lap of Flora ! 
 But still, thank Heaven ! she chngs to her seat- 
 Away ! away ! she could ride a dead heat 
 With the Dead who ride so fast and fleet, 
 
 In the Ballad of Leonora ! 
 
 Away she gaUops I — it's awful work ! 
 It 's faster than Turpiu's ride to York, 
 
 On Bess that notable clipper ! 
 She has circled the Ring ! — 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 ! 
 
 At a pace that all Jockeys disparages ! 
 All, all is racing ! the Serpentine 
 Seems rushing past Hke the " arrowy Rhine," 
 The houses have got on a railway line, 
 
 And are off like the first-class carriages !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 171 
 
 Slie 11 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 cleai's that gate, which has clear 'd itself 
 
 Since then, at Hyde Park Corner ! 
 
 Alas ! for the hope of the Kilmanseggs ! 
 For her head, her brains, her body, and legs. 
 
 Her life 's not worth a copper ! 
 WiUy-niUy, 
 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 hfts his hands, 
 
 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 dane-ers reveals,
 
 172 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 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, 
 
 As they did to that Persian daughter, 
 When she climb 'd up the steep vociferous hiU, 
 Her httle silver flagon to fill 
 
 With the magical Golden Water ! 
 
 " Batter her ! shatter her ! 
 
 Throw and scatter her ! " 
 
 Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer — 
 
 " Dash at the heavy Dover ! 
 SpiU her ! kill her ! tear and tatter her ! 
 Smash her ! crash her ! " (the stones didn 't flatter 
 
 her!) 
 " Kick her brains out ! let her blood spatter her I 
 
 Roll on her over and over ! "
 
 HER FRECIOUS LEG. 17;i 
 
 For SO she gather'il the a^yflll sense 
 
 Of the street in its past immacadamized tense, 
 
 As the wild horse overran it, — 
 His four heels making the clatter of six. 
 Like a Devil's tattoo, played with iron sticks 
 
 On a kettle-di'um of granite ! 
 
 On ! still on ! she 's dazzled with hints 
 Of oranges, rihbons, and colour 'd prints, 
 A Kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and "tints, 
 
 And human faces aU flashing. 
 Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints. 
 
 That the desperate hoof keeps dashing ! 
 
 On and on ! stiU frightfully fast ! 
 
 Dover-street, Bond-street, aU are past ! 
 
 But — yes — no — ^yes ! — they 're down at last ! 
 
 The Furies and Fates have found them ! 
 Down they go with a sparkle and crash, 
 Like a Bark that 's struck by the lightning flash-
 
 174 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 There 's a shriek — and a sob — 
 And the dense dark mob 
 Like a billow closes around them ! 
 
 * * * -sit * 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " She breathes !" 
 " She don't !" 
 " She '11 recover !" 
 " She won't !" 
 " She 's stirring ! she 's hving, by Nemesis ! " 
 Gold, stiU gold ! on counter and shelf ! 
 Golden dishes as plenty as delf ! 
 Miss Kilmansegg 's coming again to herself 
 On an opulent Goldsmith's premises ! 
 
 Gold ! fine gold I — both yellow and red, 
 Beaten, and molten — polish'd, and dead — 
 To see the gold with profusion spread 
 
 In aU forms of its manufacture ! 
 But what avails gold to Miss Kilmansegg, 
 When the femoral bone of her dexter leg- 
 Has met with a compound fracture ?
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 17-5 
 
 Gold may sooth Adversity's smart ; 
 Nay, help to bind up a broken heart ; 
 But to try it on any other part 
 
 Were as certain a disappointment, 
 As if one should rub the dish and plate, 
 Taken out of a Staffordshire crate — 
 In the hope of a Golden Service of State — 
 
 With Sino-leton's " Golden Ointment." 
 
 ^.tv ?9 recta ujj iLcg. 
 
 " As the twig is bent, the tree 's inclined," 
 Is an adage often recall 'd to mind, 
 
 Referring to juvenile bias : 
 And never so well is the verity seen. 
 As when to the weak, warp'd side we lean, 
 
 While Life 's tempests and hurricanes try us. 
 
 Even 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
 
 17b" MISS KILMANSEGG AKD 
 
 With a certain tinge that served to show 
 The nursery culture long ago, 
 
 As the graft is known hy fruition ! 
 
 For the King's Physician, who nm-sed the case, 
 His verdict gave with an awful face, 
 
 And thi-ee others concurr'd to egg it ; 
 That the Patient to give old Death the sHp, 
 Like the Pope, instead of a personal trip, 
 
 Must send her Leg as a Legate. 
 
 The hmh was doom'd — it couldn't be saved ! 
 And Hke other people the patient behaved. 
 Nay, bravely that cruel parting braved. 
 
 Which makes some persons so falter. 
 They rather would part, without a groan, 
 With the flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone. 
 
 They obtain'd at St. George's altar. 
 
 But when it came to fitting the stiunp 
 With a proxy limb — then flatly and plump 
 She spoke, in the spirit olden ;
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 177 
 
 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, 
 The proxy Umb should he golden ! 
 
 A wooden leg ! what, a sort of peg, 
 
 For your common Jockeys and Jennies ! 
 
 No, no, her mother might worry and plague — 
 
 Weep, go down on her knees, and beg. 
 
 But nothing would move Miss Kihnansegg ! 
 
 She could — she would have a Golden Leg, 
 If it cost ten thousand guineas ! 
 
 Wood indeed, in Forest or Park, 
 
 With its sylvan honours and feudal bark, 
 
 Is an aristocratical article : 
 But split and sawn, and hack'd about town. 
 Serving all needs of pauper or clown, 
 Trod on ! stagger 'd on ! Wood cut down 
 
 Is vidgar — fibre and particle !
 
 178 MISS KILMANSE6G AND 
 
 And Cork ! — when the noble Cork Tree shades 
 A lovely group of Castillan 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, 
 It pierced her heart hke a corking-pin, 
 
 To think of standing upon it ! 
 
 A Leg of Gold — soUd gold tliroughout, 
 Nothing else, whether slim or stout, 
 
 Should ever support her, God willing ! 
 She must — she could — she would have her whim, 
 Her father, she tm-n'd a deaf ear to him — 
 
 He might kiU her — she didn't mind killing ! 
 He was welcome to cut off her other Umb — 
 
 He might cut her all off with a shiUing ! 
 
 All other promised gifts were in vain. 
 Golden Girdle, or Golden Chain, 
 She writhed with impatience more than pain. 
 And utter'd " pshaws ! " and "pishes ! "
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 179 
 
 But a Leg of Gold ! as she lay in bed, 
 It danced before ber — it ran in her bead ! 
 It jump'd with ber dearest wisbes ! 
 
 " Gold — gold — gold ! Ob, let it be gold ! " 
 Asleep or awake that tale sbe told, 
 
 And wben she grew delirious : 
 TiU her parents resolved to grant ber Avish, 
 If they melted down plate, and goblet, and dish. 
 
 The case was getting so serious. 
 
 So a Leg was made in a comely moidd. 
 Of Gold, fine virgin ghttering gold, 
 
 As solid as man could make it — 
 SoUd 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 sierbng metal — not half-and half. 
 The Goldsmith's mark was stamp 'd on the calf — 
 'Twas pm'e as from Mexican barter !
 
 180 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 And to make it more costly, just over the knee, 
 Where another ligatm-e used to be. 
 Was a circle of jewels, worth shiUings to see, 
 A new-fangled Badge of the Garter ! 
 
 'Twas a splendid, brilliant, beautiful Leg, 
 
 Fit for the Court of Scander-Beg, 
 
 That Precious Leg of Miss Kiknansegg ! 
 
 For, thanks to parental bounty. 
 Secure from Mortification's touch. 
 She stood on a Member that cost as much 
 
 As a Member for all the County ! 
 
 f^ev jfamt. 
 
 To gratify stern ambition's whims. 
 
 What hundreds and thousands of precious hmbs 
 
 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 !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 181 
 
 Legs, the tightest that ever were seen, 
 
 The tightest, the lightest, that danced on the green, 
 
 Cutting capers to sweet Kitty Clover ; 
 Shatter 'd, scatter 'd, cut, and bowl'd 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 ! 
 
 But the Precious Leg of Miss Kihnansegg, 
 That gowden, goolden, golden leg, 
 
 Was the theme of all conversation ! 
 Had it been a Pillar of Chiu-ch and State, 
 Or a prop to support the whole Dead Weight, 
 It could not have furnish'd more debate 
 
 To the heads and tails of the nation ! 
 
 East and west, and north and south, 
 Though useless for either hunger or drouth, - 
 The Leg was in every body's mouth. 
 To use a poetical figure,
 
 18-3 MISS K1LMANSE6G AND 
 
 Rumoui', in taking hei" ravenous swim, 
 
 Saw, and seized on the tenapting limb, 
 
 Like a shark on the leg of a nigger. 
 
 Wilful murder fell very dead ; 
 
 Debates in the House were hardly read ; 
 
 In vain the Pohce Reports were fed 
 
 With Irish riots and rumpuses — 
 The Leg ! the Leg ! was the great event, 
 Through every circle in Ufe it went. 
 
 Like the leg of a pair of compasses. 
 
 Tlie last new Novel seem'd tame and flat, 
 The Leg, a novelty newer than that. 
 
 Had tripp'd up the heels of Fiction I 
 It Biu-ked 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 diction. 
 
 " A leg of gold ! what of sohd gold ? " 
 Cried rich and poor, and young and old, —
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 183 
 
 And Master and Miss and Madam — 
 'Twas the talk of 'Change — the Alley — the Bank — 
 And with men of scientific rank, 
 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, 
 
 Through Exaggeration's touches. 
 The Heiress and Hope of the Kihnanseggs 
 Was propp'd on two fine Golden Legs, 
 
 And a pair of Golden Crutches !
 
 184 MISS KILMANSE6G AND 
 
 Never had Leg so great a run ! 
 
 '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 named, and hats were worn, 
 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 BeUes of Wapping wore " Kilmanseggs, " 
 And St. Giles's Beaux sported Golden Legs 
 
 In their pinchbeck pins and brooches ! 
 
 fi^cr df irgt ^tcp. 
 
 Supposing the Trunk and Limbs of Man 
 Shared, on the allegorical plan.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 185 
 
 By the Passions that mark Humanity, 
 Whichever might claim the head, or heart, 
 The stomach, or any other part. 
 
 The Legs would he seized hy Vanity. 
 
 There 's Bardus, a six-foot column of fop, 
 A hghthouse without any light atop, 
 
 Whose height would attract beholders, 
 If he had not lost some inches clear 
 By looking down at his kerseymere, 
 Oghna: the limbs he holds so dear, 
 
 Till he got a stoop in his shoidders. 
 
 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. 
 All prongs and folly — in short a kind 
 
 Of Fork — that is Fiddle-headed.
 
 186 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Wliat wonder, then, if Miss Kilmansegg, 
 With a splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg. 
 Fit for the court of Scander-Beg, 
 Disdain'd to liide it like Joan or Meg, 
 
 In petticoats stuff 'd or quilted ? 
 Not she ! 'twas her convalescent whim 
 To dazzle the world with her precious limb,- 
 
 Nay, to go a little high-kilted. 
 
 So cards were sent for that sort of mob 
 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 geograpliical Fancy Ball 
 
 On the recent Post-Office covers. 
 
 For if Lion-hunters — and great ones too — 
 Would mob a savage from Latakoo, 
 Or squeeze for a gUmpse of Prince Le Boo, 
 That unfortunate Sandwich scion —
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 187 
 
 Hundreds of first-rate people, no doubt. 
 Would gladly, madly, rush to a rout. 
 That promised a Golden Lion ! 
 
 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 eoohng, antiphlogistic speech, 
 To praise and enforce 
 A temperate course, 
 Than the Evil Spirit of Party. 
 
 Go to the House of Commons, or Lords, 
 And they seem to he busy with simple words 
 
 In their popular sense or pedantic — 
 But, alas ! with their cheers, and sneers, and jeers. 
 They 're really busy, whatever appears. 
 Putting peas in each other's ears. 
 
 To drive their enemies frantic !
 
 188 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Thus Tories love to worry the Whigs, 
 
 Who treat them in tui-n hke Schwalhach pigs, 
 
 Giving them lashes, thrashes, and digs. 
 
 With their writhing and pain dehghted — 
 But after aU that 's said, and more. 
 The malice and spite of Party are poor 
 To the mahce and spite of a party next door, 
 
 To a party not invited. 
 
 On with the cap and out with the hght. 
 Weariness hids the world good night. 
 
 At least for the usual season ; 
 But hark ! a clatter of horses' heels ; 
 And Sleep and Silence are hroken 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 bm-den now,
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 189 
 
 Witli a rattling chorus of row-de-dow-dow, 
 Till Silence herself seems making a row, 
 Like a Quaker gone dehrious ! 
 
 'Tis night — a winter uight — and the stara 
 Are shining like winkin' — Venus and Mars 
 Are rolling along in their golden cars 
 
 Through the sky's serene expansion — 
 But vainly the stars dispense their rays, 
 Venus and Mars are lost in the hlaze 
 
 Of the Kilmanseggs' Imninous mansion ! 
 
 Up jumps Fear in a terrihle fright ! 
 His hedchamher windows look so bright, 
 
 With light all the Square is glutted ! 
 Up he jmnps, Uke 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 dreadfid storm
 
 190 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 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! 
 
 '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 Ealmansegg 
 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, 
 
 As if to a Congress of Nations : 
 Greeks and Malays, with daggers and dirks, 
 Spaniards, Jews, Chinese, and Tm-ks — 
 Some like original foreign works, 
 
 But mostly Uke bad translations.
 
 HER TRECIOUS LEG. 191 
 
 In they go, and to work like a pack, 
 Juan, Moses, and Sliacabac, 
 
 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. 
 With a crush, and a rush, for a full-bodied rout 
 
 In one of the stiffest of covers. 
 
 In they went, and hunted about. 
 Open mouth 'd hke 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 rubb'd his hands, and smiled aloud, 
 And bow'd, and bow'd, and bow'd, and bow'd, 
 
 Like a man who is sawing marble. 
 
 For Princes were there, and Noble Peers ; 
 Dukes descended from Norman spears ; 
 Earls that dated from early years ; 
 And Lords in vast variety —
 
 •192 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Besides the Gentry botli new and old — 
 For people who stand on legs of gold, 
 Are sure to stand well with society. 
 
 " But where — where — where ? " with one accord 
 Cried Moses and Mufti, Jack and my Lord, 
 
 Wang-Fong and II Bondocani — 
 When slow, and heavy, and dead as a dump, 
 They heard a foot begin to stiunp, 
 Thump ! liunp ! 
 Lump ! thiunp ! 
 Like the Spectre in " Don Giovanni ! " 
 
 And lo ! the Heiress, Miss Eahnansegg, 
 With her splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg, 
 
 In the garb of a Goddess olden — 
 Like chaste Diana going to hunt. 
 With a golden spear — which of course was blunt. 
 And a tunic loop'd up to a gem in front. 
 
 To shew the Leg that was Golden !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. \9?. 
 
 Gold ! still gold ! her Crescent behold, 
 That should he silver, hut would he gold ; 
 
 And her rohe's auriferous spangles! 
 Her golden stomacher — how she would melt ! 
 Her golden quiver, and golden belt. 
 
 Where a golden buo-le dances ! 
 
 And her jewell'd Garter ? Oh, Sin ! Oh, Shame ! 
 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 loop'd 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, 
 Will cover square acres of land or sin, 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Is a fact made plain 
 Again and again, 
 In Morals as well as Mechanics. 
 
 A few, indeed, of her proper sex, 
 
 Who seem'd to feel her foot on their necks, 
 
 And fear'd their charms would meet with checks 
 
 From so rare and splendid a blazon — 
 A few cried " fie ! " — and " forward " — and "hold ! 
 And said of the Leg it might he gold, 
 
 But to them it looked Hke brazen ! 
 
 'Twas hard they hinted for flesh and blood. 
 Virtue, and Beauty, and aU that's good. 
 
 To strike to mere di'oss their topgallants — 
 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 —
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 195 
 
 Age, sordid Age, admired the whim. 
 
 And its indecormu pardon 'd — 
 While half of the young — ay, more than half- 
 Bow 'd down and worshipp'd the Golden Calf, 
 
 Like the Jews when their hearts were harden 'd. 
 
 A Golden Leg ! what fancies it fired ! 
 What golden wishes and hopes inspired ! 
 
 To give hut a mere ahridgement — 
 Wliat a leo; to leo'-hail Emharrassment's serf I 
 WTiat a leg for a Leg to take on the turf ! 
 
 What a leg for a marching regiment ! 
 
 A Golden Leg ! — whatever Love sings, 
 'Twas Avorth a bushel of " Plain Gold Rings " 
 
 With which the Romantic wheedles. 
 'Twas worth all the legs in stockings and socks — 
 'Twas a leg that might he 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.
 
 196 MISS KILMANSEGU AND 
 
 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 fiUal leg was lost ; 
 And then how much the gold one cost ; 
 
 With its weight to a Trojan fraction : 
 And how it took off, and how it put on ; 
 And caU'd on Devil, Duke, and Don, 
 Mahomet, Moses, and Prester John, 
 
 To notice its beautiful action. 
 
 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 postm-es for painters' studies : 
 It cost more tricks and trouble by half, 
 Than it takes to exhibit a Six-legg'd Calf 
 
 To a boothful of country Cuddies.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 197 
 
 Nor j-^et did the Heiress herself omit 
 The arts that help to make a hit, 
 
 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 Avith a Count of France 
 To dance — alas ! the measures we dance 
 
 When Vanity plays the Piper ! 
 Vanity, Vanity, apt to hetray, 
 And lead all sorts of legs astray, 
 Wood, or metal, or human clay, — 
 
 Since Satan first play'd the Viper ! 
 
 But first she doft' '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.
 
 198 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 And then a space was clear 'd on the floor. 
 And she walk'd the Minuet de la Cour, 
 With all the pomp of a Pompadour, 
 
 But although she hegan andante, 
 Conceive the faces of all the Rout, 
 When she finish 'd off with a whirligig bout. 
 And the Precious Leg stuck stiffly out 
 
 Like the leg of a Figurante 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, 
 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,
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 199 
 
 The jeers it bad met, — the shouts ! the scoif ! 
 The cutting advice to " take itself off," 
 For sounding but half so heavy. 
 
 Had it been a leg like those, perchance. 
 That teach Mttle girls and boys to dance, 
 To set, poussette, recede, and advance, 
 
 With the steps and figiu-es most proper, — 
 Had it hopp'd for a weekly or quarterly sum, 
 How little of praise or grist would have come 
 
 To a mill with such a hopper ! 
 
 But the Leg was none of those bmbs forlorn- 
 Bartering capers and hops for corn — 
 That meet with pubUc hisses and scorn, 
 
 Or the morning journal denounces — 
 Had it pleas 'd to caper from morn till dusk, 
 There was all the music of " Money Musk " 
 
 In its ponderous bangs and bounces.
 
 200 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 But hark ! — as slow as the strokes of a pump, 
 Lump, thump I 
 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 turhan's hint, 
 A noble Lord at the Head of the Mint 
 Is leading the Leg to supper ! 
 
 But the supper, alas ! must rest untold, 
 With its blaze of Ught 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 — coidd fitly state 
 THE MASSIVE SERVICE OF GOLDEN PLATE, 
 With the proper phrase and expansion —
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 201 
 
 The Rare Selection of FOREIGN WINES— 
 
 The ALPS OF ICE and MOUNTAINS OF FINES, 
 
 The punch in OCEANS and sugary shrines, 
 
 The TEMPLE OF TASTE from GUNTER'S 
 
 DESIGNS— 
 In short, aU that WEALTH with A FEAST com- 
 bines, 
 In a SPLENDID FAMILY MANSION. 
 
 Suffice it each mask'd outlandish guest 
 Ate and drank of the very best. 
 
 According to critical conners — 
 And then they pledged the Hostess and Host, 
 But the Golden Leg was the standing toast, 
 And as somebody swore, 
 Walk'd off with more 
 Than its share of the " Hips ! " and honours ! 
 
 "Miss Kilmansegg I — 
 FuU glasses I beg ! — 
 Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg ! " 
 And away went the bottle careering !
 
 202 MISS KILMANSE6G AND 
 
 Wine in bumpers ! and shouts in peals ! 
 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 ! 
 
 ?f?er Wttam. 
 
 Miss Kihnansegg took otf her leg, 
 And laid it down hke a cribbage-peg, 
 
 For the Rout was done and the riot : 
 The Square was hush'd ; not a sound was heard ; 
 The sky was gray, and no creature atirr'd, 
 Except one little precocious bird. 
 
 That chirp'd — and then was quiet. 
 
 So still without, — so still within ; — 
 It had been a sin 
 To di-op a pin — 
 So intense is silence after a din. 
 
 It seem'd like Death's rehearsal! 
 To stir the air no eddv came ;
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG, 203 
 
 And the taper burnt with as still a flame, 
 As to flicker had been a burning shame, 
 In a cahii so imiversal. 
 
 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 pleasm-es of having a rout 
 
 Is the pleasure of having it over. 
 
 No sordid pallet, or tnicklc mean. 
 
 Of straw, and rug, and tatters unclean ; 
 
 But a splendid, gilded, carved machine, 
 
 That was fit for a Royal Chamber. 
 On the top was a gorgeous golden wreath ; 
 And the damask curtains hung beneath. 
 
 Like clouds of crimson and amber.
 
 204 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 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 caU'd them " Cupidities." 
 
 No patchwork quilt, aU seams and scars, 
 But velvet, powder 'd with golden stars, 
 
 A fit mantle for Night-Commanders. ! 
 And the pillow, as white as snow undimm'd. 
 And as cool as the pool that the breeze has skimm'd, 
 Was cased in the finest cambric, and trimm'd 
 
 With the costhest lace of Flanders. 
 
 And the bed — of the Eider's softest down, 
 'Twas a place to revel, to smother, to drown 
 
 In a bhss inferr'd by the Poet ; 
 For if Ignorance be indeed a bUss, 
 What blessed ignorance equals this, 
 
 To sleep — and not to know it ?
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG, 205 
 
 Oh, bed ! oli, bed ! delicious bed ! 
 
 That heaven upon earth to the weary head ; 
 
 But a place that to name would be iU-bred, 
 
 To the head with a wakefid trouble — 
 'Tis held by such a different lease ! 
 To one, a place of comfort and peace. 
 All stuff'd with the down of stubble geese, 
 
 To another with only the stubble ! 
 
 To one, a perfect Halcyon nest, 
 
 All calm, and balm, and quiet, and rest, 
 
 And soft as the fm* of the cony — 
 To another, so restless for 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, 
 Who turn, and turn, and tm'n again, 
 But turn, and turn, and turn in vain.
 
 206 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 With an anxious brain, 
 And thoughts in a train 
 That does not run upon sleepers I 
 
 Wide awake as the mousing owl, 
 Night-hawk, or other noctm-nal 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 kiU them sleeping. 
 
 And oh ! when the blessed diurnal light 
 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 cannot sleep 
 
 When God himself di-aws the cm'tain ! 
 
 The careful Betty the pillow beats. 
 And airs the blankets, and smoothes the sheets, 
 And eives the mattress a shaking —
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 207 
 
 But vainly Betty performs lier part, 
 If a ruffled 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 preserves, 
 
 He turns his fruits into pickles : 
 Jealous, envious, and fretfid by day, 
 At night,, to his own sharp fancies a prey, 
 He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, 
 
 Tormenting himself with his prickles. 
 
 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 pictm-e 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 ! dehcious bed ! 
 That heav'n upon earth to the weary head,
 
 208 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Whether lofty or low its condition ! 
 But instead of putting our plagues on shelves, 
 In our blankets how often we toss oui'selves, 
 Or are toss'd by such allegorical elves 
 
 As Pride, Hate, Greed, and Ambition ! 
 
 The independent Miss Ivilmansegg 
 Took off her independent Leg 
 
 And laid it beneath her pillow, 
 And then on the bed her frame she cast, 
 The time for repose had come at last, 
 But long, long, after the stonn is past 
 
 Rolls the tm'bid, turbulent biUow. 
 
 No part she had in vulgar cares 
 
 That belong to common household affairs — 
 
 Nocturnal annoyances such as theirs 
 
 Wlio lie with a slu-ewd surmising 
 That while they are couchant (a bitter cup ! ) 
 Their bread and butter are getting up, 
 
 And the coals — confound them ! — are rising.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 209 
 
 No fear she had her sleep to postpone, 
 Like the crippled Widow who weeps aloue, 
 And cannot make a doze her own, 
 
 For the dread that mayhap on the morrow, 
 The true and Christian reading to halk, 
 A broker will take up her bed and walk, 
 
 By way of cm-ing 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 
 
 To cause some human commotion ; 
 But whenever such, breezes coincide 
 With the very spring-tide 
 Of himian pride, 
 There 's no such swell on the ocean ! 
 
 Peace, and ease, and slumber lost, 
 She turn'd, and roU'd, and tiunbled, and toss'd. 
 With a tumult that would not settle :
 
 210 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 A common case, indeed, with such 
 As have too httle, or think too much, 
 Of the precious and glittering metal. 
 
 Gold ! — she saw at her golden foot 
 The Peer whose tree had an olden root, 
 The Proud, the Great, the Learned to hoot. 
 
 The handsome, the gay, and the witty — 
 The Man of Science — of Arms — of Art, 
 The man who deals hut at Pleasm-e's mart. 
 
 And the man who deals in the City. 
 
 Gold, stni gold — and true to the mould ! 
 In the very scheme of her dream it told : 
 
 For, by magical transmutation, 
 From her Leg through her body it seem'd to go, 
 TiU, gold above, and gold below. 
 She was gold, all gold, from her little gold toe 
 
 To her organ of Veneration !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 211 
 
 And still she retain'd, through Fancy's art, 
 The Golden Bow, and the Golden Dart, 
 With which she had played a Goddess's part 
 
 In her recent glorification. 
 And still, hke one of the self-same hrood. 
 On a PUnth of the self-same metal she stood 
 
 For the whole world's adoration. 
 
 And hymns of incense aroimd her roU'd, 
 From Golden Hai-ps and Censers of Gold, — 
 For Fancy in dreams is as uncontroll'd 
 
 As a horse without a hridle : 
 What wonder, then, from all checks exempt. 
 If, inspired hy the Golden Leg, she dreamt 
 
 She was turn'd to a Golden Idol ? 
 
 When leaving Eden's happy land 
 The grieving Angel led by the hand 
 Our banish 'd Father and Mother, 
 Forgotten amid their awful doom, 
 p 2
 
 n-2 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 The tears, the fears, and the future's gloom, 
 On each brow was a wreath of Paradise bloom. 
 That our Parents had twined for each other. 
 
 It was only while sitting like 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, 
 They look'd around for the precious flow'rs. 
 And lo ! — a last relic of Eden's dear bow'rs — 
 
 The chaplet that Love had woven ! 
 
 And still, when a pair of Lovers meet, 
 There 's a sweetness in air, unearthly sweet, 
 That savom-s still of that happy retreat 
 
 Where Eve by Adam was com-ted : 
 Whilst the joyous Thrush, and the gentle Dove, 
 Woo'd their mates in the boughs above, 
 
 And the Serpent, as yet, only sported.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 213 
 
 Who liath not felt that breatli in the air, 
 
 A perfume and freshness strange and rare, 
 
 A warmth in the hght, and a bhss every where, 
 
 When young hearts yearn together ? 
 All sweets below, and all sunny above, 
 Oh ! there 's nothing in Hfe like maldng love, 
 
 Save making hay in fine weather ! 
 
 Who hath not foimd amongst his flow'rs 
 A blossom too bright for this world of ours. 
 
 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 Eden ! 
 
 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.
 
 214 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Woo'd, and coo'd, and wheedled, and press'd. 
 By suitors from North, South, East, and West, 
 Like that Heiress, in song, Tibbie Fowler ! 
 
 But, alas ! alas ! for the Woman's fate. 
 Who has from a mob to choose a mate ! 
 
 'T is 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. 
 She will take the Faustus, and leave the Old Nick- 
 But her futm'e bUss to baffle. 
 Amongst a score let her have a voice, 
 And she '11 have as Uttle cause to rejoice. 
 As if she had won the " Man of her choice " 
 In a matrimonial raffle !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 21.5 
 
 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. 
 Just 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 liis eyes as black as the fruit of the thorn. 
 And his hooky nose, aud liis beard half-shorn. 
 
 Like a half-converted Rabbin. 
 
 And because the Sex confess a charm 
 
 In the man who has slash'd a head or arm. 
 
 Or has been a throat's undoing. 
 He was dress 'd like one of the glorious trade.
 
 216 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 At least when glory is off parade, 
 With a stock, aud a frock, weU trimm'd with braid, 
 And frogs — that went a-wooing. 
 
 Moreover, as Counts are apt to do. 
 
 On the left-hand side of his dark sm-tout. 
 
 At one of those holes that buttons go through, 
 
 (To be a precise recorder,) 
 A ribbon he wore, or rather a scrap, 
 About an inch of ribbon mayhap. 
 That one of his rivals, a whimsical chap, 
 
 Described as his " Retail Order." 
 
 And then — and much it help'd his chance — 
 He could sing, and play first fiddle, and dance. 
 Perform charades, and Proverbs of France — 
 
 Act the tender, and do the cruel ; 
 For amongst his other killing parts, 
 He had broken a brace of female hearts. 
 
 And mm-der'd three men in duel !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 21] 
 
 Savage at heart, anil false of tongue, 
 Subtle with age, and smooth to the young, 
 
 Like a snake in his coiling and curling — 
 Such was the Count — to give him a niche — 
 Who came to com't that Heiress rich. 
 And knelt at her foot — one needn't say which — 
 
 Besieging her Castle of Sterling. 
 
 With pray'rs and vows he opcn'd his trench. 
 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 ItaUan touch, 
 Till she yielded, without resisting much, 
 
 To homao-c 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 whiskers as black as those,
 
 218 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 The lady's consent he requited — 
 And instead of the lock that lovers beg, 
 The Count received from Miss Kilmansegg 
 A model, in small, of her Precious Leg — 
 
 And so the couple were plighted ! 
 
 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 aU the fairies had dress 'd her ! 
 Whose brain to no crooked thought gives birth, 
 Except that he never wiU part on earth 
 
 With his true love's crooked tester ! 
 
 Alas ! for the love that 's liuk'd with gold ! 
 Better — better a thousand times told — 
 
 More 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 !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 219 
 
 Pretty Cis, so smiling and bright, 
 
 Who loves as she labom-s, with all her might. 
 
 And without any sordid leaven ! 
 Who blushes as red as haws and hips, 
 Down to her very finger-tips, 
 For Roger's blue ribbons — to her, Uke strips 
 
 Out out of the azure of Heaven ! 
 
 Her iParrtafle. 
 Twas morn — a most auspicious one ! 
 From the Golden East, the Golden Sun 
 Came forth liis glorious race to run. 
 
 Through clouds of most splendid tinges ; 
 Clouds that lately slept in shade. 
 But new seem'd made 
 Of gold brocade, 
 With magnificent golden fringes. 
 
 Gold above, and gold below, 
 The earth reflected the golden glow, 
 From river, and hiU, and valley ;
 
 220 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Gilt by the golden light of morn, 
 The Thames — it look'd hke the Golden Horn, 
 And the Barge, that carried coal or corn, 
 Like Cleopatra's Galley ! 
 
 Bright as clusters of Golden-rod, 
 Suburban poplars began to nod. 
 
 With extempore splendour furnish 'd; 
 While London was bright with glittering clocks. 
 Golden dragons, and Golden cocks. 
 And above them all, 
 The dome of St. Paul, 
 With its Golden Cross and its Golden Ball, 
 Shone out as if newly biu-nish'd ! 
 
 And lo ! for Golden Hours and Joys, 
 Troops of glittering Golden Boys 
 Danced along with a jocund noise. 
 
 And their gilded emblems carried ! 
 In short, 'twas the year's most Golden Day, 
 By mortals call'd the First of May,
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 2-21 
 
 When Miss Kilmansegg, 
 Of the Golden Leg, 
 With a Golden Ring was married ! 
 
 And thousands of children, women, and men, 
 Counted the clock from eight till ten, 
 
 From St. James's sonorous steeple ; 
 For next to that interesting joh, 
 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 Carriao-e that blazed with crold ! 
 And the Footmen tall, and the Coachman bold, 
 
 In liveries so resplendent — 
 Coats you wonder 'd to see in place. 
 They seem'd so rich with golden lace, 
 
 That they might have been independent. 
 
 Coats that made those menials proud 
 Gaze with scorn on the dingy crowd.
 
 222 MISS KILMANSEG6 AND 
 
 From their gilded elevations ; 
 Not to forget that saucy lad 
 (Ostentation's favourite cad), 
 The Page, who look'd, so splendidly clad, 
 
 Like a Pasre of the " Wealth of Nations." 
 
 But the Coachman carried off the state. 
 With what was a Lancashire hody of late 
 
 Turn'd into a Dresden Figure ; 
 With a hridal Nosegay of early bloom, 
 About the size of a birchen broom. 
 And so huge a Wliite 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. 
 
 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 !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 223 
 
 And then — Great Jove ! — the struggle, the crush, 
 The screams, the heaving, the awful rush. 
 
 The swearing, the tearing, and fighting. 
 The hats and honnets smash 'd like an egg — 
 To catch a ghmpse of the Golden Leg, 
 Which, between the steps and Miss Kilmansegg, 
 
 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 he 
 
 A crooked leg or a skinny : 
 But although a magnificent veil she wore, 
 Such as never was seen before. 
 In case of blushes, she blush 'd no more 
 
 Than George the Fu'st on a guinea ! 
 
 Another step, and lo ! she was launch 'd ! 
 All in wliite, as Brides are hlanclid, 
 
 With a wreath of most wonderful splendour-
 
 >24 MISS KILMAN3EGG AND 
 
 Diamonds, and pearls, so rich in device, 
 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 sail'd through the crowd of squahd and poor, 
 
 Thief, beggar, and tatterdemalion — 
 Led by the Count, with his sloe-black eyes 
 Bright with triumph, and some surprise, 
 Like Anson on making sure of his prize 
 
 The famous Mexican Galleon ! 
 
 Anon came Lady K., with her face 
 Quite made up to act with grace, 
 . But she cut 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 Chm-ch, as if 
 To get married before her daughter.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 225 
 
 But Sir Jacob walk'd more slowly, and bow'd 
 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 least of the sight. 
 Six " Handsome Fortunes," all in white. 
 Came to help in the marriage rite, — 
 
 And rehearse their own hymeneals ; 
 And then the bright procession to close. 
 They were followed by just as many Beaux 
 
 Quite fine 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 Beadle was forced to intervene, 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 MISS KILMANSE6G AND 
 
 For Jim the Crow, and his Mayday Queen, 
 With her gilded ladle, and Jack i' the Green, 
 Would fain have follow 'd after ! 
 
 Beadle-like he hush'd the shout ; 
 
 But the temple was full " inside and out," 
 
 And a huzz kept huzzing 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 smear 'd 
 
 With Wedlock's treacle and honey ! 
 
 Yet Wedlock 's a very awful thing ! 
 'Tis something like that feat in the rina: 
 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 !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 227 
 
 But the Count he felt the nervous work 
 No more than any polygamous Turk, 
 
 Or bold piratical schipper, 
 Who, dui-ing 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 hke a Fir 
 
 Wlien the frost is severe and bitter. 
 
 Such were the future man and wife ! 
 Wliose bale or bhss to the end of life 
 A few short words were to settle — 
 Wilt thou have this woman ? 
 
 I wiU — and then, 
 Wilt thou have this man ? 
 Q 2
 
 228 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 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, 
 
 As a Countess walk'd to her carriage — 
 Whilst Hymen preen 'd his plumes like a dove. 
 And Cupid flutter 'd his wings ahove, 
 In the shape of a fly — as httle a Love 
 
 As ever look'd in at a marriage ! 
 
 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 
 Of the Golden Boys beginning a reel, 
 To the merry sound of a wedding-peal 
 
 From St. James's musical steeple. 
 
 Those wedding-beUs ! those wedding-bells ! 
 How sweetly they sound in pastoral dells
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 229 
 
 From a tow'r in an ivy-green jacket ! 
 But town-made joys how dearly tliey cost ; 
 And after all are tumbled and tost, 
 Like a peal ft-om a London steeple, and lost 
 
 In town-made riot and racket. 
 
 The wedding-peal, how sweetly it peals 
 With grass or heather beneath oivr heels, — 
 
 For bells are Music's laughter ! — 
 But a Loudon 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, 
 The Countess and Count, at the present nick. 
 Have a cliicken and not a crow to pick 
 
 At a sumptuous Cold Collation.
 
 230 MISS KILMANSE6G AND 
 
 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 — 
 Wines, of the richest flavom* and hue ; 
 With fruits from the worlds both Old and New 
 And fruits obtain 'd before they were due 
 
 At a discount most usurious. 
 
 For wealthy palates there be, that scout 
 What is in season, for what is oitt, 
 
 And pi-efer aU precocious savour : 
 For instance, early green peas, of the sort 
 That costs some four or five guineas a quart 
 
 Where the Mint is the principal flavour.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 231 
 
 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 had their fortunes to build 
 And — much to their credit — had richly fiU'd 
 
 Their purses by pursy-verance. 
 
 Men, by popular nun our at least, 
 Not the last to enjoy a feast ! 
 
 And truly they were not idle ! 
 Luckier far than the chesnut tits. 
 Which, down at the door, stood champing their bitts. 
 
 At a different sort of bridle. 
 
 For the time was come — and the whisker 'd Comit 
 Help'd his Bride in the carriage to mount, 
 
 And fain would the Muse deny it, 
 But the crowd, including two butchers in blue, 
 (The regular killing WTiitechapel hue,) 
 Of her Precious Calf had as ample a view. 
 
 As if they had come to buy it I
 
 232 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Then away ! away ! Avith all the speed 
 That golden spurs can give to the steed, — 
 Both Yellow Boys and Guineas, indeed, 
 
 Concurr'd to urge the cattle — 
 Away they went, with favours white, 
 Yellow jackets, and pannels bright. 
 And left the moh, like a mob at night, 
 
 Agape at the sound of a rattle. 
 
 Away ! away ! they rattled and roll'd, 
 
 The Count, and his Bride, and her Leg of Gold- 
 
 That faded charm to the charmer ! 
 Away, — through Old Brentford rang the din, 
 Of wheels and heels, on their way to win 
 That hill, named after one of her kin, 
 
 The HiU of the Golden Farmer ! 
 
 Gold, still gold — it flew like dust ! 
 It tipp'd the post-boy, and paid the trust ; 
 In each open palm it was freely thrust ; 
 There was nothing but giving and taking !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 233 
 
 And if gold could ensure the futiu-e hour, 
 What hopes attended that Bride to her how'r, 
 But alas ! even hearts with a foiu- -horse pow'r 
 Of opulence end in breaking ! 
 
 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 shews most fickle and strange, 
 And takes the most eccentric range 
 
 Is the moon — so called — of honey ! 
 
 To some a fidl-grown orb reveal'd. 
 
 As big and as round as Nerval's shield, 
 
 And as bright as a burner Bude-hghted ; 
 To others as dull, and dingy, and damp, 
 As any oleaginous lamp. 
 Of the regular old parochial stamp. 
 
 In a London fog benighted.
 
 234 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 To the loving, a bright and constant sphere, 
 That makes earth's commonest scenes appear 
 
 All poetic, romantic, and tender : 
 Hanging with jewels a cabbage-stump, 
 And investing a common post, or a pump, 
 A currant-bush, or a gooseberry clmnp, 
 
 With a halo of dreamhke 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. 
 One of the most delightfid 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
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 235 
 
 To the humblest spot and the plainest face — 
 That turns Wilderness Row into Paradise Place, 
 And Garlick HiU 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 the humblest thatch. 
 And will fly away from an Emperor's match 
 
 To dance at a Penny Wedding ! 
 
 Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state. 
 When such a bright Planet governs the fate 
 
 Of a pair of united lovers ! 
 'Tis theirs, in spite of the Serpent's hiss, 
 To enjoy the pure primeval kiss. 
 With as much of the old original bliss 
 
 As mortality ever recovers ! 
 
 There 's strength in doul)le joints, no doubt. 
 In' double X Ale, and Dublin Stout,
 
 236 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 That the single sorts know nothing ahout — 
 
 And a fist is strongest when doubled — 
 And double aqua-fortis, of course, 
 And double soda-water, perforce, 
 
 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 dahha delights the eye ; 
 And it 's far the lovehest sight in the sky 
 
 When a double rainbow is glowing ! 
 
 There 's warmth in a pair of double soles ; 
 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.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 237 
 
 There 's a twofold sweetness in double pipes ; 
 And a double barrel and double snipes 
 
 Give the sportsman a duphcate pleasiu'e : 
 There 's double safety in double locks ; 
 And double letters bi-ing cash for the box ; 
 And all the world knows that double knocks 
 
 Are gentiUty's double measure. 
 
 There 's a double sweetness in double rhymes, 
 And a double at WTiist 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-reef 'd topsail in trouble. 
 
 There 's a double chuck at a double chin, 
 
 And of course there 's a double pleasure therein, 
 
 If the parties were brought to teUing : 
 And however om* Dennises take offence, 
 A double meaning shews double sense ;
 
 238 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 And if proverbs tell truth, 
 A double tooth 
 Is Wisdom's adopted dwelling ! 
 
 But double wisdom, and pleasiu-e, and sense, 
 Beauty, respect, strength, comfort, and thence 
 
 Through whatever the list discovers, 
 They are all in the double blessedness summ'd, 
 Of Avhat was formerly double-drumm'd. 
 
 The Marriage of two true Lovers ! 
 
 Now the Kilmansegg Moon — it must be told — 
 Though instead of silver it tipp'd with gold — 
 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,' 
 And the scented hawthorn had blossom 'd soon.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 239 
 
 And the thrush and the hUickbird were singing — 
 The snow-white lambs were skipping in play, 
 And the bee was humming a tune all day 
 To flowers as welcome as flowers in May, 
 
 And the trout in the stream was springing ! 
 
 But what were the hues of the blooming earth, 
 Its scents — its sounds — or the music and mirth 
 
 Of its furr'd or its feather 'd creatm-es, 
 To a Pair in the world's last sordid stage. 
 Who had never look'd into Nature's page, 
 And had strange ideas of a Golden Age, 
 
 Without any Arcadian featm'es ? 
 
 And what were joys of the pastoral kind 
 
 To a Bride — town-made — with a heart and mind 
 
 With simplicity ever at battle ? 
 A bride of an ostentatious race, 
 Wlio, thrown in the Golden Farmer's place, 
 Would have trlmm'd her shepherds with golden lace. 
 
 And gilt the horns of her cattle.
 
 240 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 She could not please the pigs with her whim, 
 And the sheep wouldn't cast their eyes at a limb 
 
 For which she 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 cropp'd 
 For her Leg, including the Garter ! 
 
 She hated lanes, and she hated fields — 
 She hated all that the country yields — 
 
 And 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 ! 
 
 blessed nature, " rus ! rus ! " 
 
 Who cannot sigh for the country thus, 
 
 Absorbed in a worldly torpor —
 
 HER PKECIODS LEG. ' 241 
 
 Who does not yearn for its meadow-sweet breath, 
 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 mom. 
 And relish the odom* fresh from the thorn. 
 
 She was far too pamper 'd a madam — 
 Or to joy in the dayUght waxing strong. 
 While, after ages of sorrow and wrong, 
 The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong, 
 And all the woes that to man belong. 
 The lark still cai'ols the self-same song 
 
 That he did to the uncurst Adam ! 
 
 The Lark ! she had given all Leipsic's flocks 
 For a Vauxhall tune in a musical box ; 
 
 And as for the birds in the tliicket, 
 Thrush or ousel in leafy niche, 
 The linnet or finch, she Avas far too rich 
 To care for a Morning Concert to which 
 
 She was welcome without any ticket.
 
 242 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 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 iinblest. 
 As her agricultural Uncle's guest, 
 Her mind was made up and fully imprest 
 
 That fehcity could not be rm-al ! 
 
 And the Count ?— to the snow-white lambs at play, 
 And all the scents and the sights of May, 
 
 And the birds that warbled their passion, 
 His ears, and dark eyes, and decided nose, 
 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 Fasliion. 
 
 To teU, indeed, the true extent 
 Of his rural bias so far it went 
 
 As to covet estates in ring fences —
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 043 
 
 And for rural lore he had learn 'd in town 
 That the country was green, turn'd up with brown, 
 And garnish 'd with trees that a man might cut down 
 Instead of his own expenses. 
 
 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 
 
 Of a far less metalsome woman ! 
 
 It was early days indeed for a wife, 
 In the very spring of her married life, 
 
 To be chill 'd by its wintry weather — 
 But instead of sitting as Love-Birds do, 
 Or Hymen's tm-tles that biU and coo — 
 Enjoying their "moon and honey for two " 
 
 They were scarcely seen together ! 
 r2
 
 244 MISS KILMANSECtG AND 
 
 In vain she sat with her Precious Leg 
 A httle exposed, a la Kilmansegg, 
 
 And roU'd her eyes in their sockets ! 
 He left her in spite of her tender regards, 
 And those loving murmurs described by bards, 
 For the rattline- of dice and the shuffling of cards, 
 
 And the poking of balls into pockets ! 
 
 Moreover he loved the deepest stake 
 
 And the heaviest bets the players would make ; 
 
 And he drank — the reverse of sparely, — 
 And he used strange curses that made her fret ; 
 And when he play'd with herself at piquet. 
 She found, to her cost, 
 For she always lost, 
 That the Count did not count quite fairly. 
 
 And then came dark mistrust and doubt, 
 Gather 'd by worming his secrets out, 
 
 And slips in his conversations — 
 Fears, which all her peace destroy 'd,
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 245 
 
 That his title was null — his coffers were void — 
 And his French Chateau was in Spain, or enjoy 'd 
 The most airy of situations. 
 
 But still his heart — if he had such a part- 
 She — only she — might possess his heart, 
 
 And hold his affections in fetters- 
 Alas ! that hope, like a crazy ship, 
 Was forced its anchor and cable to slip 
 Wlien, 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 intrigues 
 
 As the Count's in the " Barber of Seville " — 
 In short such mysteries came to light, 
 That the Countess-Bride, on the thirtieth night, 
 Woke and started up in affright. 
 And kick'd and scream 'd with all her might, 
 And finally fainted away outi-ight. 
 
 For she dreamt she had married the Devil !
 
 246 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Her iWt^ery. 
 
 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 wiU not foam, 
 And home-made dishes that drive one from home, 
 Not to name each mess. 
 For the face or dress, 
 Home-made by the homely daughters ? 
 
 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, 
 Of all our evils the worst of the worst 
 
 Is home-made infelicity.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 247 
 
 There 's a Golden Bird that claps its wings, 
 And dances for joy on its perch, and sings 
 
 With a Persian exaltation : 
 For the Sim is shining into the room, 
 And hrightens up the carpet-hloom, 
 As if it were new, bran new from the loom, 
 
 Or the lone Nun's fabrication. 
 
 And thence the glorious radiance flames 
 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 Hlies." 
 
 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
 
 248 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Of gilded china, and golden clocks, 
 Toy, and trinket, and musical box, 
 That Peace and Paris have furnish 'd. 
 
 And lo ! with the brightest gleam of all 
 The glowing simbeam is seen to fall 
 
 On an object as rare as splendid — 
 The golden foot of the Golden Leg 
 Of the Countess — once Miss Kihnansegg — 
 
 But there all sunshine is ended. 
 
 Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim. 
 And downward cast, yet not at the limb, 
 
 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 —
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 249 
 
 And tears are falling that catch a gleam 
 So bright as they drop in the sunny beam, 
 That tears of aqua regia they seem, 
 The water that gold dissolves in ! 
 
 Yet, not in fiUal 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 m'banity ; 
 The waters that down her visage riU'd 
 Were di-ops of unrectified spirit distiU'd 
 
 From the limbeck of Pride and Vanity. 
 
 Tears that fell alone and uncheekt, 
 Without rehef, and without respect, 
 Like the fabled pearls that the pigs neglect, 
 
 Wlien pigs have that opportunity — 
 And of aU the gi-iefs that mortals share, 
 The one that seems the hardest to bear 
 
 Is the grief without community.
 
 250 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 How bless 'd the heart that has a friend 
 A sympathising ear to lend 
 
 To troubles too great to smother ! 
 For as ale and porter, when flat, are restored 
 Till a sparkhng bubbhng head they afi"ord, 
 So sorrow is cheer 'd by being pour'd 
 
 From one vessel into another. 
 
 But friend or gossip she had not one 
 
 To hear the vile deeds that the Count had done, 
 
 How night after night he rambled ; 
 And how she had learn 'd by sad degrees 
 That he di'ank, and smoked, and worse than these. 
 
 That he " swindled, intrigued, and gambled." 
 
 How he kiss'd the maids, and sj)arr'd with John ; 
 And came to bed with his garments on ; 
 
 With other offences as heinous — 
 And brought strange gentlemen home to dine. 
 That he said were in the Fancy Line, 
 And they fancied spirits instead of wine, 
 
 And call'd her lap-dog " Wenus."
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 251 
 
 Of " making a book " bow be made a stir, 
 But never bad written a Hne to ber, 
 
 Once bis idol and Cara Sposa : 
 And bow be bad stonn'd, and treated ber ill, 
 Because sbe refused to go down to a mill, 
 Sbe didn't know where, but remember 'd still 
 
 Tbat tbe Miller's name was Mendoza. 
 
 How often be waked her up at night, 
 And oftener still by tbe morning light, 
 
 Reehng home from bis haunts unlawful ; 
 Singing songs that shouldn't be sung. 
 Except by beggars and thieves unhung — 
 Or volleying oaths, tbat a foreign tongue 
 
 Made still more horrid and awful ! 
 
 How oft, instead of otto of rose. 
 
 With vidgar smells he offended ber nose. 
 
 From gin, tobacco, and onion I 
 And then bow wildly he used to stare ! 
 And shake bis fist at nothing, and swear,-
 
 2 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair, 
 TiU he look'd like a study of Giant Despair 
 For a new Edition of Bunyan ! 
 
 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, 
 
 From London Docks ; 
 
 Stultz's frocks, 
 
 Manton and Nock's 
 
 Barrels and locks. 
 
 Shooting blue rocks, 
 
 Trainers and jocks, 
 
 Buskins and socks, 
 
 Pugilistical knocks. 
 
 And fighting-cocks, 
 If he foimd himself short in funds and stocks, 
 These rhymes will furnish the reason !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 253 
 
 His friends, indeed, were falling away — 
 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, 
 For his checks no longer di'ew 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, 
 AH 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 ! 
 
 Had she cried her wrongs in the market-place. 
 
 She had warrant for all her clamour — 
 For the worst of rogues, and brutes, and rakes,
 
 254 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 Was breaking her heart by constant aches, 
 ^ With as Uttle remorse as the Pauper who breaks 
 A flint with a parish hammer ! 
 
 fittt Hast 5123111. 
 
 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. 
 
 For alter'd days brought alter 'd ways, 
 And instead of the compUmentary phrase, 
 
 So current before her bridal — 
 The Countess heard, in language low, 
 That her Precious Leg was precious slow, 
 A good 'un to look at but bad to go. 
 
 And kept quite a sum lying idle.
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 255 
 
 That instead of playing musical airs, 
 
 Like Colin's foot in going up-stairs — 
 
 As the wife in the Scottish haUad declares — 
 
 It made an infernal stumping. 
 ^Vhereas a member of cork, or wood, 
 Would be lighter and cheaper and quite as good, 
 
 Without the unbearable thumping. 
 
 P'rhaps she thought it a decent thing 
 To shew her calf to cobbler and king, 
 
 But nothing could be absurder — 
 WhUe none but the crazy would advertise 
 Their gold before their servants' eyes. 
 Who of com-se some night would make it a prize. 
 
 By a Shocking and Barbarous Murder. 
 
 But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff, 
 
 The Leg kept its situation : 
 For legs are not to be taken off 
 
 By a verbal amputation. 
 And mortals when they take a whim, 
 The greater the folly the stiffer the limb
 
 256 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 That stands upon it or by it — 
 So tlie Countess, then Miss Kiknansegg, 
 At her marriage refused to stir a peg, 
 Till the Lawyers had fastened on her Leg, 
 
 As fast as the Law could tie it. 
 
 Firmly then — and more firmly yet — 
 
 With scorn for scorn, and with threat for threat, 
 
 The Proud One confronted the Cruel : 
 And loud and hitter 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, and wretched, and wrong. 
 
 Were the words that came from Weak and Strong, 
 
 Till madden 'd for desperate matters, 
 Fierce as tigress escaped from her den, 
 She flew to her desk — 'twas open'd — and then. 
 In the time it takes to try a pen. 
 Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen, 
 
 Her WiU was in fifty tatters !
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. '257 
 
 But tbe Count, instead of curses wild, 
 Only nodded his liead and smiled, 
 As if at the spleen of an angry child ; 
 
 But the calm was deceitful and sinister ! 
 A lull like the lull of the treacherous sea — 
 For Hate in that moment had sworn to he 
 The Golden Leg's sole Legatee, 
 
 And that very night to administer ! 
 
 ^tv HBcatfj. 
 'Tis a stern and startling thing to think 
 How often mortahty stands on the brink 
 
 Of its grave without any misgiving : 
 And yet in this slippery world of strife, 
 Li the stir of human hustle so rife. 
 There are daily sounds to tell us that Ijife 
 
 Is dying, and Death is living ! 
 
 Ay, Beauty the Girl, and Love the Boy, 
 Bright as they are with hope and joy, 
 How their souls woidd sadden instanter.
 
 258 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 To remember that one of those wedding bells, 
 Which ring so merrily through the dells, 
 
 Is the same that knells 
 
 Om- 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 unloosed her sandal. 
 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 moved on the dial ! 
 
 As she went with her taper up the stair. 
 How little her swollen eye Avas aware
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 That the Shadow which follow 'd was double ! 
 Or wheu she closed her chamber door, 
 It was shutting out, and for evermore, 
 
 The woi'ld — and its worldly trouble. 
 
 Little she dreamt, as she laid aside 
 Her jewels — after one glance of pride — 
 
 They were solemn bequests to Vanity — 
 Or wheu her robes she began to doff, 
 That she stood so near to the putting off 
 
 Of the flesh that clothes humanity. 
 
 And when she quench'd the taper's light, 
 How little she thought as the smoke took flight. 
 That her day was done — and merged in a night 
 Of dreams and duration uncertain — 
 Or, along with her own. 
 That a Hand of Bone 
 Was closing mortahty's curtain ! 
 
 But life is sweet, and mortality blind, 
 And youth is hopefid, and Fate is kind
 
 260 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 In concealing tlie day of sorrow ; 
 And enough is tlie present tense of toil — 
 For this world is, to all, a stiffish soil — ■ 
 And the mind flies back with a glad 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 condemned to die — 
 
 With a very natural loathing — 
 Leaving the Sheriff' to dream of ropes, 
 From liis gloomy cell in a vision elopes. 
 To caper on sunny greens and slopes, 
 
 Instead of the dance upon 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 with early joys, 
 Her golden treasures and golden toys,
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG. 261 
 
 That flash 'd a bright 
 And golden hght 
 Under hds still red with weeping. 
 
 The golden doll that she used to hug I 
 Her coral of gold, and the golden mug ! 
 
 Her godfather's golden presents ! 
 The golden service she had at her meals, 
 The golden watch, and chain, 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. 
 
 Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage — 
 And London streets that were paved with gold — 
 And the Golden Eo-o-s that were laid of old — 
 With each golden thing 
 To the golden ring 
 At her own am-iferous Marriaere !
 
 26-2 MISS KILMANSEGG AND 
 
 And still tlie golden, light of tlie sun 
 Through her golden dream appear 'd to run, 
 Though the night that roar'd without was one 
 
 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 soul of the Sleeper was under a spell 
 
 That time had lately embitter'd — 
 The Count, as once at her foot he knelt — 
 That foot which now he wanted to melt ! 
 But — hush! — 'twas a stir at her piUow she felt- 
 
 And some object before her glitter 'd. 
 
 'Twas the Golden Leg ! — she knew its gleam I 
 And up she started, and tried to scream, — 
 But ev'u in the moment she started —
 
 HER PRECIOUS LEG, 263 
 
 Down came the limb witli a frightful smash, 
 And, lost in the universal flash 
 That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash, 
 The Spark, called Vital, departed ! 
 
 Gold, still gold ! hard, yellow, and cold. 
 For gold she had lived, and she died for gold- 
 
 By a golden weapon — not oaken ; 
 In the morning they found her all alone — 
 Stiff, and bloody, and cold as stone — 
 But her Leg, the Golden Leg, was gone, ' 
 
 And the " Golden Bowl was broken ! " 
 
 Gold — still gold ! it haunted her yet — 
 At the Golden Lion the Inquest met — 
 
 Its foreman, a carver and gilder — 
 And the Jm-y debated from twelve tiU three 
 What the Verdict ought to be, 
 And they brought it in as Felo do Se, 
 
 " Because her own Leg had killed her !
 
 264 MISS KILMANSEGG AND IIEU PRECIOUS LEG. 
 
 P?ev itloral. 
 
 Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! 
 Briglit and yellow, hard and cold, 
 Molten, graven, hammer 'd, and roll'd ; 
 Heavy to get, and light to hold ; 
 Hoarded, barter d, bought, and sold, 
 Stolen, borrow 'd, squander 'd, doled : 
 Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old 
 To the very verge of the churchyard moidd ; 
 Price of many a crime untold ; 
 Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold: 
 Good or bad a thousand-fold ! 
 
 How widely its agencies vary — 
 To save — to ruin — to curse — to bless — 
 As even its minted coins express, 
 Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess, 
 
 And now of a Bloody Mary ! 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BKIDBURT AND EVANS, PKINTERS, WHITErRIiBS.
 
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