FLY-LEAVES 
 
 Memry Holt i 
 
 IERSs
 
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 CADELL, Hn. H. M 
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 YESTERDAY.
 
 SYWSONDS' RENAISSANCE IN ITALY. 
 
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 — ■ ' : mr . r^ mf n iin ii im t nm p - 
 
 »muim n mm nT m r» rxnnn iirHt mrmm
 
 LEISURE HOUR SERIES. 
 
 FLY LEAVES 
 
 BY 
 
 c. s. c. /. 
 
 With additions from the author 's earlier volume of 
 "Verses and Translations." 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 With a new poem. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1872
 
 Pi 
 
 is. 
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE. 
 
 A few people with a keen scent for good things 
 have for some time amused themselves with the oc- 
 casional copies brought over by tourists, of a little 
 volume, now in its fourth edition in England, called 
 "Verses and Translations by C. S. C." Those who 
 knew this book were well pleased to see, this Spring, 
 the announcement in the English papers of " Fly 
 Leaves, by C. S. C." The announcements were 
 soon followed by highly complimentary reviews, in 
 some of which the author's name was given in full 
 as C. S. Calverley. 
 
 The present volume contains the "Ely Leaves," 
 and all of the earlier volume except the Trans- 
 lations. It was not thought that the translations 
 would present enough novelty or originality to 
 justify their reproduction. 
 June, 1872. 
 
 The call for a new edition (the third) permits 
 the addition of a poem written since the earlier 
 impressions were made. 
 January, 1873.
 
 CONTENTS; 
 
 Morning 
 
 Evening 
 
 Shelter 
 
 In the Gloaming 
 
 The Palace 
 
 Peace . 
 
 The Arab . 
 
 Lines on Hearing the Organ 
 
 Changed 
 
 First Love . 
 
 Wanderers 
 
 Sad Memories 
 
 Companions 
 
 Ballad 
 
 Precious Stones 
 
 Disaster 
 
 Contentment 
 
 The Schoolmaster 
 
 Arcades Ameo 
 
 Waiting 
 
 Play . 
 
 Love 
 
 Thoughts at a Railway Station 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 4 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 13 
 
 17 
 19 
 22 
 
 29 
 
 32 
 36 
 
 39 
 42 
 48 
 
 5i 
 56 
 59 
 63 
 66 
 69 
 
 7i 
 74 
 78
 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ( i.\ the Brink 
 
 "FOREVER'" 
 
 I -.her the Trees 
 Motherhood 
 
 Mystery 
 
 Flight 
 
 On the Beach 
 
 Lovers, and a Reflection 
 
 The Cock and The Bull . 
 
 Visions . 
 
 Gemini and Virgo 
 
 "There Stands a City" . 
 
 Striking .... 
 
 Voices of the Night 
 
 Lines Suggested by the 14-ni 
 
 A, B, C 
 
 To Mrs. Goodchild . 
 
 Ode — 'On a Distant Prospect' of Making 
 
 I ORTUNE 
 
 Isabei 
 
 Lines Suggested by the 14T11 
 "IIic Ver, Hic Est" 
 
 Beer 
 
 Ode to Tobacco 
 Dover to Munich 
 Charades .... 
 Proverbial Philosophy 
 Carmen S.eculare 
 
 E 
 
 The Cuckoo 
 
 of February 
 
 of February 
 
 81 
 
 86 
 
 92 
 
 95 
 99 
 
 104 
 10S 
 
 "3 
 
 121 
 
 126 
 
 '34 
 138 
 141 
 144 
 146 
 148 
 
 153 
 157 
 160 
 162 
 167 
 '75 
 
 178 
 
 189 
 
 212 
 220 
 229
 
 FLY LEAVES.
 
 MORNING. 
 
 ''"PIS the hour when white-horsed Day 
 Chases Night her mares away ; 
 When the Gates of Dawn (they say) 
 
 Phoebus opes : 
 And I gather that the Queen 
 May be uniformly seen, 
 Should the weather be serene, 
 
 On the slopes. 
 
 When the ploughman, as he goes 
 Leathern-gaitered o'er the snows, 
 From his hat and from his nose 
 Knocks the ice; 
 
 T
 
 MORNING. 
 
 And the panes are frosted o'er, 
 And the lawn is crisp and hoar, 
 As has heen observed before 
 Once or twice. 
 
 When, arrayed in breastplate red, 
 Sings the robin for his bread, 
 On the elm-tree that hath shed 
 
 Every leaf ; 
 While, within, the frost benumbs 
 The still sleepy school-boy's thumbs, 
 And in consequence his sums 
 
 Come to grief. 
 
 But when breakfast-time hath come, 
 And he's crunching cmst and crumb. 
 He'll no longer look a-glum 
 Little dunce ;
 
 MORNING. 
 
 But be brisk as bees that settle 
 On a summer-rose's petal : 
 Wherefore, Polly, put the kettle 
 On at once.
 
 EVENING. 
 
 TV" ATE ! if e'er thy light foot lingers 
 
 On the lawn, when up the fells 
 Steals the Dark, and fairy ringers 
 
 Close unseen the pimpernels : 
 When, his thighs with sweetness laden, 
 
 From the meadow comes the bee, 
 And the lover and the maiden 
 
 Stand beneath the trysting tree : — 
 
 Lingers on, till stars unnumbered 
 Tremble in the breeze-swept tai 
 
 And the bat that all da. slumbered 
 Flits about the lonely barn ;
 
 EVENING. 
 
 And the shapes that shrink from garish 
 Noon are peopling cairn and lea ; 
 
 And thy sire is almost bearish 
 If kept waiting for his tea : — 
 
 And the screech-owl scares the peasant 
 As he skirts some church-yard drear ; 
 
 And the goblins whisper pleasant 
 Tales in Miss Rossetti's ear ; 
 
 Importuning her in strangest, 
 
 Sweetest tones to buy their fruits : — 
 
 O be careful that thou changest, 
 On returning home, thy boots.
 
 SHELTER. 
 
 T)Y the wide lake's margin I marked her lie — 
 The wide, weird lake where the alders sigh — 
 A young fair thing, with a shy, soft eye ; 
 
 And I deemed that her thoughts had flown 
 To her home, and her brethren, and sisters dear, 
 
 As she lay there watching the dark, deep mere. 
 All motionless, all alone. 
 
 Then I heard a noise, as of men and boys, 
 
 And a boisterous troop drew nigh. 
 Whither now will rctrrat those fairy fei
 
 SIIEL TER. 7 
 
 Where hide till the storm pass by ? 
 One glance — the wild glance of a hunted thing- 
 She cast behind her; she gave one spring; 
 And there followed a splash and a broadening ring 
 
 On the lake where the alders sigh. 
 
 She had gone from the ken of ungentle men ! 
 
 Yet scarce did I moan for that ; 
 For 1 knew she was safe in her own home then 
 And, the danger past, would appear again, 
 
 For she was a water-rat.
 
 IN THE GLOAMING. 
 
 TN the Gloaming to be roaming, where the 
 crested waves are foaming, 
 And the shy mermaidens combing locks that 
 rippie to their feet ; 
 Where the Gloaming is, I never made the ghost 
 of an endeavor 
 To discover — but whatever were the hour, it 
 would be sweet. 
 
 "To their feet," I say, for Leech's sketch indis- 
 putably teaches 
 That the mermaids of our beaches do not end 
 in ugly tails,
 
 IN THE GLOAMING. g 
 
 Nor have homes among the corals ; but are shod 
 with neat balmorals, 
 An arrangement no one quarrels with, as many 
 might with scales. 
 
 Sweet to roam beneath a shady cliff, of course 
 with some young- lady, 
 Lalage, Neaera, Haidee, or Elaine, or Mary 
 Ann: 
 Love, you dear delusive dream you ! Very sweet 
 your victims deem you, 
 When, heard only by the seamew, they talk 
 all the stuff one can. 
 
 Sweet to haste, a licensed lover, to Miss Pinker- 
 ton the glover, 
 Having managed to discover what is dear 
 Neaera's ' size ' :
 
 IO IN THE GLOAMING. 
 
 P'raps to touch that wrist so slender, as youi 
 tiny gift you tender, 
 And to read you're no offender in those laugh- 
 ing hazel eyes. 
 
 Then to hear her call you ' Harry,' when she 
 makes you fetch and carry — 
 O young men about to marry, what a blessed 
 thing it is ! 
 To be photographed — together — cased in pretty 
 Russia leather — 
 Hear her gravely doubting whether they have 
 spoilt your honest phiz ! 
 
 Then to bring your plighted fair one first a ring 
 — a rich and rare one — 
 Next a bracelet, if she'll wear one, and a heap 
 of things beside ;
 
 IN THE GLOAMING. n 
 
 And serenely bending o'er her, to inquire if il 
 would bore her 
 To say when her own adorer may aspire to 
 call her bride! 
 
 Then, the days of courtship over, with your wife 
 to start for Dover 
 Or Dieppe — and live in clover evermore, what- 
 e'er befalls : 
 For I've read in many a novel that, unless they've 
 souls that grovel, 
 Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary 
 marble halls : 
 
 To sit, happy married lovers ; Phillis trifling with 
 a plover's 
 Egg, while Corydon uncovers with a grice the 
 Sally Lunn,
 
 12 IN 77 IE GLOAMING. 
 
 Or dissects the lucky pheasant — that, I think, were 
 passing pleasant ; 
 As I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of 
 a Dun.
 
 THE PALACE. 
 
 npHEY come, they come, with fife and drum. 
 And gleaming pikes and glancing banners: 
 
 Though the eyes flash, the lips are dumb ; 
 To talk in rank would not be manners. 
 
 Onward they stride, as Britons can; 
 
 The ladies following in the Van. 
 
 Who, who be these that tramp in threes 
 Through sumptuous Picadilly, through 
 
 The roaring Strand, and stand at ease 
 At last 'neath shadowy Waterloo ? 
 
 Some gallant Guild, I ween, are they ; 
 
 Taking their annual holiday.
 
 , 4 THE PALACE 
 
 To catch the destined train — to pay 
 
 Their willing fares, and plunge within it — 
 
 Is, as in old Romaunt they say, 
 
 With them the work of half-a-minute. 
 
 Then off they're whirled, with songs and shouting 
 
 To cedared Sydenham for their outing. 
 
 I marked them light, with faces bright 
 As pansies or a new-coined florin, 
 
 And up the sunless stair take flight, 
 Close-packed as rabbits in a warren. 
 
 Honor the Brave, who in that stress 
 
 Still trod not upon Beauty's dress ! 
 
 Kerchief in hand I saw them stand ; 
 
 In every kerchief lurked a lunch ; 
 When they unfurled them, it was grand 
 
 To watch bronzed men and mnidens crunch 
 The sounding celery-stick, or ram 
 The knife into the blushing ham.
 
 THE PALACE. 15 
 
 Dashed the bold fork through pies of pork; 
 
 O'er hard-boiled eggs the salt-spoon shook ; 
 Leapt from its lair the playful cork: 
 
 Yet some there were, to whom the brook 
 Seemed sweetest beverage, and for meat 
 They chose the red root of the beet. 
 
 Then many a song, some rather long, 
 Came quivering up from girlish throats ; 
 
 And one young man he came out strong, 
 And gave "The Wolf" without his notes. 
 
 While they who knew not song or ballad 
 
 Still munched, approvingly, their salad. 
 
 But ah ! what bard could sing how hard, 
 The artless banquet o'er, they ran 
 
 Down the soft slope with daises starred 
 And kingcups ! onward, maid with man, 
 
 They flew, to scale the breezy swing, 
 
 Or court frank kisses in the ring.
 
 1 6 THE PALACE. 
 
 Such are the sylvan scenes that thrill 
 
 This heart ! The lawns, the happy shade, 
 
 Where matrons, whom the sunbeams grill, 
 Stir with slow spoon their lemonade ; 
 
 And maidens flirt (no extra charge) 
 
 In comfort at the fountain's marge ! 
 
 Others may praise the "grand displays" 
 
 Where "fiery arch," "cascade," and "comet,' 
 
 Set the whole garden in a "blaze"! 
 Far, at such times, may I be from it ; 
 
 Though then the public may be " lost 
 
 In wonder " at a trifling cost. 
 
 Fanned by the breeze, to puff at ease 
 
 My faithful pipe is all I crave: 
 And if folks rave about the "trees 
 
 Lit up by fireworks," let them rave. 
 Your monster fetes, I like not these ; 
 Though they bring grist to the lessees.
 
 PEACE. 
 
 A STUDY. 
 "LJE stood, a worn-out City clerk — 
 
 Who'd toiled, and seen no holiday, 
 For forty years from dawn to dark — 
 
 Alone beside Caermarthen Bay. 
 
 He felt the salt spray on his lips ; 
 
 Heard children's voices on the sands , 
 Up the sun's path he saw the ships 
 
 Sail on and on to other lands ; 
 
 And laughed aloud. Each sight and sound 
 To him was joy too deep for tears ; 
 
 He sat him on the beach, and bound 
 A blue bandanna round his ears : 
 
 2
 
 1 8 PEACE. 
 
 And thought how, posted near his door, 
 His own green door on Camden Hill, 
 
 Two bands at least, most likely more, 
 Were mingling at their own sweet will 
 
 Verdi with Vance. And at the thought 
 He laughed again, and softly drew 
 
 That Morning Herald that he'd bought 
 
 Forth from his breast, and read it through
 
 THE ARAB. 
 
 /~^N, on, my brown Arab, away, away ! 
 Thou hast trotted o'er many a mile to-day, 
 And I trow right meagre hath been thy fare 
 Since they roused thee at dawn from thy straw 
 
 piled lair, 
 To tread with those echoless unshod feet 
 Yon weltering flats in the noontide heat, 
 Where no palm-tree proffers a kindly shade 
 And the eye never rests on a cool grass blade; 
 And lank is thy flank, and thy frequent cough, 
 Oh! it goes to my heart — but away, friend, off!
 
 20 THE ARAB. 
 
 And yet, ah ! what sculptor who saw thee stand, 
 As thou standest now, on thy Native Strand, 
 With the wild wind ruffling thine uncombed hair, 
 And thy nostril upturned to the od'rous air, 
 Would not woo thee to pause, till his skill might 
 
 trace 
 At leisure the lines of that eager face ; 
 The collarless neck and the coal-black paws 
 And the bit grasped tight in the massive jaws; 
 The delicate curve of the legs, that seem 
 Too slight for their burden — and, O, the gleam 
 Of that eye, so sombre and yet so gay ! 
 Still away, my lithe Arab, once more away ! 
 
 Nay, tempt me not, Arab, again to stay ; 
 Since I crave neither Echo nor Fun to-day. 
 lor thy hand is not Echoless — there they are, 
 Fun, G/jwworm, and Echo, and Evening S/'r.
 
 THE ARAB. 21 
 
 And thou hintest withal that thou fain woulcTst 
 
 shine, 
 As I read them, these bulgy old boots of mine. 
 But I shrink from thee, Arab ! Thou eat'st eel-pie, 
 Thou evermore hast at least one black eye ; 
 There is brass on thy brow, and thy swarthy hues 
 Are due not to nature but handling shoes; 
 And the bit in thy mouth, I regret to see, 
 Is a bit of tobacco-pipe — Flee, child ; flee !
 
 LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 
 
 /GRINDER, who serenely grindest 
 At my door the Hundredth Psalm, 
 
 Till thou ultimately findest 
 
 Pence in thine unwashen palm : 
 
 Grinder, jocund-hearted Grinder, 
 Near whom Barbary's nimble son, 
 
 Poised with skill upon his hinder 
 Paws, accepts the proffered bun : 
 
 Dearly do I love thy grinding ; 
 Joy to meet thee on the road 
 Where thou prowlest through the blinding 
 
 Dust with that stupendous load.
 
 LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 23 
 
 Neath the baleful star of Sirius, 
 When the postmen slowlier jog, 
 
 And the ox becomes delirious, 
 And the muzzle decks the dog. 
 
 Tell me by what art thou bindest 
 On thy feet those ancient shoon : 
 
 Tell me, Grinder, if thou grindest 
 Always, always out of tune. 
 
 Tell me if, as thou art buckling 
 On thy straps with eager claws, 
 
 Thou forecastest, inly chuckling, 
 All the rage that thou will cause. 
 
 Tell me if at all thou mindest 
 When folks flee, as if on wings, 
 
 From thee as at ease thou grindest : 
 Tell me fifty thousand things.
 
 24 LINES ON HE Ah' IXC THE 01 
 
 1 ! ider, gei I I in I Grin ler ! 
 Ruffians who led evil lives, 
 
 Soothed by thy sweet strains are kinder 
 To their bullocks and their wiv 
 
 Children, when they see thy supple 
 
 Form approach, are out like shots ■ 
 Half-a-bar sets several couple 
 
 'tzing in convenient spots ; 
 
 Not with clumsy Jacks or Gen 
 Unprofaned by grasp of man 
 
 Maidens speed those simple orgies, 
 Betsey Jane with Betsey Ann. 
 
 As they love thee in St. Giles's 
 
 Thou art loved in Grosvenor Square: 
 
 None of those engaging smiles is 
 Ui I tl re.
 
 LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 
 
 Often, ere thou yet hast hammered 
 Through thy four delicious airs, 
 
 Coins are flung thee by enamoured 
 Housemaids upon area stairs : 
 
 E'en the ambrosial-whiskered flunkey 
 Eyes thy boots and thine unkempt 
 
 Beard and melancholy monkey 
 More in pity than contempt. 
 
 Far from England, in the sunny 
 South, where Anio leaps in foam, 
 
 Thou wast reared, till lack of money 
 Drew thee from thy vine-clad home •, 
 
 And thy mate, the sinewy Jocko, 
 From Brazil or Afric came, 
 
 Land of simoon and sirocco — 
 And he seems extremely tame.
 
 26 LINES OX HEARING THE ORGAN. 
 
 There he quaffed the un defiled 
 
 Spring, or hung with ape-like glee, 
 By his teeth or tail or eyelid, 
 To the slippery mango-tree : 
 
 There he wooed and won a dusky 
 Bride, of instincts like his own ; 
 
 Talked of love till he was husky 
 In a tongue to us unknown : 
 
 Side by side 'twas theirs to ravage 
 
 The potato-ground, or cut 
 Down the unsuspecting savage 
 
 With the well-aimed cocoa-nut : — 
 
 Till the miscreant Stranger tore him 
 Screaming from his blue-faced fair ; 
 
 And they flung strange raiment o'er him- 
 Raiment which he could not bear.
 
 LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN. 
 
 Severed from the pure embraces 
 Of his children and his spouse, 
 
 He must ride fantastic races 
 Mounted on reluctant sows : 
 
 But the heart of wistful Jocko 
 Still was with his ancient flame 
 
 In the nut-groves of Morocco ; 
 Or if not it's all the same. 
 
 Grinder, winsome grinsome Grinder ! 
 
 They who see thee and whose soul 
 Melts not at thy charms, are blinder 
 
 Than a trebly-bandaged mole: 
 
 They to whom thy curt (yet clever) 
 Talk, thy music and thine ape, 
 
 Seem not to be joys for ever, 
 Are but brutes in human shape. 
 
 27
 
 2 8 LINES ON II - EARING THE ORGAN. 
 
 Tis not that thy mien is si 
 
 'Tis not that thy tones are soft ; 
 
 'Tis not that I care so greatly 
 
 For the same thing played so oft : 
 
 But I've heard mankind abuse thee ; 
 
 And perhaps it's rather strange, 
 But I thought that I would choose thee 
 For encomium, as a change.
 
 CHANGED. 
 
 T KNOW riot why my soul is racked 
 
 'Why I ne'er smile as was my wont : 
 I only know that, as a fact, 
 
 I don't. 
 I used to roam o'er glen and glade 
 Buoyant and blithe as other folk : 
 And not unfrequently I made 
 A joke. 
 
 A minstrel's fire within me burned ; 
 
 I'd sing, as one whose heart must break, 
 Lay upon lay : I nearly learned 
 To shake.
 
 3° 
 
 CHANGED. 
 
 All day I sang ; of love, of fame, 
 
 Of fights our fathers fought of yore, 
 Until the thing almost became 
 A bore. 
 
 I cannot sing the old songs now ! 
 
 It is not that I deem them low j 
 'Tis that I can't remember how 
 
 They go. 
 I could not range the hills till high 
 
 Above me stood the summer moon : 
 And a? to dancing, I could fly 
 As soon. 
 
 The sports, to which with boyish glee 
 I sprang erewhile, attract no more; 
 Although I am but sixty-three 
 Or four.
 
 CHANGED. 3l 
 
 Nay, worse than that, I've seemed of late 
 
 To shrink from happy boyhood — boys 
 Have grown so noisy, and I hate 
 A noise. 
 
 They fright me, when the beech is green, 
 
 By swarming up its stem for eggs: 
 They drive their horrid hoops between 
 
 My legs : — 
 It's idle to repine, I know ; 
 
 I'll tell you what I'll do instead : 
 I'll drink my arrowroot, and go 
 To bed
 
 FIRST LOVE. 
 
 S~\ MY earliest love, who, ere I numbered 
 Ten sweet summers, made my bosom thrill i 
 
 Will a swallow — or a swift, or some bird — 
 Fly to her and say, I love her still ? 
 
 Say my life's a desert drear and arid, 
 To its one green spot I aye recur : 
 
 Never, never — although three times married — 
 Have I cared a jot for aught but her. 
 
 No, mine own ! though early forced to leave ) ou, 
 Still my heart was there where first we met; 
 
 Jn those "Lodgings with an ample sea-view/' 
 Which were, forty years ago, "To Let."
 
 FIRST LOVE. 33 
 
 There I saw her first, our landlord's oldest 
 Little daughter. On a thing so fair 
 
 Thou, O Sun, — who (so they say) beholdest 
 Everything, — hast gazed, I tell thee, ne'er. 
 
 There she sat — so near me, yet remoter 
 Than a star — a blue-eyed bashful imp : 
 
 On her lap she held a happy bloater, 
 
 'Twixt her lips a yet more happy shrimp. 
 
 And I loved her, and our troth we plighted 
 On the morrow by the shingly shore : 
 
 In a fortnight to be disunited 
 By a bitter fate for evermore. . 
 
 O my own, my beautiful, my blue-eyed ! 
 
 To be young once more, and bite my thumb 
 
 At the world and all its care.s with ycu, I'd 
 
 Give no inconsiderable sum. 
 3
 
 34 FIRST LOVE. 
 
 Hand in hand we tramped the golden seaweed, 
 Soon as o'er the gray cliff peeped the dawn: 
 
 Side by side, when came the hour for tea, we'd 
 Crunch the mottled shrimp and hairy prawn : — 
 
 Has she wedded some gigantic shrimper, 
 That sweet mite with whom I loved to play ? 
 
 Is she girt with babes that whine and whimper, 
 That bright being who was always gay ? 
 
 Yes — she has at least a dozen wee-things ! 
 
 Yes — I see her darning corduroys, 
 Scouring floors, and setting out the tea-things, 
 
 For a howling herd of hungry boys, 
 
 In a home that reeks of tar and sperm-oil! 
 
 But at intervals she thinks, I know, 
 Of these days which we, afar from turmoil, 
 
 Spent together forty years ago.
 
 FIRST LOVE. 35 
 
 O my earliest love, still unforgotten, 
 
 With your downcast eyes of dreamy blue ! 
 
 Never, somehow, could I seem to cotton 
 To another as I did to you 1
 
 WANDERERS. 
 
 A S o'er the hill we roamed at will, 
 My dog and I together, 
 We marked a chaise, by two bright bays, 
 Slow-moved along the heather: 
 
 Two bnys arch-necked, with tails erect 
 And gold upon their blinkers : 
 
 And by their side an ass I spied ; 
 It was a travelling tinker's. 
 
 The chaise went by, nor aught cared I ; 
 
 Such things are not in my way : 
 I turned me to the tinker, who 
 
 Was loafing down a by-way :
 
 WANDERERS. 37 
 
 I asked him where he lived — a stare 
 Was all I got in answer, 
 
 As on he trudged ; I rightly judged 
 
 The stare said " Where I can, Sir/' 
 
 I asked him if he'd take a whiff 
 Of 'bacco ; he acceded ; 
 
 He grew communicative too, 
 (A pipe was all he needed,) 
 
 Till of the tinker's life I think 
 I knew as much as he did. 
 
 "I loiter down by thorp and town ; 
 For any job I'm willing ; 
 Take here and there a dusty brown, 
 And here and there a shilling. 
 
 " I deal in every ware in turn, 
 I've rings for buddin' Sally 
 That sparkle like those eyes of her'n 
 I've liquor for the valet.
 
 38 WANDERERS. 
 
 " I steal from th' parson's strawberry-plots, 
 I hide by th' squire's covers ; 
 1 teach the sweet young housemaids what's 
 The art of trapping lovers. 
 
 " The things I've done 'neath moon and stars 
 Have got me into messes ; 
 I've seen the sky through prison bars, 
 I've torn up prison dresses : 
 
 "I've sat, Ive sighed, I've gloomed, I've glanced 
 With envy at the swallows 
 That through the window slid, and danced 
 (Quife happy) round the gallows: 
 
 " But out again I come, and shew 
 My face nor care a stiver ; 
 For trades are brisk and trades are slow, 
 But mine goes on for ever." 
 
 Thus on he prattled like a babbling brook. 
 Then I, "The sun has slipt behind the hill, 
 And my aunt Vivian dines at half-past six." 
 So in all love we parted; I to the Hall, 
 They to the village. It was noised next noon 
 That chickens had been missed at Syllabub 
 Farm.
 
 SAD MEMORIES. 
 
 HPHEY tell me I am beautiful : they praise 
 
 my silken hair, 
 My little feet that silently slip on from stair to 
 
 stair : 
 They praise my pretty trustful face and innocent 
 
 gray eye; 
 Fond hands caress me oftentimes, yet would 
 
 that I might die ! 
 
 Why was I born to be abhorred of man and 
 
 bird and beast ? 
 The bulfinch marks me stealing by, and straight 
 
 his song hath ceased ,
 
 4 o SAD MEMORIES. 
 
 The shrcwmouse eyes me shudderingly, then 
 
 flees ; and worse than that, 
 The house-dog he flees after me — why was I 
 
 born a cat ? 
 
 Men prize the heartless hound who quits dry- 
 eyed his native land ; 
 
 Who wags a mercenary tail and licks a tyrant 
 hand. 
 
 The leal true cat they prize not, that if e'ei 
 compelled to roam 
 
 Still flies, when let out of the bag, precipi 
 tately home. 
 
 They call me cruel. Do I know if mouse or 
 
 song-bird feels? 
 I only know they make me light and salutary 
 
 meals : 
 And if, as 'tis my nature to, ere I devour I 
 >e 'em,
 
 SAD MEMORIES. 41 
 
 Why should a low-bred gardener's boy pursue 
 me with a besom ? 
 
 Should china fail or chandeliers, or anything 
 
 but stocks — 
 Nay stocks, when they're in flowerpots — the cat 
 
 expects hard knocks : 
 Should ever anything be missed — milk, coals, 
 
 umbrellas, brandy — 
 The cat's pitched into with a boot or anything 
 
 that's handy. 
 
 I remember, I remember, how one night I 
 
 fleeted by, 
 And gained the blessed tiles and gazed into 
 
 the cold clear sky. 
 I remember, I remember, how my various 
 
 lovers came ; 
 And there, beneath the crescent moon, played 
 
 many a little game.
 
 42 SAD MEMORIES. 
 
 They fought — by good St. Catharine, 'twas a 
 fearsome sight to see 
 
 The coal-black crest, the glowering orbs, of one 
 gigantic He. 
 
 Like bow by some tall bowman bent at Hast- 
 ings or Poictiers, 
 
 His huge back curved, till none observed a ves- 
 tige of his ears : 
 
 tie stood, an ebon crescent, flouting yon ivory 
 
 moon; 
 VhvQ raised the pibroch of his race, the Song 
 
 without a Tune : 
 Gleamed his white teeth, his mammoth tail 
 
 waved darkly to and fro, 
 *\<; with one complex yell he burst, all claws, 
 
 upon the foe. 
 
 ft thrills me now, that final Miaow — that weird 
 unearthly din :
 
 SAD MEMORIES. 43 
 
 Lone maidens heard it far away, and leaped 
 
 out of their skin. 
 A pot-boy from his den o'erhead peeped with a 
 
 scared wan face ; 
 Then sent a random brickbat down, which 
 
 knocked me into space. 
 
 Nine days I fell, or thereabouts : and, had we 
 
 not nine lives, 
 I wis I ne'er had seen again thy sausage-shop, 
 
 St. Ives ! 
 Had T, as some cats have, nine tails, how 
 
 gladly T would lick 
 The hand, and person generally, of him whc 
 
 heaved that brick ! 
 
 For me they fill the milk-bowl up, and cull the 
 
 choice sardine : 
 But ah ! I nevermore shall be the cat I once 
 
 have been S
 
 44 SAD MEMORIES. 
 
 The memories of that fatal night they haunt 
 
 me even now : 
 In dreams I see that rampant He, and trem* 
 
 ble at that Miaow.
 
 COMPANIONS. 
 A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER. 
 
 T KNOW not of what we pondered 
 
 Or made pretty pretence to talk, 
 As, her hand within mine, we wandered, 
 Tow'rd the pool Ly the lime-tree walk, 
 While the dew fell in showers from the passios 
 flowers 
 And the blush-rose bent on her stalk 
 
 I cannot recall her figure : 
 
 Was it regal as Juno's own ? 
 Or only a trifle bigger 
 
 Than the elves who surround the throne 
 Of the Faery Queen, and are seen, I ween, 
 
 By mortals in dreams alone ?
 
 46 COMPANIONS. 
 
 What her eyes were like I know not : 
 Perhaps they were blurred with tears ; 
 
 And perhaps in yon skies there glow not 
 (On the contrary) clearer spheres. 
 No ! as to her eyes I am just as wise 
 As you or the cat, my dears. 
 
 Her teeth, I presume, were " pearly " : 
 But which was she, brunette or blonde ? 
 
 Her hair, was it quaintly curly, 
 
 Or as straight as a beadle's wand ? 
 That I failed to remark ; — it was rather dark 
 And shadowy round the pond. 
 
 Then the hand that reposed so snugly 
 In mine — was it plump or spare ? 
 
 Was the countenance fair or ugly ? 
 Nay, children, you have me there ! 
 My eyes were p'haps blurred ; and besides I'd heard 
 That it's horribly rude to stare.
 
 COMPANIONS. 47 
 
 And I — was I brusque and surly ? 
 Or oppressively bland and fond ? 
 Was I partial to rising early ? 
 Or why did we twain abscond, 
 When nobody knew, from the public view 
 To prowl by a misty pond ? 
 
 What passed, what was felt or spoken — 
 Whether anything passed at all — 
 
 And whether the heart was broken 
 
 That beat under that sheltering shawl — 
 (If shawl she had on, which I doubt) — has gone, 
 Yes, gone from me past recall. 
 
 Was I haply the lady's suitor ? 
 
 Or her uncle ? I can't make out — 
 Ask your governess, dears, or tutor. 
 
 For myself, I'm in hopeless doubt 
 As to why we were there, who on earth we were 
 
 And what this is all about.
 
 BALLAD. 
 
 HPHE auld wife sat at her ivied door, 
 (Butter and eggs and a pound of ehe.se) 
 
 A thing she had frequently done before ; 
 
 And her spectacles lay on her aproned knees 
 
 The piper he piped on the hill-top high, 
 
 (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
 Till the cow said "I die," and the goose asked 
 
 "Why;" 
 And the dog said nothing, but searched for fleas. 
 
 The farmer he strode through the square farmyard ; 
 
 (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
 His last brew of ale was a trifle hard — 
 
 The connection of which with the plot one sees.
 
 BALLAD. 49 
 
 The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes; 
 
 (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
 She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, 
 
 As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas. 
 
 The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips ; 
 
 (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
 If you try to approach her, away she skips 
 
 Over tables and chairs with apparent ease. 
 
 The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair; 
 
 (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
 And 1 met with a ballad, I can't say where, 
 
 Which wholly consisted of lines like these. 
 
 Part II. 
 
 She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks. 
 
 (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
 
 And spake not a word. While a lady speaks 
 
 There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze. 
 4
 
 (jo BALLAD. 
 
 She sat, with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks , 
 (Butter and eggs and a poimd of cheese') 
 
 She gave up mending her father's breeks, 
 And let the cat roll in her best chemise. 
 
 She sat, with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks, 
 (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
 
 And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks ; 
 Then she followed him out o'er the misty leas. 
 
 Her sheep followed her, as their tails did (hem. 
 
 (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) 
 And this song is considered a perfect gem, 
 
 And as to the meaning, it's what you [lease
 
 PRECIOUS STONES. 
 
 AN INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY.* 
 
 TV/TY Cherrystones ! I prize them, 
 
 No tongue can tell how much ! 
 Each lady caller eyes them, 
 
 And madly longs to touch ! 
 At eve I lift them down, I look 
 
 Upon them, and I cry ; 
 Recalling how my Prince 'partook' 
 
 (Sweet word !) of cherry-pie ! 
 
 To me it was an Era 
 
 In life, that Dejeuner ! 
 They ate, they sipped Madeira 
 
 Much in the usual way. 
 
 * ' There was a certain climax of British snobbism re- 
 corded in the Times, a few years ago, in relation to cherry 
 stones. The Prince of Wales was eating cherries in a public 
 garden, and as he dropped the stones, some loyal lady picked 
 them up and pocketed them, in order, doubtless, to bequeath 
 them as a rich legacy unto her issue." — Chambers' Journal.
 
 52 
 
 PRECIOUS STONES. 
 
 Many a soft item there would be, 
 No doubt, upon the carte : 
 
 But one made life a heaven to me : 
 It was the cherry-tart. 
 
 Lightly the spoonfuls entered 
 
 That mouth on which the gaze 
 Of ten fair girls was centred 
 
 In rapturous amaze. 
 Soon that august assemblage cleared 
 
 The dish ; and — as they ate — 
 The stones, all coyly, reappeared 
 
 On each illustrious plate. 
 
 And when His Royal Highness 
 Withdrew to take the air, 
 
 Waiving our natural shyness, 
 We swooped upon his chair.
 
 rRECIOUS STONES. 53 
 
 Policemen at our garments clutched :^ 
 We mocked those feeble powers ; 
 
 And soon the treasures that had touched 
 Exalted lips were ours ! 
 
 One large one— at the moment 
 
 It seemed almost divine — 
 Was got by that Miss Beaumont: 
 
 And three, O three, are mine! 
 Yes! the three stones that rest beneath 
 
 Glass, on that plain deal shelf, 
 Stranger, once dallied with the teeth 
 
 Of Royalty itself. 
 
 Let Parliament abolish 
 
 Churches and States and Thrones: 
 With reverent hand I'll polish 
 
 Still, still my Cherrystones 
 
 1
 
 54 rKECIOUS STONES. 
 
 A clod — a piece of orange-peel — 
 
 An end of a cigar — 
 Once trod on by a Princely heel, 
 
 How beautiful they are ! 
 
 Years since, I climbed Saint Michael — ■ 
 
 His Mount : — you'll all go there 
 Of course, and those who like'il 
 
 Sit in Saint Michael's Chair : 
 For there I saw, within a frame, 
 
 The pen — O heavens ! the pen — 
 With which a Duke had signed his name, 
 
 And other gentlemen. 
 
 "Great among geese," I faltered, 
 " Is she who grew that quill ! " 
 
 And, # Deathless Bird, unaltered 
 Is mine opinion still.
 
 PRECIOUS STONES. 55 
 
 Yet, sometimes, as I view my three 
 Stones with sweet thoughtful brow, 
 
 I think there possibly might be 
 E'en greater geese than thou.
 
 DISASTER. 
 
 * '"PWAS ever thus from childhood's hour 
 
 My fondest hopes would not decay : 
 I never loved a tree or flower 
 
 Which was the first to fade away ! 
 The garden, where I used to delve 
 
 Short-frocked, still yields me pinks in plenty , 
 The pear-tree that I climbed at twelve 
 
 I see still blossoming, at twenty. 
 
 I never nursed a dear gazelle. 
 
 But I was given a parroquet — 
 How I did nurse him if unwell ! 
 
 He's imbecile, but lingers yet.
 
 DISASTER. 57 
 
 He's green, with an enchanting tuft ; 
 
 He melts me with his small black eye : 
 He'd look inimitable stuffed, 
 
 And knows it — but he will not die ! 
 
 I had a kitten — I was rich 
 
 In pets — but all too soon my kitten 
 Became a full-sized cat, by which 
 
 I've more than once been scratched and bitten 
 And when for sleep her limbs she curled 
 
 One day beside her untouched plateful, 
 And glided calmly from the world, 
 
 I freely own that I was grateful. 
 
 And then I bought a dog — a queen! 
 
 Ah Tiny, dear departing pug! 
 She lives, but she is past sixteen 
 
 And scarce can crawl across the rug.
 
 S 8 DISASTER. 
 
 I loved her beautiful and kind ; 
 
 Delighted in her pet Bow-wow : 
 Uul now she snaps if you don't mind ; 
 
 'Twere lunacy to love her now. 
 
 I used to think, should e'er mishap 
 
 Betide my crumple-visaged Ti, 
 In shape of prowling thief, or trap, 
 
 Or coarse bull-terrier — I should die. 
 But ah ! disasters have their use ; 
 
 And life might e'en be too sunshiny : 
 Nor would I make myself a goose, 
 
 If some big dog should swallow Tiny.
 
 CONTENTMENT. 
 AFTER THE MANNER OF HORACE. 
 
 TTRIEND, there be they on whom mishap 
 
 Or never or so rarely comes, 
 That, when they think thereof, they snap 
 Derisive thumbs : 
 
 And there be they who lightly lose 
 
 Their all, yet feel no aching void ; 
 Should aught annoy them, they refuse 
 To be annoyed : 
 
 And fain would I be e'en as these ! 
 
 Life is with such all beer and skittles ; 
 They are not difficult to please 
 About their victuals :
 
 60 CONTENTMENT. 
 
 The trout, the grouse, the early pea, 
 By such, if there, are freely taken ; 
 If not, they munch with equal glee 
 Their bit of bacon : 
 
 And when they wax a little gay 
 
 And chaff the public after luncheon, 
 If they're confronted with a stray 
 Policeman's truncheon, 
 
 They gaze thereat with outstretched necks, 
 
 And laughter which no threats can smother, 
 And tell the horror-stricken X 
 That he's another. 
 
 In snow-time if they cross a spot 
 
 Where unsuspected boys have slid, 
 They fall not clown — though they would not 
 Mind if they did :
 
 CONTENTMEN T. 6 1 
 
 When the spring rose-bud which they wear 
 
 Breaks short and tumbles from its stem, 
 No thought of being angry e'er 
 Dawns upon them ; 
 
 Though 'twas Jemima's hand that placed, 
 (As well you ween) at evening's hour, 
 In the loved buttonhole that chaste 
 And cherished flower. 
 
 And when they travel, if they find 
 
 That they have left their pocket-compass 
 Or Murray or thick boots behind, 
 They raise no rumpus, 
 
 But plod serenely on without: 
 
 Knowing it's better to endure 
 The evil which beyond all doubt 
 You cannot cure.
 
 62 CONTENTMENT. 
 
 When for that early train they're late, 
 
 They do not make their woes the text 
 Of sermons in the Times, but wait 
 On for the next ; 
 
 And jump inside, and only grin. 
 
 Should it appear that that- dry wag, 
 The guard, omitted to put in 
 Their carpet-bag.
 
 THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD 
 WITH HIS SON. 
 
 f~\ WHAT harper could worthily harp it, 
 Mine Edward ! this wide-stretching wold 
 
 (Look out wold) with its wonderful carpet 
 Of emerald, purple, and gold ! 
 
 Look well *at it — also look sharp, it 
 Is getting so cold. 
 
 The purple is heather (erica) ; 
 
 The yellow, gorse — called sometimes "whin." 
 Cruel boys on its prickles might spike a 
 
 Green beetle as if on a pir. 
 You may roll in it, if you would like a 
 Few holes in your skin.
 
 64 THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD 
 
 You wouldn't? Then think of how kind you 
 Should be to the insects who crave 
 
 Your compassion — and then, look behind you 
 At yon barley-ears ! Don't they look brave 
 
 As they undulate? — [undulate, mind you, 
 From u/iJa, a wave?) 
 
 The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it 
 Sounds here — (on account of our height) ! 
 
 And this hillock itself — who could paint it, 
 With its changes of shadow and light ? 
 
 Is it not — (never, Eddy, say " ain't it ") — 
 A marvellous sisht ? 
 
 ■& j 
 
 Then yon desolate eerie morasses, 
 
 The haunts of the snipe and the hern- 
 
 (I shall question the two upper classes 
 On aquatiles* when we return) — 
 
 Why, I see on them absolute masses 
 
 Of Jilix or fern.
 
 WITH HIS SOH. 65 
 
 How it interests e'en a beginner 
 
 (Or tiro) like dear little Ned! 
 Is he listening ? As I am a sinner 
 
 He's asleep — he is wagging his head. - 
 Wake up ! I'll go home to my dinner, 
 And you to your bed. 
 
 The boundless ineffable prairie; 
 
 The splendor of mountain and lake 
 With their hues that seem ever to vary ; 
 
 The mighty pine forests which shake 
 In the wind, and in which the unwary 
 May tread on a snake ; 
 
 And this wold with its heathery garment — 
 
 Are themes undeniably great. 
 But — although there is not any harm in't — ■ 
 
 It's perhaps little good to dilate 
 
 On their charms to a dull little varmint 
 
 Of seven or eight. 
 5
 
 ARCADES AMBO. 
 
 'YX 7HY are ye wandering aye 'twixt porch 
 and porch, 
 Thou and thy fellow — when the pale stars fade 
 At dawn, and when the glowworm lights her 
 torch, 
 O Beadle of the Burlington Arcade ? 
 — Who asketh why the Beautiful was made ? 
 A wan cloud drifting o'er the waste of blue, 
 The thistledown that floats above the glade, 
 The lilac-blooms of April — fair to view, 
 And naught but fair are these ; and such, I 
 ween, are you.
 
 ARCADES AMBO. 67 
 
 Yes, ye are beautiful. The young street boys 
 Joy in your beauty. Are ye there to bar 
 Their pathway to that paradise of toys, 
 Ribbons and rings ? Who'll blame ye if ye 
 
 are? 
 Surely no shrill and clattering crowd should 
 mar 
 The dim aisle's stillness, where in noon's mid- 
 glow 
 Trip fair-haired girls to boot-shop or bazaar ; 
 Where, at soft eve, serenely to and fro 
 The sweet boy-graduates walk, nor deem the pas- 
 time slow. 
 
 And Oh ! forgive me, Beadles, if I paid 
 Scant tribute to your worth, when first ye 
 stood 
 Before me robed in broadcloth and brocade
 
 68 ARCADES AMBO. 
 
 And all the nameless grace of Beadlehood! 
 
 I would not smile at ye — if smile I could 
 
 Now as erewhile, ere I had learned to sigh : 
 
 Ah, no ! I know ye beautiful and good, 
 And evermore will pause as T pass by, 
 And gaze, and gazing think, how base a thing 
 am I.
 
 WAITING. 
 
 Ci (~\ COME, O come," the mother prayed 
 And hushed her babe: "let me behold 
 
 Once more thy stately form arrayed 
 Like autumn woods in green and gold 
 
 u I see thy brethren come and go ; 
 Thy peers in stature, and in hue 
 Thy rivals. ■ Some like monarchs glow 
 With richest puqole : some are blue 
 
 "As skies that tempt the swallows back; 
 
 Or red as, seen o'er wintry seas, 
 The star of storm j or barred with black 
 And yellow, like the April bees.
 
 7 o WAIT1 
 
 " Conic they and go ! I heed not, I. 
 
 Vet others hail their advent, clii 
 All trustful to their side, and fly 
 Safe in their gentle piloti 
 
 "To happy homes on heath or hill, 
 
 By park or river. Still I wait 
 And peer into the darkness: still 
 Thou com'st not — I am desolate. 
 
 " Hush ! hark ! I see a towering form 
 From the dim distance slowly rolled 
 It rocks like lilies in a storm, 
 
 And O its hues are green and gold 
 
 " It comes, it comes ! Ah rest is sweet, 
 And there is rest, my babe, for us ! " 
 She ceased, as at her very I 
 
 Stopped the St. John's Wood omnibus.
 
 PLAY. 
 
 T)LAY, play, while as yet it is day : 
 
 While the sweet sunlight is warm on the brae ! 
 
 Hark to the lark singing lay upon lay, 
 
 While the brown squirrel eats nuts on the spray 
 
 And in the apple-leaves chatters the jay ! 
 
 Play, play, even as they ! 
 
 What though the cowslips ye pluck will decay, 
 
 What though the grass will be presently hay ? 
 
 What though the noise that ye make should dismay 
 
 Old Mrs. Clutterbuck over the way ? 
 
 Play, play, for your locks will grow gray ; 
 
 Even the marbles ye sport with are clay.
 
 72 PLA Y. 
 
 Play, ay in the crowded highway: 
 Was it not made for you ? Yea, my lad, yea. 
 True that the babes you were bid to convey 
 Home may fall out or be stolen or stray ; 
 True that the tip-cat you toss about may 
 Strike an old gentleman, cause him to sway, 
 Stumble, and p'raps be run o'er by a dray: 
 Still why delay ? Play, my son, play ! 
 Barclay and Perkins, not you, have to pay. 
 
 Play, play, your sonatas in A, 
 Heedless of what your next neighbor may say ! 
 Dance and be gay as a faun or a fay, 
 Sing like the lad in the boat on the bay; 
 Sing, play — if your neighbors inveigh 
 Feebly against you, they're lunatics, eh ? 
 Bang, twang, clatter and clang, 
 Strum, thrum, upon fiddle and drum ;
 
 PL A F. 73 
 
 Neigh, bray, simply obey 
 All your sweet impulses, stop not or stay! 
 Rattle the 'bones,' hit a tin-bottomed tray 
 Hard with the fire-shovel, hammer away! 
 Is not your neighbor your natural prey? 
 Should he confound you, it's only in play.
 
 LOVE. 
 
 /^ANST thou love me, lady? 
 
 I've not learned to woo : 
 Thou art on the shady 
 
 Side of sixty too. 
 Still I love thee dearly ! 
 
 Thou hast lands and pelf: 
 But I love thee merely — 
 
 Merely for thyself. 
 
 Wilt thou love me, fairest? 
 
 Though thou art not fair ; 
 And I think thou wearest 
 
 Some one else's hair.
 
 LOVE. 75 
 
 Thou could'st love, though, dearly: 
 
 And, as I am told, 
 Thou art very nearly 
 
 Worth thy weight, in gold. 
 
 Dost thou love me, sweet one? 
 
 Tell me that thou dost! 
 Women fairly beat one, 
 
 But I think thou must. 
 Thou art loved so dearly; 
 
 I am plain, but then 
 Thou (to speak sincerely) 
 
 Art as plain again. 
 
 Love me, bashful fairy ! 
 
 I've an empty purse: 
 And I've "moods," which vary; 
 
 Mostlv for the worse.
 
 76 LOVE. 
 
 Still, I love thee dearly : 
 Though I make (I feel) 
 
 Love a little queerly, 
 I'm as true as steel. 
 
 Love me, swear to love me 
 
 (As, you know, they do) 
 By yon heaven above me 
 
 And its changeless blue. 
 Love me, lady, dearly, 
 
 If you'll be so good ; 
 Though I don't see clearly 
 
 On what ground you should. 
 
 Love me — ah or love me 
 Not, but be my bride ! 
 
 Do not simply shove me 
 (So to speak) aside !
 
 LOVE. 77 
 
 P'raps it would be dearly 
 Purchased at the price; 
 
 But a hundred yearly 
 Would be very nice.
 
 THOUGHTS AT A RAILWAY STATION 
 
 'TTIS but a box,, of modest deal ; 
 
 Directed to no matter where : 
 Yet down my cheek the teardrops steal — 
 Yes, I am blubbering like a seal ; 
 For on it is this mute appeal, 
 " With care." 
 
 I am a stern cold man, and range 
 
 Apart: but those vague words " With care*'' 
 Wake yearnings in me sweet as strange: 
 Drawn from my moral Moated Grange, 
 I feel I rather like the change 
 Of air.
 
 THOUGHTS AT A RAILWAY STATION. 79 
 
 Hast thou ne'er seen rough pointsmen spy 
 
 Some simple English phrase -"With care" 
 Or "This side uppermost"— -and cry 
 Like children? No? No more have I. 
 Yet deem not him whose eyes are dry 
 A bear. 
 
 But ah ! what treasure hides beneath 
 
 That lid so much the worse for wear? 
 A ring perhaps— a rosy wreath— 
 A photograph by Vernon Heath- 
 Some matron's temporary teeth 
 Or hair ! 
 
 Perhaps some seaman, in Peru 
 
 Or Ind, hath stowed herein a rare 
 Cargo of birds' eggs for his Sue; 
 With many a vow that he'll be true, 
 And many a hint that she is too — 
 Too fair.
 
 8o THOUGHTS AT A RAIL WA Y ST A T/OJV. 
 
 Perhaps — but wherefore vainly pry 
 
 Into the page that's folded there ? 
 I shall be better by and bye: 
 The porters, as I sit and sigh, 
 Pass and repass — I wonder why 
 They stare !
 
 ON THE BRINK. 
 
 T WATCHED her as she stooped to pluck 
 
 A wild flower in her hair to twine ; 
 And wished that it had been my luck 
 To call her mine. 
 
 Anon I heard her rate with mad — 
 
 Mad words her babe within its cot; 
 And felt particularly glad 
 That it had not. 
 
 I knew (such subtle brains have men) 
 
 That she was uttering what she shouldn't ; 
 
 And thought that I would chicle, and then 
 
 I thought I wouldn't: 
 6
 
 $2 ON THE BRINK. 
 
 could have gazed upon that face, 
 Those pouting coral lips, and chided: 
 A Rhadamanthus, in my place, 
 Had done as I did : 
 
 For wrath with which our bosoms glow 
 
 Is chained there oft by Beauty's spell ; 
 And, more than that, I did not know 
 The widow well. 
 
 So the harsh phrase passed unreproved. 
 
 Still mute — (O brothers, was it sin?) — 
 I drank, unutterably moved, 
 Her beauty in : 
 
 And to myself I murmured low, 
 
 As on her upturned face and dress 
 The moonlight fell, 'would she say No- 
 chance, or A .
 
 ON THE BRINK. 83 
 
 She stood so calm, so like a ghost 
 Betwixt me and that magic moon, 
 That I already was almost 
 A finished coon. 
 
 But when she caught adroitly up 
 
 And soothed with smiles her little daughter ; 
 And gave it, if I'm right, a sup 
 Of barley-water; 
 
 And, crooning still the strange sweet lore 
 Which only mothers' tongues can utter, 
 Snowed with deft hand the sugar o'er 
 Its bread-and-butter ; 
 
 And kissed it clingingly — (Ah, why 
 
 Don't women do these things in private?) — 
 I felt that if I lost her, I 
 Should not survive it :
 
 84 ON THE BRINK. 
 
 And from my mouth the words nigh flew — 
 
 The past, the future, I forgat 'em : 
 "O! if you'd kiss me as you do 
 That thankless atom ! " 
 
 But this thought came ere yet I spake, 
 
 And froze the sentence on my lips : 
 "They err, who marry wives that make 
 Those little slips." 
 
 It came like some familiar- rhyme, 
 Some copy to my boyhood set: 
 And that's perhaps the reason I'm 
 Unmarried yet. 
 
 Would she have owned how pleased she was, 
 
 And told her love with widow's pride ? 
 I never found out that, because 
 I never tried.
 
 ON THE BRINK. S$ 
 
 Be kind to babes and beasts and birds : 
 
 Hearts may be hard though lips are coral j 
 And angry words are angry words : 
 And that's the moral.
 
 " FOREVER." 
 
 T7OREVER ! Tis a single word ! 
 
 Our rude forefathers deemed it two 
 Can you imagine so absurd 
 A view ? 
 
 Forever ! What abysms of woe 
 
 The word reveals, what frenzy, what 
 Despair! For ever (printed so) 
 Did not. 
 
 It looks, ah me ! how trite and tame ! 
 
 It fails to sadden or appal 
 Or solace — it is not the same 
 At all.
 
 "FOREVER." ■ 87 
 
 O thou to whom it first occurred 
 
 To solder the disjoined, and dower 
 Thy native language with a word 
 Of power : 
 
 We bless thee ! Whether far or near 
 
 Thy dwelling, whether dark or fair 
 Thy kingly brow, is neither here 
 Nor there. 
 
 But in men's hearts shall be thy throne-, 
 
 While the great pulse of England beats : 
 Thou coiner of a word unknown 
 To Keats ! 
 
 And nevermore must printer do 
 
 As men did long ago ; but run 
 " For " into " ever," bidding two 
 Be one.
 
 88 " FORI VER." 
 
 Forever! passion-fraught, it throws 
 
 O'er the dim page a gloom, a glamour 
 It's sweet, it's strange ; and I suppose 
 It's grammar. 
 
 Forever ! 'Tis a single word ! 
 
 And yet our fathers deemed it two : 
 Nor am I confident they erred ; 
 Are you?
 
 UNDER THE TREES. 
 
 (t T TNDER the trees ! " Who but agrees 
 That there is magic in words such as these ? 
 Promptly one sees shake in the breeze 
 Stately lime-avenues haunted of bees : 
 Where, looking far over buttercupped leas, 
 Lads and " fair shes" (that is Byron, and he's 
 An authority) lie very much at their ease ; 
 Taking their teas, or their duck and green peas, 
 Or, if they prefer it, their plain bread and cheese: 
 Not objecting at all though it's rather a squeeze 
 And the glass is I daresay at 80 degrees. 
 Some get up glees, and are mad about Ries 
 And Sainton, and Tamberlik's thrilling high Cs ;
 
 90 HER THE TREES. 
 
 Or if painter, hold fortli upon Hunt and Maclise, 
 And the tone and the breadth of that landscape 
 
 of Lee's ; 
 Or if learned, on nodes and the moon's apogees 
 Or, if serious, on something of AKHB's, 
 Or the latest attempt to convert the Chaldees ; 
 Or in short about all things, from earthquakes to 
 
 fleas. 
 Some sit in twos or (less frequently) threes, 
 With their innocent lamb's-wool or book on their 
 
 knees, 
 And talk, and enact, any nonsense you please, 
 As they gaze into eyes that are blue as the seas ; 
 And you hear an occasional " Harry, don't tease" 
 From the sweetest of lips in the softest of keys, 
 And other remarks, which to me are Chinese. 
 And fast the time flees ; till a lady-like sneeze, 
 Or a portly papa's more elaborate wheeze,
 
 UNDER THE TREES. 91 
 
 Makes Miss Tabitha seize on her brown muffa- 
 
 tees, 
 And announce as a fact that it's going to freeze, 
 And that young people ought to attend to their Ps 
 And their Qs, and not court every form of disease : 
 Then Tommy eats up the three last ratifias, 
 And pretty Louise wraps her robe de cerise 
 Round a bosom as tender as Widow Machree's, 
 And (in spite of the pleas of her lorn vis-a-vis) 
 Goes and wraps up her uncle — a patient of Skey's 
 Who is prone to catch chills, like all old Bengalese : 
 But at bedtime I trust he'll remember to grease 
 The bridge of his nose, and preserve his rupees 
 From the premature clutch of his fond legatees ; 
 Or at least have no fees to pay any M.D.s 
 For the cold his niece caught sitting under the 
 
 Trees.
 
 MOTHERHOOD. 
 
 QHE laid it where the sunbeams fall 
 Unscanned upon the broken wall. 
 Without a tear, without a groan, 
 She laid it near a mighty stone, 
 Which some rude swain had haply cast 
 Thither in sport, long ages past, 
 And Time with mosses had o'erlaid, 
 And fenced with many a tall grass-blade, 
 And all about bid roses bloom 
 And violets shed their soft perfume. 
 There, in its cool and quiet bed, 
 She set her burden down and fled : 
 Nor flung, all eager to escape, 
 One glance upon the perfect shape
 
 MOTHERHOOD. 93 
 
 That lay, still warm and fresh and fair, 
 But motionless and soundless there. 
 
 No human eye had marked her pass 
 Across the linden-shadowed grass 
 Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven : 
 Only the innocent birds of heaven — 
 The magpie, and the rook whose nest 
 Swings as the elm-tree waves his crest — 
 And the lithe cricket, and the hoar 
 And huge-limbed hound that guards the door, 
 Looked on when, as a summer wind 
 That, passing, leaves no trace behind, 
 All unapparelled, barefoot all, 
 She ran to that old ruined wall, 
 To leave upon the chill dank earth 
 (For ah ! she never knew its worth) 
 'Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling, 
 And dews of night, that precious thing!
 
 94 MOTHERHOOD. 
 
 And there it might have lain forlorn 
 From morn till eve, from eve to morn : 
 But that, by some wild impulse led, 
 The mother, ere she turned and fled, 
 One moment stood erect and high ; 
 Then poured into the silent sky 
 A cry so jubilant, so strange, 
 That Alice — as she strove to range 
 Her rebel ringlets at her glass — 
 Sprang up and gazed across the grass ; 
 Shook back those curls so fair to see, 
 Clapped her soft hands in childish glee; 
 And shrieked — her sweet face all aglow, 
 
 Her very limbs with rapture shaking — 
 "My hen has laid an egg, I know; 
 
 " And only hear the noise she's making ! '
 
 MYSTERY. 
 
 T KNOW not if in other's eyes 
 
 She seemed almost divine ; 
 But far beyond a doubt it lies 
 
 That she did not in mine. 
 
 Each common stone on which she trod 
 
 I did not deem a pearl: 
 Nay it is not a little odd 
 
 How I abhorred that girl. 
 
 We met at balls and picnics oft, 
 Or on a drawing-room stair ■ 
 
 My aunt invariably coughed 
 To warn me she was there :
 
 96 MYSTERY. 
 
 At croquet T was bid remark 
 How queenly was her pose, 
 
 As with stern glee she drew the dark 
 Blue ball beneath her toes, 
 
 And made the Red fly many a foot : 
 Then calmly she would stoop, 
 
 Smiling an angel smile, to put 
 A partner through his hoop. 
 
 At archery T was made observe 
 That others aimed more near, 
 
 But none so tenderly could curve 
 The elbow round the ear : 
 
 Or if we rode, perhaps she did 
 
 Pull sharply at the curb ; 
 But then the way in which she slid 
 • m horseback was superb !
 
 MYSTERY. 
 
 She'd throw off odes, again, whose flow 
 And fire were more than Sapphic; 
 
 Her voice was sweet, and very low ; 
 Her singing quite seraphic : 
 
 She was a seraph, lacking wings. 
 
 That much I freely own. 
 But, it is one of those queer things 
 
 Whose cause is all unknown — 
 
 (Such are the wasp, the household fly ; 
 
 The shapes that crawl and curl 
 
 By men called centipedes) — that I 
 
 Simply abhorred that girl. 
 * * # 
 
 No doubt some mystery underlies 
 
 All things which are and which are not 
 
 And 'tis the function of the Wise 
 Not to expound to us what is what, 
 
 7 
 
 97
 
 9 8 MYSTERY. 
 
 But let his consciousness play round 
 The matter, and at ease evolve 
 
 The problem, shallow or profound, 
 
 Which our poor wits have failed to solve, 
 
 Then tell us blandly we are fools ; 
 
 Whereof we were aware before : 
 That truth they taught us at the schools, 
 
 And p'raps (who knows ?) a little more. 
 
 — But' why did we two disagree? 
 
 Our tastes, it may be, did not dovetail 
 All I know is, we ne'er shall be 
 
 Hero and heroine of a love-tale.
 
 FLIGHT. 
 
 r\ MEMORY! that which I gave thee 
 To guard in thy garner yestreen — 
 
 Little deeming thou e'er could'st behave thee 
 Thus basely— hath gone from thee clean! 
 
 Gone, fled, as ere autumn is ended 
 The yellow leaves flee from the oak— 
 
 I have lost it for ever, my splendid 
 Original joke. 
 
 What was it? I know I was brushing 
 My hair when the notion occurred: 
 
 I know that I felt myself blushing 
 
 As I thought ' How supremely absurd !
 
 loo FLIGHT. 
 
 1 How they'll hammer on floor and on table 
 
 'As its drollery dawns on them — how 
 'They will quote it' — I wish I were able 
 To quote it just now. 
 
 I had thought to lead up conversation 
 To the subject — it's easily done — 
 
 Then let off, as an airy creation 
 Of the moment, that masterly pun. 
 
 Let it off, with a flash like a rocket's ; 
 In the midst of a dazzled conclave, 
 
 While I sat, with my hands in my pockets, 
 The only one grave. 
 
 I had fancied young Titterton's chuckles, 
 And old Bottleby's hearty guffaws 
 
 As he drove at my ribs with his knuckles, 
 His mode of expressing applause :
 
 FLIGHT. 101 
 
 While Jean Bottleby — queenly Miss Janet — 
 
 Drew her handkerchief hastily out, 
 In fits at my slyness — what can it 
 
 Have all been about ? 
 
 I know 'twas the happiest, quaintest 
 Combination of pathos and fun: 
 
 But I've got no idea — the faintest — 
 Of what was the actual pun. 
 
 I think it was somehow connected 
 With something I'd recently read — 
 
 Or heard — or perhaps recollected 
 On going to bed. 
 
 What had I been reading? The Standard 
 1 Double Bigamy '; ' Speech of the Mayor, 
 
 And later — eh? yes ! I meandered 
 
 Through some chapters of Vanity Fair.
 
 102 FLIGHT. 
 
 How it fuses the grave with the festive ! 
 
 Yet e'en there, there is nothing so fine — 
 So playfully, subtly suggestive — 
 
 As that joke of mine. 
 
 Did it hinge upon ' parting asunder ' ? 
 
 No, I don't part my hair with my brush. 
 Was the point of it ' hair ' ? Now I wonder ! 
 
 Stop a bit — I shall think of it — hush! 
 There's hare, a wild animal — Stuff ! 
 
 It was something a deal more recondite : 
 Of that I am certain enough ; 
 
 And of nothing beyond it. 
 
 Hair — locks ! There are probably many 
 Good things to be said about those 
 
 Give me time — that's the best guess of any — 
 ' Lock' has several meanings, one knows. 
 
 Iron locks — iron-gray locks — a ' deadlock 1 — 
 That would set up an every-day wit :
 
 FLIGHT. I0 3 
 
 Then of course there's the obvious ' wedlock' ; 
 But that wasn't it. 
 
 No ! mine was a joke for the ages ; 
 
 Full of intricate meaning and pith ; 
 A feast for your scholars and sages — 
 
 How it would have rejoiced Sidney Smith 
 'Tis such thoughts that ennoble a mortal ; 
 
 And, singling him out from the herd, 
 
 Fling wide immortality's portal — 
 
 But what was the word ? 
 
 Ah me ! 'tis a bootless endeavor. 
 
 As the flight of a bird of the air 
 Is the flight of a joke — you will never 
 
 See the same one again, you may swear. 
 'Twas my first-born, and O how I prized it ! 
 
 My darling, my treasure, my own ! 
 This brain and none other devised it — 
 And now it has flown.
 
 
 ON THE BEACH. 
 
 LINES BY A PRIVATE TUTOR. 
 
 ~\~K 7"HEN the young Augustus Edward 
 
 Has reluctantly gone bedward 
 (He's the urchin I am privileged to teach), 
 
 From my left-hand waistcoat pocket 
 
 I extract a battered locket 
 And I commune with it, walking on the beach 
 
 I had often yearned for something 
 
 That would love me, e'en a dumb thing ; 
 
 But such happiness seemed always out of reach • 
 Little boys are off like arrows 
 With their little spades and barrows, 
 
 When they see me bearing down upon the beach ;
 
 ON THE BEACH. lo5 
 
 And although I'm rather handsome, 
 Tiny babes, when I would dance 'em 
 
 On my arm, set up so horrible a screech 
 That I pitch them to their nurses 
 With (I fear me) muttered curses, 
 
 And resume my lucubrations on the beach. 
 
 And the rabbits won't come nigh me, 
 
 And the gulls observe and fly me, 
 And I doubt, upon my honor, if a leech 
 
 Would stick on me as on others, 
 
 And I know if I had brothers 
 They would cut me when we met upon the beach 
 
 So at last I bought this trinket. 
 
 For (although I love to think it) 
 'Twasn't given me, with a pretty little speech : 
 
 No ! I bought it of a pedlar, 
 
 Brown and wizened as a medlar, 
 Who was hawking odds and ends about the beach.
 
 io6 ON Till: J : EACH. 
 
 But I've managed, very nearly, 
 
 To believe that I was dearly 
 Loved by Somebody, who (blushing like a peach) 
 
 Flung it o'er me saving ' Wear it 
 
 For my sake ' — and, I declare, it 
 Seldom strikes me that I bought it on the beach. 
 
 I can see myself reveal ii 
 
 Unsuspected depths of feeling, 
 As, in tones that half upbraid and half beseech, 
 
 I aver with what delight I 
 
 Would give anything — my right eye — 
 For a souvenir of our stroll upon the beach. 
 
 O that eye that never glistened 
 
 And that voice to which I've listened 
 But in fancy, how I dote upon them each ! 
 
 How, regardless what o'clock it 
 
 Is, I pore upon that locket, 
 Which does not contain her portrait, on the bench !
 
 ON THE BEACH. 107 
 
 As if something were inside it 
 
 I laboriously hide it, 
 And a rather pretty sermon you might preach 
 
 Upon Fantasy, selecting 
 
 For your 'instance' the affecting 
 Tale of me and my proceedings on the beach. 
 
 I depict her, ah, how charming! 
 
 I portray myself alarming 
 Her by swearing I would ' mount the deadly breach, 
 
 Or engage in any scrimmage 
 
 For a glimpse of her sweet image, 
 Or her shadow, or her footprint on the beach. 
 
 ft 
 
 And I'm ever ever seeing 
 
 My imaginary Being. 
 And I'd rather that my marrow-bones should bleach 
 
 In the winds, than that a cruel 
 
 Fate should snatch from me the jewel 
 
 Which I bought for one-and-sixpence on the beach.
 
 LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. 
 
 TN moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter 
 (And heaven it knoweth what that may mean; 
 
 Meaning, however, is no great matter) 
 
 Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween ; 
 
 Thro' God's own heather we wonned together, 
 I and my Willie (O love my love) : 
 
 I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,^ 
 And flitterbats wavered alow, above: 
 
 Boat; were curtseying lising, bowing, 
 (Boats in that climate are so polite,) 
 
 And sands were a ribbon of green endowing, 
 And O the sun-dazzle on bark and bight !
 
 LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. 109 
 
 Thro' the rare red heather we danced together, 
 (O love my Willie !) and smelt for flowers : 
 
 I must mention again it was gorgeous weather, 
 Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours: — 
 
 By rises that flushed with their purple favors, 
 Thro' becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen, 
 
 We walked or waded, we two young shavers, 
 Thanking our stars we were both so green. 
 
 We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie, 
 In fortunate parallels ! Butterflies, 
 
 Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly 
 Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes : 
 
 Song-birds darted about, some inky 
 
 As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds ; 
 
 Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky — 
 
 They reck of no eerie To-come, these birds !
 
 l IO YD A REFLECTIOX. 
 
 But they skim over bents which the mill-stream 
 washes, 
 
 Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem ; 
 They need no parasols, no goloshes ; 
 
 And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them. 
 
 Then we thrid God's cowslips (as erst His heather) 
 That endowed the wan grass with their golden 
 blooms ; 
 
 And snapt — (it was perfectly charming weather) — 
 Our fingers at Fate and her goddess-glooms : 
 
 And Willie 'gan sing — (O, his notes were fluty j 
 Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged 
 sea) — 
 Something made up of rhymes that have done 
 much du 
 Rhymes (better to put it) of ' ancient:
 
 LOVERS, AXD A REFLECT/. Ill 
 
 Bowers of flowers encounted showers 
 In William's carol — i'O love my V 
 
 Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow 
 I quite forget what — say a daffodilly : 
 
 A nest in a hollow. . buds to follow," 
 
 I think occurred next in his nimble strain ; 
 
 And clay that was " kneaden " of cou: Eden — 
 
 A rhyme most novel, I do maintain : 
 
 bones, the singer himself, love-stories, 
 And all least furlable things got "furled:' 
 with any design to conceal their glories, 
 But simply and solely to rhyme with " world. ' 
 
 # * 
 
 O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers, 
 id all the brave rhymes of an elder d
 
 112 LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. 
 
 Could be furled together, this genial weather, 
 
 And carted, or carried on wafts away, 
 Nor ever again trotted out — ay me ! 
 How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be !
 
 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 
 
 VT'OU see this pebble-stone ? It's a thing I bought 
 
 Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day— 
 
 I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech, 
 
 As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur 
 
 (You catch the paronomasia, play o' words?) 
 
 Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days. 
 
 Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, 
 
 And clapt it i' my poke, and gave for same 
 
 By way, to-wit, of barter or exchange— 
 
 ' Chop ' was my snickering dandi prat's own term — 
 
 One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm. 
 
 O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four 
 8
 
 114 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 
 
 Pence, one and fourpence — you are with me, Sir? — 
 
 What hour it skills not : ten or eleven o' the clock, 
 
 One day (and what a roaring day it was !) 
 
 In February, eighteen sixty nine, 
 
 Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei 
 
 Hm — hm — how runs the jargon? being on throne. 
 
 Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put, 
 The basis or substratum — what you will — 
 Of the impending eighty thousand lines. 
 " Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple 
 
 Hodge. 
 But there's a superstructure. Wait a 1 
 
 Mark first the rationale of the thing : 
 
 Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed. 
 
 That shilling — and for matter o' that, the pence — 
 
 1 had o' course upo' me — wi' me say— 
 
 (Mecum's the Latin, make a note o' that)
 
 THE COCK A AW THE BULL. 115 
 
 When I popped pen i' stand, blew snout, scratched 
 
 ear, 
 Sniffed — tch ! — at snuff-box ; tumbled up, he-heed, 
 Haw-hawed (not hee-hawed, that's another guess 
 
 thing :) 
 Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door, 
 I shoved the door ope wi' my omoplat ; 
 And in vestibulo, i' the entrance-hall, 
 Donned galligaskins, antigropeloes, 
 And so forth ; and, complete with hat and gloves, 
 One on and one a-dangle i, my hand, 
 And ombrifuge (Lord love you !), case o' rain, 
 I flopped forth, 'sbuddikins ! on my own ten toes, 
 (I do assure you there be ten of them,) 
 And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale 
 To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy. 
 Put case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought 
 This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy, 
 This pebble-thing, o' the boy-thing ? Q. E. D.
 
 Il6 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 
 
 That's proven without aid from mumping Pope, 
 
 Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal. 
 
 (Isn't it, old Fatchaps? YouVe in Euclid now.) 
 
 So, having the shilling— having i' fact a lot — 
 
 And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them, 
 
 I purchased, as I think I said before, 
 
 The pebble {lapis, lapidis, -di, -dan, -de — 
 
 What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, 
 
 eh?) 
 O' the boy, a bare-legged beggarly son of a gun, 
 For one and fourpence. Here we are again. 
 
 Now Law steps in, big-wigged, voluminous-jawed \ 
 Investigates and re-investigates. 
 Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head. 
 Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case. 
 
 At first the coin was mine, the chattel his. 
 But now (by virtue of the said exchange
 
 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 117 
 
 And barter) vice versa all the coin, 
 
 Per juris operaiioimn, vests 
 
 I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom ; 
 
 (In scecula sceculo-o-o-orum ; 
 
 I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.) 
 
 To have and hold the same to him and them . . . 
 
 Co?ifer some idiot on Conveyancing. 
 
 Whereas the pebble and every part thereof, 
 
 And all that appertaineth thereunto, 
 
 Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would, or 
 
 should, 
 {Stibaudi ctztera — clap we to the close — 
 For what's the good of law in a case o' the kind) 
 Is mine to all intents and purposes. 
 This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale. 
 
 Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality. 
 He says a gen'lman bought a pebble of him, 
 (This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold T my hand) —
 
 iiS THE COCK AND THE BULL. 
 
 And paid for't, like a gen'lman, on the nail. 
 ' Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny ? Devil a bit. 
 Fiddlestick's end !• Get out, you blazing ass ! 
 Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby me! 
 Go double or quits ? Yah ! tittup ! what's the 
 
 odds ? ' 
 — There's the transaction viewed i' the vendor's 
 
 light. 
 
 Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by, 
 With her three fro wsy-blowsy brats o' babes, 
 The scum o' the kennel, cream o' the filth-heap — 
 
 Faugh ! 
 Aie, aie, aie, aie ! ototo-o-otoI, 
 
 ('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty-toighty now) — 
 And the baker and candlestick-maker, and Jack 
 
 and Gill, 
 Bleared Goody this and queasy Gaffer that. 
 Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.
 
 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 119 
 
 He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad 
 A stone, and pay for it rite, on the square. 
 And carry it off per saltum, jauntily, 
 Propria qua maribus, gentleman's property now 
 (Agreeably to . the law explained above), 
 In proprium usum, for his private ends. 
 The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit 
 I' the face the shilling : heaved a thumping stone 
 At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by, 
 (And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,) 
 Then abiit — what's the Ciceronian phrase? — 
 Excessit, evasit, erupit — off slogs boy ; 
 Off in three flea-skips. Hactenus, so far, 
 So good, tarn bene. Bene, satis, male, — 
 Where was I ? who said what of one in a quag ? 
 I did once hitch the syntax into verse : 
 Verbum personate, a verb personal, 
 Concordat— -ay, 'agrees,' old Fatchaps — cum 
 Nominativo, with its nominative,
 
 120 THE COCK AND THE BULL. 
 
 Genere, i' point o' gender, mimero^ 
 
 O' number, et persona, and person. t/i, 
 
 Instance : Sol ruit, down flops sun, et and, 
 
 Monies umbrantur, snuffs out mountains. Pah ! 
 
 Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad. 
 
 You see the trick on't though, and can yourself 
 
 Continue the discourse ad libitum. 
 
 It takes up about eighty thousand lines, 
 
 A thing imagination boggles at: 
 
 And might, odds-bobs, sir ! in judicious hands, 
 
 Extend from here to Mesopotamy.
 
 VISIONS. 
 
 " She was a phantom" etc. 
 
 TN lone Glenartney's thickets lies couched the 
 
 lordly stag, 
 The dreaming terrier's tail forgets its customary 
 
 wag; 
 And plodding ploughmen's weary steps insensibly 
 
 grow quicker, 
 As broadening casements light them on toward 
 
 home, or home-brewed liquor. 
 
 It is in brief the evening — that pure and pleasant 
 
 time, 
 When stars break into splendor, and poets into 
 
 rhyme ;
 
 122 /V. 
 
 When in the glass of Memory the forms of loved 
 ones shine — 
 
 And when, of cour- 3 Goodchild's is prom- 
 
 inent in mine. 
 
 Miss Goodchild ! — Julia Goodchild ! — how gra- 
 ciously you smiled 
 
 Upon my childish passion once, yourself a fair- 
 haired child : 
 
 When I was (no doubt) profiting by Dr. Crabb's 
 instruction, 
 
 And sent those streaky lollipops home for your 
 fairy suction ! 
 
 " She wore " her natural " roses, the night when 
 
 first we met " — 
 Her golden hair was gleaming 'neath the coercive 
 
 net : 
 '■ Her brow was like the snawdrift," her step was 
 
 like Queen Mab's,
 
 VISIONS. 123 
 
 And gone was instantly the heart of every boy at 
 Crabb's. 
 
 The parlor-boarder chasseed tow'rds her on grace- 
 ful limb ; 
 
 The onyx deck'd his bosom — but her smiles were 
 not for him : 
 
 With me she danced — till drowsily her eyes " began 
 to blink," 
 
 And / brought raisin wine, and said, " Drink, 
 pretty creature, drink ! " 
 
 And evermore, when winter comes in his garb oi 
 
 snows, 
 And the returning school-boy is told how fast he 
 
 grows ; 
 Shall I — with that soft hand in mine— enact ideal 
 
 Lancers, 
 And dream I hear demure remarks, and make 
 
 impassioned answers : —
 
 I24 VISIOXS. 
 
 I know that never, never may her love for me 
 
 return — 
 At night I muse upon the fact with undisguised 
 
 concern — 
 But ever shall I bless that day : I don't bless, as 
 
 a rule, 
 The days I spent at "Dr. Crabb's Preparatory 
 
 * 
 
 School." 
 
 And yet we too may meet again — (Be still, my 
 throbbing heart !) 
 
 Now rolling years have weaned us from jam and 
 raspberry-tart. 
 
 One night I saw a vision — 'Twas when musk- 
 roses bloom, 
 
 I stood — we stood — upon a rug, in a sumptuous 
 dining-room : 
 
 One hand clasped hers — one easily reposed upon 
 my hip —
 
 VISIONS. 125 
 
 And " Bless ye ! " burst abruptly from Mr. Good- 
 child's lip : 
 
 I raised my brimming eye, and saw in hers an 
 answering gleam — ■ 
 
 My heart beat wildly — and I woke, and lo ! it 
 was a dream.
 
 GEMINI AND VIRGO. 
 
 QOME vast amount of years ago, 
 Ere all my youth had vanish'd from me, 
 
 A boy it was my lot to know, 
 
 Whom his familiar friends called Tommy. 
 
 I love to gaze upon a child ; 
 
 A young bud bursting into blossom ; 
 Artless, as Eve yet unbeguiled, 
 
 And agile as a young opossum : 
 
 And such was he. A calm-brow'd lad, 
 Yet mad, . at moments, as a hatter : 
 
 Why hatters as a race are mad 
 I never knew, nor docs it matter.
 
 GEMINI AND VERGI. i 2 J 
 
 He was what nurses call a " limb ; " 
 One of those small misguided creatures, 
 
 Who, tho' their intellects are dim, 
 Are one too many for their teachers : 
 
 And, if you asked of him to say 
 What twice 10 was, or 3 times 7, 
 
 He'd glance (in quite a placid way) 
 
 From heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 
 
 And smile, and look politely round, 
 
 To calch a casual suggestion ; 
 But make no effort to propound 
 
 Any solution of the question. 
 
 And so not much esteemed was he 
 Of the authorities : and therefore 
 
 He fraternized by chance with me, 
 Needing a somebody to care for .
 
 128 GEMINI AND VIRGO. 
 
 And three fair summers did we twain 
 Live (as they say) and love together; 
 
 And bore by turns the wholesome cane 
 Till our young skins became as leather : 
 
 And carved our names on every desk, 
 
 And tore our clothes, and inked our collars; 
 
 And looked unique and picturesque, 
 But not, it may be, model scholars. 
 
 We did much as we chose to do ; 
 
 We'd never heard of Mrs. Grundy ; 
 All the theology we knew 
 
 Was that wc mightn't play on Sunday ; 
 
 And all the general truths, that cakes 
 Were to be bought at four a penny, 
 
 And that excruciating aches 
 Resulted if we ate too many :
 
 GEMINI AND VIRGO. 129 
 
 And seeing ignorance is bliss, 
 
 And wisdom consequently folly, 
 The obvious result is this — 
 
 That our two lives were very jolly. 
 
 At last the separation came. 
 
 Real love at that time was the fashion ; 
 And by a horrid chance, the same 
 
 Young thing was, to us both, a passion. 
 
 Old Poser snorted like a horse : 
 
 His feet were large, his hands were pimply, 
 His manner, when excited, coarse : — 
 
 But Miss P. was an angel simply. 
 
 She was a blushing gushing thing ; 
 
 All — more than all — my fancy painted ; 
 
 Once — when she helped me to a wing 
 
 Of goose — I thought I should have fainted. 
 9
 
 I3 o GEMINI AND VIRGO. 
 
 The people said that she was blue : 
 But I was green, and loved her dearly. 
 
 She was approaching thirty-two ; 
 And I was then eleven, nearly. 
 
 I did not love as others do ; 
 
 (None ever did that I've heard tell of;) 
 My passion was a byword through 
 
 The town she was, of course, the belle of: 
 
 Oh sweet — as to the toil-worn man 
 The far-off sound of rippling river ; 
 
 As to cadets in Hindostan 
 
 The fleeting remnant of their liver — 
 
 To me was Anna ; dear as gold 
 That fills the miser's sunless coffers ; 
 
 As to the spinster, growing old, 
 ^lie thought — the dream — that she had offers.
 
 GEMINI AND VIRGO. 131 
 
 I'd sent her little gifts of fruit; 
 
 I'd written lines to her as Venus ; 
 I'd sworn unflinchingly to shoot 
 
 The man who dared to come between us : 
 
 And it was you, my Thomas, you, 
 
 The friend in whom my soul confided, 
 
 Who dared to gaze on her — to do, 
 I may say, much the same as I did. 
 
 One night, I saw him squeeze her hand ; 
 
 There was no doubt about the matter ; 
 I said he must resign, or stand 
 
 My vengeance — and he chose the latter. 
 
 We met, we ' planted ' blows on blows : 
 We foudit as long as we were able : 
 
 My rival had a bottle-nose, 
 
 And both my speaking eyes were sable,
 
 i 3 2 GEM I. VI AND VJRGO. 
 
 When the school-bell cut short our strife 
 
 Miss P. gave both of us a plaister ; 
 
 And in a week became the wife 
 
 Of Horace Nibbs, the writing-master. 
 * * * * * 
 
 I loved her then— I'd love her still, 
 Only one must not love Another's : 
 
 But thou and I, my Tommy, will, 
 
 When we again meet, meet as brothers. 
 
 It may be that in age one seeks 
 
 Peace only : that the blood is brisker 
 
 in boys' veins, than in theirs whose cheeks 
 Are partially obscured by whisker ; 
 
 Or that the growing ages steal 
 
 The memories of past wrongs from us. 
 
 But this is certain — that I feel 
 
 Most friendly unto thee, oh Thomas !
 
 GEMINI AND VIRGO. 133 
 
 And wheresoe'er we meet again, ' 
 On this or that side the equator, 
 
 If I've not turned teetotaller then, 
 
 And have wherewith to pay the waiter, 
 
 To thee I'll drain the modest cup, 
 Ignite with thee the mild Havannah ; 
 
 And we will waft, while liquoring up, 
 Forgiveness to the heartless Anna.
 
 " There stands a city." 
 
 Ingoldsby. 
 
 "V r EAR by year do Beauty's daughters, 
 In the sweetest gloves and shawls, 
 
 Troop to taste the Chattenham waters, 
 And adorn the Chattenham balls. 
 
 ' Nulla non donanda lauruj 
 
 Is that city : you could not, 
 Placing England's map before you, 
 
 Light on a more favor'd spot. 
 
 If no clear translucent river 
 
 Winds 'neath willow-shaded paths, 
 
 " Children and adults " may shiver 
 All day in " Chalybeate baths *' :
 
 " THERE STANDS A CITY:' 135 
 
 And on every side the painter 
 Looks on wooded vale and plain 
 
 And on fair hills, faint and fainter 
 Outlined as they near the main. 
 
 There I met with him, my chosen 
 
 Friend — the ' long 1 but not 'stern swell,'* 
 
 Faultless in his hats and hosen, 
 
 Whom the Johnian lawns know well : — 
 
 Oh my comrade, ever valued ! 
 
 Still I see your festive face ; 
 Hear you humming of "the gal you'd 
 
 Left behind " in massive bass : 
 
 See you sit with that composure 
 
 On the eehe 3 t of hacks, 
 That the novice would suppose your 
 
 Manly limbs encased in wax : 
 
 * " The kites know well the long stern swell 
 That bids the Romans close."— Macaulay.
 
 136 " THERE STANDS A CITY." 
 
 Or anon, when evening lent her 
 Tranquil light to hill and vale, 
 
 Urge, towards the table's centre, 
 With unerring hand, the squail. 
 
 Ah delectablest of summers ! 
 
 How my heart — that "muffled drum" 
 Which ignores the aid of drummers — 
 
 Beats, as back thy memories come ! 
 
 O among the dancers peerless, 
 Fleet of foot, and soft of eye ! 
 
 Need I say to you that cheerless 
 Must my days be till I die ? 
 
 At my side she mashed the fragrant 
 Strawberry ; lashes soft as silk 
 
 Drooped o'er saddened eyes, when vagrant 
 Gnats sought watery graves in milk:
 
 " THERE STANDS A CITY." ' 137 
 
 Then we danced, we walked together; 
 
 Talked — no doubt on trivial topics ; 
 Such as Blondin, or the weather, 
 
 Which "recalled us to the tropics." 
 
 But — O in the deuxtemps peerless, 
 Fleet of foot, and soft of eye ! — 
 
 Once more I repeat, that cheerless 
 Shall my days be till I die. 
 
 And the lean and hungry raven, 
 As he picks my bones, will start 
 
 To observe ' M. N.' engraven 
 Neatly on my blighted heart.
 
 STRIKING. 
 
 TT was a railway passenger, 
 
 And he lept out jauntilie. 
 "Now up and bear, thou stout porter, 
 My two chattels to me. 
 
 "Bring hither, bring hither my bag so red, 
 
 And portmanteau so brown : 
 (They lie in the van, for a trusty man 
 
 He labelled them London town :) 
 
 " And fetch me eke a cabman bold, 
 That I may be his fare, his fare ; 
 And he shall have a good shilling, 
 If by two of the clock he do me bring 
 To the Terminus, Euston Square. 1 '
 
 STRIKING. 139 
 
 "Now, — so to thee the saints alway, 
 
 Good gentlemen, give luck, — 
 As never a cab may I find this day, 
 
 For the cabman wights have struck : 
 And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn, 
 
 Or else at the Dog and Duck, 
 Or at Unicorn Blue, or at Green Griffin, 
 The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin 
 
 Right pleasantly they do suck." 
 
 " Now rede me aright, thou stout porter, 
 What were it best that I should do: 
 
 For woe is me, an' I reach not there 
 Or ever the clock strike two." 
 
 " I have a son, a lytel son ; 
 
 Fleet is his foot as the wild roebuck's : 
 Give him a shilling, and eke a brown, 
 And he shall carry thy fardels down
 
 I 4 o STRIKING. 
 
 To Euston, or half over London town, 
 On one of the station trucks." 
 
 Then forth in a hurry did they twain fare, 
 The gent, and the son of the stout porter, 
 Who fled like an arrow, nor turned a hair, 
 
 Through all the mire and muck : 
 " A ticket, a ticket, sir clerk, I pray : 
 For by two of the clock must I needs away." 
 "That may hardly be," the clerk did say, 
 
 "For indeed — the clocks have struck."
 
 VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 " The tender Grace of a day that is dead.' 
 
 HPHE dew is on the roses, 
 The owl hath spread her wing; 
 
 And vocal are the noses 
 Of peasant and of king: 
 
 "Nature" in short "reposes"; 
 But I do no such thing. 
 
 Pent in my lonesome study 
 Here I must sit and muse ; 
 
 Sit till the morn grows ruddy, 
 Till, rising with the dews, 
 
 "Jeameses" remove the muddy 
 Spots from their masters' shoes.
 
 142 VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 Yet are sweet faces flinging 
 Their witchery o'er me here : 
 
 I hear sweet voices singing 
 A song as soft, as clear, 
 
 As (previously to stinging) 
 A gnat sings round one's ear. 
 
 Does Grace draw young Apollo's 
 In blue mustachios still ? 
 
 Does Emma tell the swallows 
 How she will pipe and trill, 
 
 When, some fine day, she follows 
 Those birds to the window-sill ? 
 
 And oh ! has Albert faded 
 From Grace's memory yet? 
 
 Albert, whose "brow was shaded 
 By locks of glossiest jet,"
 
 VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 143 
 
 Whom almost any lady'd 
 
 Have given her eyes to get? 
 
 Does not her conscience smite her 
 
 For one who hourly pines, 
 Thinking her bright eyes brighter 
 
 Than any star that shines — 
 I mean of course the writer 
 
 Of these pathetic lines ? 
 
 Who knows? As quoth Sir Walter, 
 " Time rolls his ceaseless course : 
 
 " The Grace of yore " may alter — 
 And then, IVe one resource: 
 
 I'll invest in a bran-new halter, 
 And- Til perish without remorse.
 
 LINES SUGGESTED BY THE FOURTEENTH 
 OF FEBRUARY. 
 
 T^RE the morn the East has crimsoned, 
 
 When the stars are twinkling there, 
 (As they did in Watts' Hymns, and 
 
 Made him wonder what they were :) 
 When the forest-nymphs are beading 
 
 Fern and flower with silvery dew — 
 My infallible proceeding 
 
 Is to wake, and think of you. 
 
 When the hunter's ringing bugle 
 Sounds farewell to field and copse, 
 
 And I sit before my frugal 
 Meal of gravy-soup and chops: 
 
 When (as Gray remarks) "the moping 
 Owl doth to the moon complain,"
 
 LINES SUGGESTED BY liih FEBRUARY. 1 45 
 
 And the hour suggests eloping — 
 Fly my thoughts to you again. 
 
 May my dreams be granted never? 
 
 Must I aye endure affliction 
 Rarely realized, if ever, 
 
 In our wildest works of fiction? 
 Madly Romeo loved his Juliet; 
 
 Copperfield began to pine 
 When he hadn't been to school yet — ■ 
 
 But their loves were cold to mine. 
 
 Give me hope, the least, the dimmest, 
 Ere I drain the poisoned cup: 
 
 Tell me I may tell the chymist 
 Not to make that arsenic up ! 
 
 Else the heart must cease to throb in 
 This my breast ; and when, in tones 
 
 Hushed, men ask, " Who killed Cock Robin ? " 
 
 They'll be told, "Miss Clara J s." 
 
 10
 
 A, B, C. 
 
 A is an Angel of blushing eighteen : 
 
 B is the Ball where the Angel was seen : 
 
 C is her Chaperon, who cheated at cards : 
 
 D is the Deuxtemps, with Frank of the Guards: 
 
 E is her Eye, killing slowly but surely : 
 
 F is the Fan, whence it peeped so demurely: 
 
 G is the Glove of superlative kid: 
 
 H is the Hand which it spitefully hid : 
 
 I is the Ice which the fair one demanded : 
 
 J is the Juvenile, that dainty who handed : 
 
 K is the Kerchief, a rare work of art : 
 
 L is the Lace which composed the chief part ' 
 
 Af is the old Maid who watch'd the nice 
 
 l\ r is the No an ii^d up at each glance:
 
 A, B, C. 147 
 
 O is the Olga (just then in its prime) : 
 
 P is the Partner who wouldn't keep time : 
 
 Q 's a Quadrille, put instead of the Lancers: 
 
 R the Remonstrances made by the dancers: 
 
 S is the Supper, where all went in pairs : 
 
 T is the Twaddle they talked on the stairs: 
 
 U is the Uncle who " thought we'd be goin' : " 
 
 V is the Voice which his niece replied ' No ' in : 
 W is the Waiter, who sat up till eight : 
 
 X is his Exit, not rigidly straight: 
 
 Y is a Yawning fit caused by the Ball : 
 Z stands for Zero, or nothing at all.
 
 TO MRS. GOODCHILD. 
 
 HPHE night-wind's shriek is pitiless and hollow, 
 
 The boding bat flits by on sullen wing, 
 And I sit desolate, like that " one swallow " 
 Who found (with horror) that he'd not 
 brought spring : 
 Lonely he who erst with venturous thumb 
 Drew from its pie-y lair the solitary plum. 
 
 And to my gaze the phantoms of the Past, 
 
 The cherished fictions of my boyhood, rise : 
 I see Red Ridinghood observe, aghast, 
 
 The fixed expression of her grandam's eyes ; 
 I hear the fiendish chattering and chuckling 
 Which those misguided fowls raised at the 
 Ugly Ducklii
 
 TO MRS. GOODCHILD. 149 
 
 The House that Jack built— and the Malt 
 that lay 
 Within the House— the Rat that ate the Malt— 
 The Cat, that in that sanguinary way 
 
 Punished the poor thing for its venial fault — 
 The Worrier-Dog — the Cow with crumpled horn — 
 And then — ah yes ! and then — the Maiden all 
 forlorn ! 
 
 Mrs. Gurton — (may I call thee Gammer?) 
 Thou more than mother to my infant mind ! 
 
 1 loved thee better than I loved my grammar — 
 I used to wonder why the Mice were blind, 
 
 And who was gardener to Mistress Mary, 
 And what — I don't know still — was meant by 
 "quite contrary." 
 
 "Tota contraria," an " Arundo Cami" 
 
 Has phrased it — which is possibly explicit,
 
 150 TO MRS. GOODCIIILD. 
 
 Ingenious certainly — but all the same I 
 
 Still ask, when coming on the word, ' What 
 
 is it?' 
 There were more things in Mrs. Gurton's eye, 
 
 Mayhap, than are dreamed of in our philosophy. 
 
 No doubt the Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' 
 Or ' Things not generally known ' could tell 
 
 The word's real force — my only lurking fear is 
 That the great Gammer " didna ken hersel " : 
 
 (I've precedent, yet feel I owe apology 
 For pa sing in this way to Scottish phraseology). 
 
 Also, dear Madam, I must ask -your pardon 
 For making this unwarranted digression, 
 
 Starting (I think) from Mistress Mary's garden : 
 And beg to send, with every expression 
 
 Of personal esteem, a Book of Rhymes, 
 For Master G. to read at miscellaneous times.
 
 TO MRS. GOODCHILD. 151 
 
 There is a youth, who keeps a ' crumpled 
 Horn,' 
 (Living next me, upon the self-same story,) 
 And ever, 'twixt the midnight and the morn, 
 
 He solaces his soul with Annie Laurie. 
 The tune is good ; the habit p'raps romantic ; 
 But tending, if pursued, to drive one's neighbors 
 frantic. 
 
 And now, — at this unprecedented hour, 
 When the yoang Dawn is "trampling out 
 the stars," — 
 I hear that youth — with more than usual power 
 And pathos — struggling with the first few 
 bars. 
 And I do think the amateur cornopean 
 Should be put down by law — but that's perhaps 
 Utopian.
 
 XCJ2 TO MRS. GOODCIIILD. 
 
 Who knows what " things unknown " I might 
 have " bodied 
 Forth," if not checked by that absurd Too-too ? 
 But don't I know that when my friend has 
 plodded 
 Through the first verse, the second will ensue ? 
 Considering which, dear Madam, I will merely 
 Send the before-named book — and am yours 
 most sincerely.
 
 ODE— 'ON A DISTANT PROSPECT' 
 OF MAKING A FORTUNE. 
 
 "\J0W the " rosy morn appearing " 
 
 Floods with light the dazzled heaven, 
 And the school-boy groans on hearing 
 
 That eternal clock strike seven: — 
 Now the wagoner is driving 
 
 Tow'rds the fields his clattering wain; 
 Now the blue-bottle, reviving, 
 
 Buzzes down his native pane. 
 
 But to me the morn is hateful : 
 
 Wearily I stretch my legs, 
 Dress, and settle to my plateful 
 
 Of (perhaps inferior) eggs.
 
 *54 
 
 ODE- ■' ON A DISTANT PROSPECT' 
 
 Yesterday Miss Crump, by message, 
 
 Mentioned " rent," which " p'raps I'd pay ; ' 
 
 And I have a dismal presage 
 That she'll call, herself, to-day. 
 
 Once, I breakfasted off rosewood, 
 
 Smoked through silver-mounted pipes — 
 Then how my patrician nose would 
 
 Turn up at the thought of " swipes ! " 
 Ale, — occasionally claret, — 
 
 Graced my luncheon then ; — and now 
 1 drink porter in a garret, 
 
 To be paid for heaven knows how. 
 
 When the evening shades are deepened, 
 And I doff my hat and gloves, 
 
 No sweet bird is there to u cheep and 
 Twitter twenty million loves;" 
 
 No dark-ringleted canaries 
 
 Sing to me of "hungry foam ;"
 
 OF MAKING A FORTUNE. 155 
 
 No imaginary " Marys " 
 
 Call fictitious "cattle home." 
 
 Araminta, sweetest, fairest! 
 
 Solace once of every ill ! 
 How I wonder if thou bearest 
 
 Mivins in remembrance still! 
 If that Friday night is banished 
 
 From a once retentive mind, 
 When the others somehow vanished, 
 
 And we two were left behind : — 
 
 When in accents low, yet thrilling, 
 I did all my love declare ; 
 
 Mentioned that I'd not a shilling- 
 Hinted that we need not care : 
 
 And complacently you listened 
 To my somewhat long address, 
 
 And I thought the tear that glistened 
 In the downdropt eye said Yes.
 
 l 5 6 ODE— ' ON A DISTANT PROSPECT! 
 
 Once, a happy child, I carolled 
 
 O'er green lawns the whole day through, 
 Not unpleasingly apparelled 
 
 In a tightish suit of blue : — 
 What a change has now passed o'er me ! 
 
 Now with what dismay I see 
 Every rising morn before me ! 
 
 Goodness gracious patience me ! 
 
 And I'll prowl, a moodier Lara, 
 
 Thro 1 the world, as prowls the bat, 
 And habitually wear a 
 
 Cypress wreath around my hat : 
 And when Death snuffs out the taper 
 
 Of my Life (as soon he must), 
 1 11 send up to every paper, 
 
 "Died, T Mivinsj of disgust."
 
 ISABEL. 
 
 "\TOW o'er the landscape crowd the deepen- 
 ing shades, 
 
 And the shut lily cradles not the bee : 
 The red deer couches in the forest glades, 
 
 And faint the echoes of the slumberous sea: 
 
 And ere I rest, one prayer I'll breathe for thee, 
 The sweet Egeria of my lonely dreams: 
 
 Lady, forgive, that ever upon me 
 
 Thoughts of thee linger, as the soft starbeams 
 Linger on Merlin's rock, or dark Sabrina's streams. 
 
 On gray Pilatus once we loved to stray, 
 And watch far off the glimmering roselight break
 
 153 ISABEL. 
 
 O'er the dim mountain-peaks, ere yet one ray 
 Pierced the deep bosom of the mist-clad lake. 
 Oh ! who felt not new life within him wake, 
 And his pulse quicken, and his spirit burn— 
 
 (Save one we wot of, whom the cold did make 
 Feel "shooting pains in every joint in turn,") 
 When first we saw the sun gild thy green shores 
 Lucerne ? 
 
 And years have past, and I have gazed once more 
 
 On blue lakes glistening amid mountains blue ; 
 And all seemed sadder, lovelier than before— 
 
 For all awakened memories of you. 
 
 Oh ! had I had you by my side, in lieu 
 Of that red matron, whom the flies would worry, 
 
 (Flies in those parts unfortunately do,) 
 Who walked so slowly, talked in such a hurry, 
 And with such wild contempt for stops and Lindley 
 Murray !
 
 ISABEL. 159 
 
 O Isabel, the brightest, heavenliest theme 
 That ere drew dreamer on to poesy, 
 
 Since " Peggy's locks " made Burns neglect his 
 team, 
 And Stella's smile lured Johnson from his tea — 
 I may not tell thee what thou art to me ! 
 
 But ever dwells the soft voice in my ear, 
 
 Whispering of what Time is, what Man might be, 
 Would he but " do the duty that lies near," 
 
 And cut clubs, cards, champagne, balls, billiard- 
 rooms, and beer.
 
 LINES SUGGESTED BY THE FOURTEENTH 
 OF FEBRUARY 
 
 T^ARKNESS succeeds to twilight: 
 Through lattice and through skylight 
 The stars no doubt, if one looked out, 
 Might be observed to shine : 
 And sitting by the embers 
 I elevate my members 
 On a stray chair, and then and there 
 Commence a Valentine. 
 
 Yea ! by St. Valentinus, 
 Emma shall not be minus 
 What all young ladies, whate'er their grade is 
 Expect to-day no doubt: 
 Emma the fair, the stately — 
 Whom I beheld so lately,
 
 rr/VES SUGGESTED BY Utk FEBRUARY. 161 
 
 Smiling beneath the snow-white wreath 
 Which told that she was "out." 
 
 Wherefore fly to her, swallow, 
 And mention that I'd "follow," 
 And " pipe and trill," et cetera, till 
 I died, had I but wings: 
 Say the North's "true and tender," 
 The South an old offender; 
 And hint in fact, with your well-known tact, 
 All kinds of pretty things. 
 
 Say I grow hourly thinner, 
 Simply abhor my dinner — 
 Tho' I do try and absorb some viand 
 Each day, for form's sake merely; 
 And ask her, when all's ended, 
 And I am found extended, 
 With vest blood-spotted and cut carotid, 
 To think on Her's sincerely. 
 
 IT
 
 "H1C VIR, HIC EST." 
 
 /^~\FTEN, when o'er tree and turret, 
 
 Eve a dying radiance flings, 
 By that ancient pile I linger, 
 
 Known familiarly as " King's." 
 And the ghosts of days departed 
 
 Rise, and in my burning breast 
 All the undergraduate wakens, 
 
 And my spirit is at rest. 
 
 What, but a revolting fiction, 
 
 Seems the actual result 
 Of the Census's inquiries 
 
 Made upon the 15th ult. ? 
 Still my soul is in its boyhood ; 
 
 Nor of year or changes recks
 
 "NIC VI R HIC EST." 163 
 
 Though my scalp is almost hairless, 
 And my figure grows convex. 
 
 Backward moves the kindly dial ; 
 
 And I'm numbered once again 
 With those noblest of their species 
 
 Called emphatically ' Men' : 
 Loaf, as I have loafed aforetime, 
 
 Through the streets, with tranquil mind, 
 And a long-backed fancy-mongrel 
 
 Trailing casually behind : 
 
 Past the Senate-house I saunter, 
 
 Whistling with an easy grace ; 
 Past the cabbage-stalks that carpet 
 
 Still the beefy market-place ; 
 Poising evermore the eye-glass 
 
 In the light sarcastic eye, 
 Lest, by chance, some breezy nursemaid 
 
 Pass, without a tribute, by.
 
 1 64 " IIIC VI R, II I C EST." 
 
 Once, an unassuming Freshman, 
 
 Thro' these wilds I wandered on, 
 Seeing in each house a College, 
 
 Under every cap a Don : 
 Each perambulating infant 
 
 Had a magic in its squall, 
 lor my eager eye detected 
 
 Senior Wranglers in them all. 
 
 By degrees my education 
 
 Grew, and I became as others ; 
 Learned to blunt my moral feelings 
 
 By the aid of Bacon Brothers ; 
 Bought me tiny boots of Mortlock. 
 
 And colossal prints of Roe : 
 And ignored the proposition 
 
 That both time and money go. 
 
 Learned to work the wary dogcart 
 Artfully thro' King's Parade ;
 
 "H1C VIR, HIC EST." 165 
 
 Dress, and steer a boat, and sport with 
 
 Amaryllis in the shade: 
 Struck, at Brown's, the dashing hazard ; 
 
 Or (more curious sport than that) 
 Dropped, at Callaby's, the terrier 
 
 Down upon the prisoned rat. 
 
 I have stood serene on Fenner's 
 
 Ground, indifferent to blisters, 
 While the Buttress of the period 
 
 Bowled me his peculiar twisters : 
 Sung ' We won't go home till morning ' ; 
 
 Striven to part my back-hair straight; 
 Drunk (not lavishly) of Miller's 
 
 Old dry wines at 781 : — 
 
 When within my veins the blood ran, 
 And the curls were on my brow, 
 
 I did, oh ye undergraduates, 
 Much as ye are doing now.
 
 1 66 "HIC VIR, II I C EST" 
 
 Wherefore bless ye, beloved ones 
 Now unto mine inn must T, 
 
 Your 'poor moralist,'* betake me, 
 In my solitary fly.) 
 
 *"Poor moralist, and what art thou? 
 A solitary fly." 
 
 Gray.
 
 BEER. 
 
 TN those old days which poets say were golden— 
 (Perhaps they laid the gilding on themselves: 
 
 And, if they did, I'm all the more beholden 
 To those brown dwellers in my dusty shelves, 
 
 Who talk to me " in language quaint and olden " 
 Of gods and demigods and fauns and elves, 
 
 Pan with his pipes, and Bacchus with his leopards, 
 
 And staid young goddesses who flirt with shep- 
 herds :) 
 
 In those old days, the Nymph called Etiquette 
 (Appalling thought to dwell on) was not born. 
 
 They had their May, but no Mayfair as yet, 
 No fashions varying as the hues of morn.
 
 1 68 BEER. 
 
 Just as they pleased they dressed and drank and 
 ate, 
 Sang hymns to Ceres (their John Barleycorn) 
 And danced unchaperoned, and laughed unchecked, 
 And were no doubt extremely incorrect. 
 
 Vet do I think their theory was pleasant : 
 And oft, I own, my ' wayward fancy roams' 
 
 Back to those times, so different from the present ; 
 When no one smoked cigars, nor gave At-homes, 
 
 Nor smote a billiard-ball, nor winged a pheasant. 
 Nor 'did' her hair by means of long-tailed combs, 
 
 Nor migrated to Brighton once a year, 
 
 Nor — most astonishing of all — drank Beer. 
 
 No, they did not drink Beer, " which brings me to" 
 (As Gilpin said) "the middle of my song." 
 
 Not that " the middle " is precisely true, 
 Or else T should not tax your patience long
 
 BEER. 169 
 
 If I Had said 'beginning,' it might do; 
 
 But I have a dislike to quoting wrong: 
 I was unlucky — sinned against, not sinning — 
 When Cowper wrote down ' middle' for 'beginning.' 
 
 So to proceed. That abstinence from Malt 
 Has always struck me as extremely curious. 
 
 The Greek mind must have had some vital fault, 
 That they should stick to liquors so injurious — 
 
 (Wine, water, tempered p'raps with Attic salt) — 
 And not at once invent that mild, luxurious, 
 
 And artful beverage, Beer. How the digestion 
 
 Got on without it, is a startling question. 
 
 Had they digestions ? and an actual body 
 Such as dyspepsia might make attacks on ? 
 
 Were they abstract ideas — (like Tom Noddy 
 And Mr. Briggs) — or men, like Jones and Jack- 
 son ?
 
 I7 o BEER. 
 
 Then nectar — was that beer, or whiskey-toddy P 
 Some say the Gaelic mixture, / the Saxon : 
 J think a strict adherence to the latter 
 Might make some Scots less pig-headed, and fatter. 
 
 Besides. Bon Gaultier definitely shows 
 
 That the real beverage for feasting gods on 
 
 Is a soft compound, grateful to the nose 
 
 And also to the palate, known as ' Hodgson.' 
 
 I know a man — a tailor's son — who rose 
 
 To be a peer : and this I would lay odds on, 
 
 (Though in his Memoirs it may not appear,) 
 
 That that man owed his rise to copious Beer. 
 
 O Beer ! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsop, Bass ! 
 
 Names that should be on every infant's tongue ! 
 Shall days and months and years and centuries 
 pass, 
 And still your merits be unrecked, unsung?
 
 BEER. i-ji 
 
 Oh ! I have gazed into my foaming glass, 
 
 And wished that lyre could yet again be strung 
 Which once rang prophet-like through Greece, 
 
 and taught her 
 Misguided sons that the best drink was water. 
 
 How would he now recant that wild opinion, 
 And sing — as would that I could sing — of you ! 
 
 I was not born (alas !) the " Muses' minion," 
 I'm not poetical, not even blue: 
 
 And he, we know, but strives with waxen pinion, 
 Whoe'er he is that entertains the view 
 
 Of emulating Pindar, and will be 
 
 Sponsor at last to some now nameless sea. 
 
 Oh ! when the green slopes of Arcadia burned 
 With all the lustre of the dying day, 
 
 And on Cithaeron's brow the reaper turned, 
 (Humming, of course, in his delightful way,
 
 I7 2 BEER. 
 
 How Lycidas was dead, and how concerned 
 
 . The Nymphs were when they saw his lifeless clay j 
 And how rock told to rock the dreadful story 
 That poor young Lycidas was gone to glory:) 
 
 What would that lone and laboring soul have given, 
 At that soft moment for a pewter pot ! 
 
 How had the mists that dimmed his eye been riven, 
 And Lycidas and sorrow all forgot ! 
 
 If his own grandmother had died unshriven, 
 In two short seconds he'd have recked it not ; 
 
 Such power hath Beer. The heart which Grief 
 hath canker'd 
 
 Hath one unfailing remedy — the Tankard. 
 
 Coffee is good, and so no doubt is cocoa; 
 
 Tea did for Johnson and the Chinamen : 
 When ' Dulce est desipere in loco ' 
 
 Was written, real Falernian winged the pen.
 
 BEER. 173 
 
 When a rapt audience has encored ' Fra Poco ' 
 
 Or 'Casta Diva,' I have heard that then 
 The Prima Donna, smiling herself out, 
 Recruits her flagging powers with bottled stout. 
 
 But what is coffee, but a noxious berry, 
 Born to keep used-up Londoners awake? 
 
 What is Falernian, what is Porr or Sherry, 
 But vile concoctions to make dull heads ache? 
 
 Nay stout itself — (though good with oysters, 
 very) — 
 Is not a thing your reading man should take. 
 
 He that would shine, and petrify his tutor, 
 
 wShould drink draught Allsop in its "native pewter.' 
 
 But hark ! a sound is stealing on my ear — 
 A soft and silvery sound — I know it well. 
 
 Its tinkling tells me that a time is near 
 Precious to me — it is the Dinner Bell.
 
 174 BEER. 
 
 blessed Bell ! Thou bringest beef and beer, 
 Thou bringest good things more than tongue may 
 
 tell: 
 Seared is, of course, my heart — but unsubdued 
 Is, and shall be, my appetite for food. 
 
 1 go Untaught and feeble is my pen : 
 
 But on one statement I may safely venture : 
 That few of our most highly-gifted men 
 
 Have more appreciation of the trencher. 
 I go. One pound of British beef, and then 
 
 What Mr. Swiveller called a "modest quencher;" 
 That home-returning, I may 'soothly say,' 
 u Fate cannot touch me : I have dined to-day."
 
 ODE TO TOBACCO. 
 
 T^HOU who, when fears attack, 
 Bidst them avaunt, and Black 
 Care, at the horseman's back 
 
 Perching, unseatest ; 
 Sweet when the morn is gray; 
 Sweet, when they've cleared away 
 Lunch ; and at close of day 
 
 Possibly sweetest : 
 
 I have a liking old 
 For thee, though manifold 
 Stories, I know, are told, 
 Not to thy credit ;
 
 Ij6 ODE TO TOBACCO. 
 
 How one (or two at most) 
 Drops make a cat a ghost- 
 Useless, except to roast — 
 Doctors have said it : 
 
 How they who use fusees 
 All grow by slow degrees 
 Brainless as chimpanzees, 
 
 Meagre as lizards ; 
 Go mad, and beat their wives; 
 Plunge (after shocking lives) 
 Razors and carving knives 
 Into their gizzards. 
 
 Confound such knavish tricks ! 
 Yet know I five or six 
 Smokers who freely mix 
 
 ' Still with their neighbors ,
 
 ODE TO TOBACCO. 177 
 
 Jones — (who, I'm glad to say, 
 Asked leave of Mrs. J.) — 
 Daily absorbs a clay 
 After his labors. 
 
 Cats may have had their gooss 
 Cooked by tobacco-juice ; 
 Still why deny its use 
 
 Thoughtfully taken? 
 We're not as tabbies are : 
 Smith, take a fresh cigar ! 
 Jones, the tobacco-jar ! 
 
 Here's to thee, Bacon ! 
 
 13
 
 DOVER TO MUNICH. 
 
 "CWREWELL, farewell ! Before our prow 
 Leaps in white foam the noisy channel ; 
 
 A tourist's cap is on my brow, 
 
 My legs are cased in tourist's flannel : 
 
 Around me gasp the invalids — 
 The quantity to-night is fearful — 
 
 I take a brace or so of weeds, 
 
 And feel (as yet) extremely cheerful. 
 
 The night wears on : — my thirst I quench 
 With one imperial pint of porter ; 
 
 Then drop upon a casual bench — 
 
 (The bench is short, but I am shorter) — ■
 
 DOVER TO MUNICH. 179 
 
 Place 'neath my head the havre-sac 
 Which I have stowed my little all in, 
 
 And sleep, though moist about the back, 
 Serenely in an old tarpaulin. 
 
 Bed at Ostend at 5 a.m. 
 
 Breakfast at 6, and train 6.30, 
 Tickets to Konigswinter (mem. 
 
 The seats unutterably dirty). 
 
 And onward thro' those dreary flats 
 We move, with scanty space to sit on, 
 
 Flanked by stout girls with steeple hats, 
 And waists that paralyze a Briton ; — 
 
 By many a tidy little town 
 
 Where tidy little Fraus sit knitting; 
 
 (The men's pursuits are, lying down, 
 Smoking perennial pipes, and spitting;)
 
 180 DOVER TO MUNICH. 
 
 And doze, and execrate the heat, 
 And wonder how far off Cologne is, 
 
 And if we shall get aught to eat, 
 Till we get there, save raw polonies : 
 
 Until at last the "gray old pile" 
 
 Is seen, is past, and three hours later 
 
 We're ordering steaks, and talking vile 
 Mock-German to an Austrian waiter. 
 
 Konigswinter, hateful Konigswmter ! 
 
 Burying-place of all I loved so well ! 
 Never did the most extensive printer 
 
 Print a tale so dark as thou couldst tell ! 
 
 In the sapphire West the eve yet lingered, 
 Bathed in kindly light those hill-tops cold ; 
 
 Fringed each cloud, and, stooping rosy-fingered, 
 Changed Rhine's waters into molten gold ; —
 
 DOVER TO MUNICH. 181 
 
 While still nearer did his light waves splinter 
 Into silvery shafts the streaming light ; 
 
 And I said I loved thee, Konigswinter, 
 For the glory that was thine that night. 
 
 And we gazed, till slowly disappearing, 
 Like a day-dream, passed the pageant by, 
 
 And I saw but those lone hills, uprearing 
 Dull dark shapes against a hueless sky. 
 
 Then I turned, and on those bright hopes pondered 
 Whereof yon gay fancies were the type ; 
 
 And my hand mechanically wandered 
 Towards my left-hand pocket for a pipe. 
 
 Ah ! why starts each eyeball from its socket, 
 As, in Hamlet, start the guilty Queen's? 
 
 There, deep-hid in its accustomed pocket, 
 Lay my sole pipe, smashed to smithereens !
 
 t82 DOVER TO MUNICH. 
 
 On, on the vessel steals; 
 Round go the paddle-wheels, 
 And now the tourist feels 
 
 As he should ; 
 For king-like rolls the Rhine, 
 And the scenery's divine, 
 And the victuals and the wine 
 
 Rather good. 
 
 From every crag we pass '11 
 Rise up some hoar old castle ; 
 The hanging fir-groves tassel 
 
 Every slope ; 
 And the vine her lithe arms stretches 
 Over peasants singing catches — 
 And you'll make no end of sketches, 
 
 I should hope.
 
 DOVER TO MUNICH. 183 
 
 We've a nun here (called Therese), 
 Two couriers out of place, 
 One Yankee with a face 
 
 Like a ferret's : 
 And three youths in scarlet caps 
 Drinking chocolate and schnapps — 
 A diet which perhaps 
 
 Has its merits. 
 
 And day again declines: 
 
 In shadow sleep the vines, 
 
 And the last ray thro' the pines 
 
 Feebly glows, 
 Then sinks behind yon ridge; 
 And the usual evening midge 
 Is settling on the bridge 
 
 Of my nose.
 
 1 84 DOVER TO MUNICH. 
 
 And keen's the air and cold, 
 And the sheep are in the fold, 
 And Night walks sable-stoled 
 Thro' the trees ; 
 
 And on the silent river 
 The floating starbeams quiver ;- 
 And now, the saints deliver 
 Us from fleas. 
 
 Avenues of broad white houses, 
 Basking in the noontide glare ; — 
 
 Streets, which foot of traveller shrinks from, 
 As on hot plates shrinks the bear; — 
 
 Elsewhere lawns, and vista'd gardens, 
 Statues white, and cool arcades, 
 
 Where at eve the German warrior 
 Winks upon the German maids ; —
 
 DOVER TO MUNICH. 185 
 
 Such is Munich : — broad and stately, 
 
 Rich of hue, and fair of form; 
 But, towards the end of August, 
 
 Unequivocally warm. 
 
 There, the long dim galleries threading, 
 
 May the artist's eye behold 
 Breathing from the "deathless canvass" 
 
 Records of the years of old: 
 
 Pallas there, and Jove, and Juno, 
 
 "Take" once more their "walks abroad," 
 
 Under Titian's fiery woodlands 
 And the saffron skies of Claude: 
 
 There the Amazons of Rubens 
 
 Lift the failing arm to strike, 
 And the pale light falls in masses 
 
 On the horsemen of Vandyke ;
 
 r86 DOTER TO MUNICH. 
 
 And in Berghcm's pools reflected 
 Hang the cattle's graceful shapes, 
 
 And Murillo's soft boy-faces 
 Laugh amid the Seville grapes; 
 
 And all purest, loveliest fancies 
 That in poets' souls may dwell 
 
 Started into shape and substance 
 At the touch of Raphael. 
 
 Lo! her wan arms folded meekly, 
 
 And the glory of her hair 
 Falling as a robe around her, 
 
 Kneels the Magdalen in prayer ; 
 
 And the white-robed Virgin-mother 
 Smiles, as centuries back she smiled, 
 
 Half in gladness, half in wonder, 
 On the calm face of her Child : —
 
 DOVER TO MUNICH. 187 
 
 And that mighty Judgment-vision 
 Tells how man essayed to climb 
 
 Up the ladder of the ages, 
 
 Past the frontier-walls of Time ; 
 
 Heard the trumpet-echoes rolling 
 
 Thro' the phantom-peopled sky, 
 
 And the still voice bid this mortal 
 
 Put on immortality. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Thence we turned, what time the blackbird 
 Pipes to vespers from his perch, 
 
 And from out the clattering city 
 Pass'd into the silent church; 
 
 Mark'd the shower of sunlight breaking 
 Thro' the crimson panes o'erhead, 
 
 And on pictured wall and window 
 Read the histories of the dead :
 
 1 88 DOVER TO MUNICH. 
 
 Till the kneelers round us, rising, 
 
 Crossed their foreheads and were gone ; 
 
 And o'er aisle and arch and cornice, 
 Layer, on layer, the night came on.
 
 CHARADES. 
 
 I. 
 
 QHE stood at Greenwich, motionless amid 
 The ever-shifting crowd of passengers. 
 
 I mark'd a big tear quivering on the lid 
 Of her deep-lustrous eye, and knew that hers 
 Were days of bitterness. But, " Oh ! what stirs" 
 
 I said "such storm within so fair a breast?" 
 Even as I spoke, two apoplectic curs 
 
 Came feebly up: with one wild cry she prest 
 
 Each singly to her heart, and faltered, " Heaven 
 be blest!" 
 
 Yet once again I saw her, from the deck 
 Of a black ship that steamed towards Blackwall.
 
 I9 CHARADES. 
 
 She walked upon my fast. Her stately neck 
 Bent o'er an object shrouded in her shawl : 
 I could not see the tears — the glad tears — fall, 
 
 Vfet knew they fell. And "Ah," I said, "not 
 puppies, 
 Seen unexpectedly, could lift the pall 
 
 From hearts who know what tasting misery's cup is 
 
 As Niobe's, or mine, or blighted William Guppy's." 
 
 Spake John Grogblossom the coachman to Eliza 
 Spinks the cook : 
 
 "Mrs. Spinks," says he, "I've founder'd: 'Liza 
 dear, I'm overtook. 
 
 Druv into a corner reglar, puzzled as a babe un- 
 born ; 
 
 Speak the word, my blessed 'Liza ; speak, and 
 John the coachman's yourn. , '
 
 CHARADES. 19 1 
 
 Then Eliza Spinks made answer, blushing, to the 
 coachman John : 
 
 " John, I'm born and bred a spinster : I've begun 
 and I'll go on. 
 
 Endless cares and endless worrits, well I knows it, 
 has a wife : 
 
 Cooking for a genteel family, John, it's a golup- 
 tious life! 
 
 "I gets ^20 per annum — tea and things o' course 
 
 not reckoned, — 
 There's a cat that eats the butter, takes the coals, 
 
 and breaks my secand : 
 There's soci'ty — James the footman ;— (not that I 
 
 look after him ; 
 But he's affble in his manners, with amazing 
 
 length of limb ;) —
 
 192 CHARADES. 
 
 " Never durst the missis enter here until I've said 
 
 ' Come in ' : 
 Tf I saw the master peeping, I'd catch up the 
 
 rolling-pin. 
 Christmas-boxes, that's a something ; perkisites, 
 
 that's something too ; 
 And I think, take all together, John, I won't be 
 
 on with you." 
 
 John the coachman took his hat up, for he thought 
 
 he'd had enough ; 
 Rubb'd an elongated forehead with a meditative 
 
 cuff; 
 Paused before the stable doorway ; said, when there, 
 
 in accents mild, 
 " She's a fine young 'oman, cook is ; but that's 
 
 where it is, she's spiled."
 
 CHARADES. 193 
 
 I have read in some not marvellous tale, 
 
 (Or if I have not, I've dreamed) 
 
 Of one who filled up the convivial cup 
 
 Till the company round him seemed 
 
 To be vanished and gone, tho' the lamps upon 
 
 Their face as aforetime gleamed : 
 And his head sunk down, and a Lethe crept 
 O'er his powerful brain, and the young man slept. 
 
 Then they laid him with care in his moonlit 
 bed : 
 
 But first — having thoughtfully fetched some tar — 
 Adorn'd him with feathers, aware that the weather's 
 
 Uncertainty brings on at nights catarrh. 
 
 They stayed in his room till the sun was high : 
 
 But still did the feathered one give no sign 
 13
 
 194 CHARADES. 
 
 Of opening a peeper — he might be a sleeper 
 Such as rests on the Northern or Midland line. 
 
 At last he woke, and with profound 
 Bewilderment he gazed around ; 
 Dropped one, then both feet to the ground, 
 But never spake a word : 
 
 Then to my whole he made his way ; 
 Took one long lingering survey ; 
 And softly, as he stole away, 
 Remarked, " By Jove, a bird ! "
 
 II. 
 
 TF you've seen a short man swagger tow'rds the 
 footlights at Shoreditch, 
 
 Sing out " Heave aho ! my hearties," and perpet- 
 ually hitch 
 
 Up, by an ingenious movement, trousers innocent 
 of brace, 
 
 Briskly flourishing a cudgel in his pleased com- 
 panion's face ; 
 
 If he preluded with hornpipes each successive thing 
 he did, 
 
 From a sun-browned cheek extracting still an os- 
 tentatious quid ; 
 
 And expectorated freely, and occasionally cursed : —
 
 igO CHARADES. 
 
 Then have you beheld, depicted by a master's 
 hand, my first. 
 
 O my countryman ! if ever from thy arm the 
 
 bolster sped, 
 In thy school-days, with precision at a young 
 
 companion's head ; 
 If 'twas thine to lodge the marble in the centre 
 
 of the ring, 
 Or with well-directed pebble make the sitting hen 
 
 take wing : 
 
 Then do tnou — each fair May morning, when the; 
 
 blue lake is as glass, 
 And the gossamers are twinkling star-like in the 
 
 beaded grass ; 
 When the mountain-bee is sipping fragrance from 
 
 the bluebell's lip,
 
 CHARADES. 197 
 
 And the bathing-woman tells you, Now's your time 
 to take a dip : 
 
 When along the misty valleys field-ward winds 
 
 the lowing herd, 
 And the early worm is being dropped on by the 
 
 early bird ; 
 And Aurora hangs her jewels from the bending 
 
 rose's cup, 
 And the myriad voice of Nature calls thee to 
 
 my second up: — 
 
 Hie thee to the breezy common, where the mel- 
 ancholy goose 
 
 Stalks, and the astonished donkey finds that he 
 is really loose ; 
 
 There amid green fern and furze-bush shalt thou 
 soon my whole behold,
 
 198 CHARADES. 
 
 Rising 'bull-eyed and majestic' — as Olympus' queen 
 of old : 
 
 Kneel, — at a respectful distance, — as they kneeled 
 
 to her, and try 
 With judicious hand to put a ball into that ball-less 
 
 eye : 
 Till a stiffness seize thy elbows, and the general 
 
 public wake — 
 Then return, and, clear of conscience, walk into 
 
 thy well-earned steak.
 
 III. 
 
 C*RE yet "knowledge for the million" 
 
 Came out "neatly bound in boards"; 
 When like Care upon a pillion 
 
 Matrons rode behind their lords: 
 Rarely, save to hear the Rector, 
 
 Forth did younger ladies roam ; 
 Making pies, and brewing nectar 
 
 From the gooseberry-trees at home. 
 
 They'd not dreamed of Pau orVevay; 
 
 Ne'er should into blossom burst 
 At the ball of at the levee ; 
 
 Never come, in fact, my first'. 
 Nor illumine cards by dozens 
 
 With some labyrinthine text,
 
 200 CHARADES. 
 
 Nor work smoking-caps for cousins 
 Who were pounding at my next. 
 
 Now have skirts, and minds, grown ampler ; 
 
 Now not all they seek to do 
 Is create upon a sampler 
 
 Beasts which Buffon never knew : 
 But their venturous liiuslins rustle 
 
 O'er the cragstone and the snow, 
 Or at home their biceps muscle 
 
 Grows by practising the bow. 
 
 Worthy they those dames who, fable 
 
 Says, rode " palfreys " to the war 
 With some giant Thane, whose " sable 
 
 Destrier caracoled " before ; 
 Smiled, as — springing from the war-horse 
 
 As men spring in modern ' cirques ' — 
 He plunged, ponderous as a four-horse 
 
 Coach, among the vanished Turks : —
 
 CHARADES. 201 
 
 In the good times when the jester 
 
 Asked the monarch how he was, 
 And the landlady addrest her 
 
 Guests as ' gossip ' or as ' coz ' ; 
 When the Templar said, " Gramercy," 
 
 Or, "'Twas shrewdly thrust, i' fegs," 
 To Sir Halbert or Sir Percy 
 
 As they knocked him off his legs : 
 
 And, by way of mild reminders 
 
 That he needed coin, the Knight 
 Day by day extracted grinders 
 
 From the howling Israelite : 
 And my whole in merry Sherwood 
 
 Sent, with preterhuman luck, 
 Missiles — not of steel but firwood— » 
 
 Thro' the two-mile-distant buck.
 
 IV. 
 
 "C'VENING threw soberer hue 
 Over the blue sky, and the few 
 Poplars that grew just in the view 
 Of the hall of Sir Hugo de Wynkle : 
 " Answer me true," pleaded Sir Hugh, 
 (Striving some hard-hearted maiden to woo,) 
 "What shall I do, Lady, for you? 
 'Twill be done, ere your eye may twinkle. 
 Shall I borrow the wand of a Moorish enchanter, 
 And bid a decanter contain the Levant, or 
 The brass from the face of a Mormonite ranter? 
 Shall I go for the mule of the Spanish Infantar — 
 (That r, for the sake of the line, we must grant 
 
 her,)— 
 And race with the foul fiend, and beat in a cantei,
 
 CHARADES. 203 
 
 Like that first of equestrians Tam o' Shanter ? 
 I talk not mere banter — say not that I can't, or 
 By this my first — (a Virginia planter 
 Sold it me to kill rats)— I will die instanter." 
 The Lady bended her ivoiy neck, and 
 Whispered mournfully, " Go for — my second:' 
 She said, and the red from Sir Hugh's cheek 
 
 fled, 
 And " Nay," did he say, as he stalked away 
 
 The fiercest of injured men : 
 "Twice have I humbled my haughty soul, 
 And on bended knee have I pressed my 
 whole — 
 But I never will press it again ! "
 
 V. 
 
 r~\N pinnacled St. Mary's 
 
 Lingers the setting sun; 
 Into the streets the blackguards 
 
 Are skulking one by one : 
 Butcher and Boots and Bargeman 
 
 Lay pipe and pewter down ; 
 And with wild shout come tumbling out 
 
 To join the Town and Gown. 
 
 And now the undergraduates 
 Come forth by twos and threes, 
 
 From the broad tower of Trinity, 
 From the green gate of Caius: 
 
 The wily bargeman marks them, 
 And swears to do his worst ;
 
 CHARADES. 205 
 
 To turn to impotence their strength, 
 And their beauty to my first. 
 
 But before Corpus gateway 
 
 My second first arose, 
 When Barnacles the Freshman 
 
 Was pinned upon the nose : 
 Pinned on the nose by Boxer, 
 
 Who brought a hobnailed herd 
 From Barnwell, where he kept a van, 
 Being indeed a dogsmeat man, 
 Vendor of terriers, blue or tan, 
 
 And dealer in my third. 
 
 'Twere long to tell how Boxer 
 Was 'countered' on the cheek, 
 
 And knocked into the middle 
 Of the ensuing week:
 
 206 CHARADES. 
 
 How Barnacles the Freshman 
 
 Was asked his name and college; 
 
 And how he did the fatal facts 
 Reluctantly acknowledge 
 
 He called upon the Proctor 
 
 Next day at half-past ten ; 
 Men whispered that the Freshman cut 
 
 A different figure then : — 
 That the brass forsook his forehead, 
 
 The iron fled his soul, 
 As with blanched lip and visage wan 
 Before the stony-hearted Don 
 
 He kneeled upon my whole.
 
 VI. 
 
 QIKES, housebreaker, of Houndsditcb, 
 
 Habitually swore ; 
 But so surpassingly profane 
 
 He never was before, 
 As on a night in winter, 
 
 When — softly as he stole 
 In the dim light from stair to stair, 
 Noiseless as boys who in her lair 
 Seek to surprise a fat old hare — 
 He barked his shinbone, unaware 
 
 Encountering my whole. 
 
 As pours the Anio plainward, 
 
 When rains have swollen the dykes, 
 
 So, with such noise, poured down my first 
 Stirred by the shins of Sikes.
 
 208 CHARADES. 
 
 The Butler Bibulus heard it ; 
 
 And straightway ceased to snore, 
 And sat up, like an egg on end, 
 
 While men might count a score : 
 Then spake he to Tigerius, 
 
 A Buttons bold was he : 
 u Buttons, I think there's thieves about ; 
 Just strike a light and tumble out; 
 If you can't find one go without, 
 
 And see what you may see." 
 
 But now was all the household, 
 
 Almost, 1 * upon its legs, 
 Each treading carefully about 
 
 As if they trod on eggs. 
 With robe far-streaming issued 
 
 Paterfamilias forth ; 
 And close behind him, — stout and true 
 
 And tender as the North, —
 
 CHARADES. 209 
 
 Came Mrs. P., supporting 
 
 On her broad arm her fourth. 
 
 Betsy the nurse, who never 
 
 From largest beetle ran, 
 And — conscious p'raps of pleasing caps — 
 
 The housemaids, formed the van: 
 And Bibulus the butler, 
 
 His calm brows slightly arched; 
 (No mortal wight had ere that night 
 
 Seen him with shirt unstarched ;) 
 And Bob the shockhaired knife-boy, 
 
 Wielding two Sheffield blades, 
 And James Plush of the sinewy legs, 
 
 The love of lady's maids: 
 And charwoman and chaplain 
 
 Stood mingled in a mass, 
 
 And "Things," thought he of Houndsditch, 
 
 " Is come to a pretty pass." 
 14.
 
 210 CHARADES. 
 
 Be\oncl all things a baby 
 
 Is to the schoolgirl dear : 
 Next to herself the nursemaid loves 
 
 Her dashing grenadier; 
 Only with life the sailor 
 
 Parts from the British flag; 
 While one hope lingers, the cracksman's fingers 
 
 Drop not his hard-earned swag. 
 
 But, as hares do my second 
 
 Thro' green Calabria's copses, 
 As females vanish at the sight 
 
 Of short-horns and of wopses ; 
 So, dropping forks and teaspoons, 
 
 The pride of Houndsditch fled, 
 Dumbfoundered by the hue and cry 
 
 He'd raised up overhead.
 
 CHARADES. 211 
 
 They gave him — did the judges — 
 
 As much as was his due. 
 And, Saxon, shouldst thou e'er be led 
 
 To deem this tale untrue ; 
 Then — any night in winter, 
 
 When the cold north wind blows, 
 And bairns are told to keep out cold 
 
 By tallowing the nose : 
 When round the fire the elders 
 
 Are gathered in a bunch, 
 And the girls are doing crochet, 
 
 And the boys are reading Punch: — 
 
 « 
 
 Go thou and look in Leech's book ; 
 
 There haply shalt thou spy 
 A stout man on a staircase stand, 
 With aspect anything but bland, 
 And rub his right shin with his hand, 
 
 To witness if I lie.
 
 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 A RT thou beautiful, O my daughter, as the 
 
 budding rose of April ? 
 Are all thy motions music, and is poetry throned 
 
 in thine eye ? 
 Then hearken unto me • and I will make the bud 
 * a fair flower, 
 
 I will plant it upon the bank of Elegance, and 
 
 water it with the water of Cologne ; 
 And in the season it shall " come out,'* yea bloom, 
 
 the pride of the parterre; 
 Ladies shall marvel at its beauty, and a Lord shall 
 
 pluck it at the last.
 
 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 2 IX 
 
 OF PROPRIETY. 
 
 Study first Propriety: for she is indeed the Pole* 
 star 
 
 Which shall guide the artless maiden through the 
 mazes of Vanity Fair ; 
 
 Nay, she is the golden chain which holdeth to- 
 gether Society ; 
 
 The lamp by whose light young Psyche shall ap- 
 proach unblamed her Eros. 
 
 Verily Truth is as Eve, which was ashamed being 
 naked ; 
 
 Wherefore doth Propriety dress her with the fair 
 foliage of artifice : 
 
 And when she is drest, behold ! she knoweth not 
 herself again. —
 
 214 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 I walked in the Forest; and above me stood 
 the Yew, 
 
 Stood like a slumbering giant, shrouded in im- 
 penetrable shade; 
 
 Then I pass'd into the citizen's garden, and marked 
 a tree clipt into shape, 
 
 (The giant's locks had been shorn by the Dalilah- 
 shears of Decorum ;) 
 
 And I said, " Surely nature is goodly ; but how 
 
 much goodlier is Art ! " 
 I heard the wild notes of the lark floating far 
 
 over the blue sky, 
 
 And my foolish heart went after him, and, lo ! 
 I blessed him as he rose ; 
 
 Foolish ! for far better is the trained boudon 
 btrifinch, 
 
 Which pipeth the semblance of a tune, and me- 
 chanically draweth up water :
 
 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 215 
 
 And the reinless steed of the desert, though his 
 neck be clothed with thunder, 
 
 Must yield to him that danceth and 'moveth in 
 the circles' at Astley's. 
 
 For verily, O my daughter, the world is a mas- 
 querade, 
 
 And God made thee one thing that thou mightest 
 make thyself another : 
 
 A maiden's heart is as champagne, ever aspiring 
 and struggling upwards, 
 
 And it needed that its motions be checked by the 
 silvered cork of Propriety : 
 
 He that can afford the price, his be the precious 
 
 treasure, 
 Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble 
 if it tasteth of the cork.
 
 216 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Choose judiciously thy friends ; for to discard them 
 
 is undesirable, 
 Yet it is better to drop thy friends, O my daugh- 
 ter, than to drop thy 'HV. 
 Dost thou know a wise woman ? yea, wiser than 
 
 the children of light ? 
 Hath she a position ? and a title ? and are her 
 
 parties in the Morning Post ? 
 If thou dost, cleave unto her, and give up unto 
 
 her thy body and mind ; 
 Think with her ideas, and distribute thy smiles 
 
 at her bidding : 
 So shalt thou become like unto her ; and thy 
 
 manners shall be " formed,"
 
 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 217 
 
 And thy name shall be a Sesame, at which the 
 
 doors of the great shall fly open : 
 Thou shalt know every Peer, his arms, and the 
 
 date of his creation, 
 His pedigree and their intermarriages, and cousins 
 
 to the sixth remove : 
 Thou shalt kiss the hand of Royalty, and lo! in 
 
 next morning's papers. 
 Side by side with rumors of wars, and stories of 
 
 shipwrecks and sieges, 
 Shall appear thy name, and the minutiae of thy 
 
 head-dress and petticoat, 
 For an enraptured public to muse upon over their 
 
 matutinal muffin.
 
 2i8 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 OF READING. 
 
 Read not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare.. 
 
 for he wrote of common life: 
 Nor Scott, for his romances, though fascinating, 
 
 are yet intelligible: 
 Nor Thackeray, for he is a Hogarth, a photographer 
 
 who flattereth not : 
 Nor Kingsley, for he shall teach thee that thou 
 
 shouldest not dream, but do. 
 Read incessantly thy Burke ; that Burke who, 
 
 nobler than he of old, 
 Treateth of the Peer and Peeress, the truly Sub- 
 lime and Beautiful : 
 Likewise study the " creations" of " the Prince of 
 
 modern Romance"; 
 Sigh over Leonard the Martyr, and smile on 
 
 Pelham the puppy :
 
 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 2l g 
 
 Learn how " love is the dram-drinking of ex« 
 
 istence "; 
 And how we " invoke, in the Gadara of our still 
 
 closets, 
 The beautiful ghost of the Ideal, with the simple 
 
 wand of the pen." 
 Listen how Maltravers and the orphan "forgot 
 
 all but love," 
 And how Devereux's family chaplain "made and 
 
 unmade kings " : 
 How Eugene Aram, though a thief, a liar, and 
 
 a murderer, 
 Yet, being intellectual, was among the noblest of 
 
 mankind. 
 So shalt thou live in a world peopled with 
 
 heroes and master-spirits ; 
 And if thou canst not realize the Ideal, thou shall 
 
 at least idealize the Real.
 
 CARMEN S^CULARE. 
 
 MDCCCLIII. 
 
 " Quicqidd agunt homines, nostri est farrago libelli." 
 
 A CRIS hyems jam venit : hyems genus omne 
 perosa 
 Fcemineum, et scnibus glacies non asqua rotundis : 
 Apparent rari stantes in tramite glauco ; 
 Radit iter, cogitque nives, sua tela, juventus. 
 Trux matrona ruit, multos dominata per annos, 
 Digna indigna minans, glomeratque volumina cru- 
 
 rum ; 
 Parte senex alia, prserepto forte galero, 
 Per plateas bacchatur ; cum chorus omnis agrestum 
 Ridet anhelantem frustra, et jam jamque tenentem 
 Quod petit ; illud agunt venti prensumque re^orbent
 
 CARMEN SMCULARE. 2 2l 
 
 Post, ubi compositus tandem votique potitus 
 Sedit humi; flet crura tuens nive Candida lenta, 
 Et vestem laceram, et venturas conjugis iras : 
 Itque domum tendens dupliccs ad sidera palmas, 
 Corda miser, desiderio perfixa galeri. 
 
 At juvenis (sed cruda viro viridisque juventus) 
 Quasrit bacciferas, tunica pendente,* tabernas : 
 Pervigil ecce Baco furva depromit ab area 
 Splendidius quiddam solito, plenumque saporem 
 Laudat, et antiqua jurat de stirpe Jamaica?. 
 O fumose puer, nimium ne crede Baconi : 
 Manillas vocat ; hoc praetexit nomine caules. 
 
 Te vero, cui forte dedit maturior astas 
 Scire potestates herbarum, te quoque quanti 
 
 * tunica pendente: h. e. ' suspensa e brachio.' Quod 
 procuratoribus illis- valde, ut ferunt, displicebat. Dicunt 
 vero morem a barbaris tractum, urbem Bosporiam in fl. 
 Iside'habitantibus. Baccifems tabernas : id q. nostri vocant 
 " tobacco-shops."
 
 222 CARMEN SMCULARE. 
 
 Circumstent casus, paucis (adverte) doccbo. 
 Pracipue, seu raptat amor te simplicis herbae.* 
 Seu potius tenui Musam meditaris avena, 
 Procuratorem fugito, nam ferreus idem est. 
 Vita semiboves catulos, redimicula vita 
 Candida : de ccelo descendit aofe era. 
 Nube vapcris item conspergere praeter euntes 
 Jura vetant, notumque furens quid femina possit 
 Odit enim dulces succos anus, odit odorem ; 
 Odit Lethrci diffusa volumina fumi. 
 
 Mille modis reliqui fugiuntque feruntque laborem. 
 Hie vir ad Eleos, pedibus talaria gestans, 
 Fervidus it latices, et nil acquirit eundo : f 
 Ille petit virides (sed non e gramine) mensas, 
 
 * herbce — avenO. Duo quasi genera artis poeta vidclut 
 distinguere. ' Weed,' ' pipe,' recte Scaliger. 
 
 \ nil acquirit eundo. Aqua enim aspera, et radentibus 
 parum habilis. Immersum hie aliquem et vix aut ne vix 
 quidem extractuni refert schol.
 
 CARMEN SMCULARE. 22 ^ 
 
 Pollicitus meliora patri, tormentaque* iiexus 
 Per labyrintheos plus quam mortalia tentat, 
 Acre tuens, loculisque pilas immittit et aufert. 
 
 Sunt alii, quos frigus aquas, tenuisque phaselus 
 Captat, et aequali surgentes ordine remi. 
 His eclura cutis, nee ligno rasile tergum ; 
 Par saxi sinus : esca boves cum robore Bassi. 
 Tollunt in numerum fera brachia, vique fenmtur 
 Per fluctus : sonuere vise clamore secundo : 
 At picea de puppe fremens immane bubulcus 
 Invocat exitium cunctis, et verbera rapto 
 Stipite defessis onerat graviora caballis. 
 
 Nil humoris egent alii. Labor arva vagari. 
 Flectere ludus equos, et amantem deviaf currum, 
 
 * tormenta p. q. mortalia. Eleganter, ut <soIet, Peile. 
 
 unearthly cannons.' (Cf. Ainsw. D. s. v.) Perrecondita 
 
 autem est qusestio de lusubus illorurn tem.iGrum, neque in 
 
 Smithii Diet. Class, satis elucidata. Consaie omnino Kentf. 
 
 de Bill. Loculis, bene vertas ' pockets.' 
 
 \ amantem devia. Quorsum hoc, quaerunt Interpretes. 
 Suspicor equidem respiciendos, vv. 19-23, de procuratoribus.
 
 2.-4 CARMEN SsECULARE. 
 
 Nosco purpureas vestes, clangentia nosco 
 Signa tubae; et caudas inter virgulta caninas. 
 Stat venator equus, tactoque ferocior armo 
 Surgit in arrectum, vix auditurus habenam ; 
 Et jam prata fuga superat, jam flumina saltu. 
 Aspicias alios ab iniqua sepe rotari 
 In caput, ut scrobibus qua? sint fastigia quaerant : 
 Eque rubis aut amne pigro trahere humida crura, 
 Et fcedam faciem, defloccatumque galerum. 
 
 Sanctius his animal, cui quadravisse rotundum* 
 Musae suadet amor, Camique ardentis imago, 
 Inspicat calamos contracta fronte malignos, 
 Perque Mathematicum pelagus, loca turbida, an- 
 
 helat. 
 Circum dirus " Hymers," nee pondus inutile, 
 
 " Lignum," 
 
 * quad*. fvf>". — Cami ard. imo. Quadrando enira rotundum 
 (Ang. ' squaring the circle') Camum accendere, juvenes inge« 
 nui semper nitebantur. Fecisse vero quemquam non liquet.
 
 CARMEN SsECULARE. 225 
 
 * Salmoque," et pueris tu detestate, " Colenso," 
 rlorribiles visu formae ; livente notatas 
 Ungue omnes insignes aure canina.* 
 Fervet opus ; tactitum pertentant gaudia pectus 
 Tutorum ; " pulchrumque mori," dixere, " legendo." 
 Nee vero juvenes facere omnes omnia possunr. 
 Atque unum memini ipse, deus qui dictus amicis, 
 Et multum referens de rixatoref secundo, 
 Nocte terens ulnas ac scrinia, solus in alto 
 Degebat tripode ; arcta viro vilisque supellex ; 
 Et sic torva tuens, pedibus per mutua nexis, 
 Sedit, lacte mero mentem mulcente tenellam. 
 Et fors ad summos tandem venisset honores ; 
 Sed rapicli juvenes, queis gi'atior usus equorum, 
 Subveniunt, siccoque vetant inolescere libro. 
 Improbus hos Lector pueros, mentumque virili 
 
 * rure can'uiCi. Ilerum audi Peile, 'dogs-eared.* 
 
 \ rixatore. non male Heins. cum Aldina, 'wrangler.'
 
 226 CARMEN S.ECULARE. 
 
 Laevius, et durae gravat inclementia Mortis :* 
 Suetos (agmen iners), alien;! vivere quadr;i,t 
 Et lituo vexare viros, calcare caballos. 
 Tales mane novo saepe admiramur euntes 
 Torquibus rn rigidis et pelle Libystidis ursae , 
 Admiramur opust tunicae, vestemque|| sororem 
 Iridis, et crurum non enarrabile tegmen. 
 Hos inter comites implebat pocula sorbis 
 In felix puer, et sese recreabat ad ignem, 
 " Evoe, §Basse," fremens : dum velox praeterit aetas , 
 
 * Mortis. Verbura generali fere sensu dictum inveni. 
 Suspicor autem poetam virum quendam innuisse, qui currus, 
 caballos, id genus omne, raercede non minima locaret. 
 
 f attend quadrd. Sunt qui de pileis Academicis accipiunt. 
 Rapidiores enim suas fere amittebant. Sed judicet sibi lector. 
 
 \ opus tunica:, ' shirt-work.' Alii opes. Perpcram. 
 
 | veslem. Nota proprietatem verbi. 'Vest,' enim apud 
 
 politos id. q. vulgo ' waistcoat' appellatur. Quod et feininae 
 
 usurpabant, ut hodiernae, fibula revinctum, teste Virgilio : 
 
 ' crines nodantur in aurum, 
 Aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem.' 
 
 § Basse, eft. Interpretes illud Iloratianum, " Bassum 
 Threicia vincat amystide." Non perspexere viri docti al- 
 teram hie alludi, Anglicanpe originis, neque ilium, ut per- 
 hibent, a potn aversum.
 
 CARMEN S.ECULARE. 227 
 
 Venit summa dies ; et Junior Optimus exit. 
 
 Saucius at juvenis nota intra tecta refugit, 
 Horrendum ridens, lucemque miserrimus odit: 
 Informem famulus laqueum pendentiaque ossa 
 Mane videt, refugitque feri meminisse magistri. 
 
 Di nobis meliora ! Modum re servat in omn" 
 Qui sapit : haud ilium semper recubare sub umbra, 
 Haud semper madidis juvat impallescere chartis. 
 Nos numerus sumus, et libros consumere nati ; 
 Sed requies sit rebus \ amant alterna Cameriae. 
 Nocte dieque legas, cum tertius advenit annus: 
 Turn libros cape; claude fores, et prandia defer 
 Quartus venit : ini,* rebus jam rite paratis, 
 Exultans, et coge gradum conferre magistros. 
 
 His animadversis, fugies immane Barathrum 
 His, operose puer, si qua fata aspera rump a, 
 Tu rixator eris. Saltern non crebra revises 
 
 * Int. Sic nostri, ' Go in and win.' rebus, ' sub cts.'
 
 228 CARMEN SAlCULARE. 
 
 Ad stabulum,* et tota moerens carpere juventa , 
 Classe nee amisso nil profectura dolentem 
 Tradet ludibriis te plena leporis HiRUDO.f 
 
 * crebra r. a. stabulum. " Turn up year after year at 
 the old diggings, (*". e. the Senate House,) and be plucked," 
 etc. Peile. Quo quid jejunius? 
 
 f Classe — Hirudo. Obscurior allusio ad picturam quan- 
 dam (in collectione viri, vel plusquam viri, Punchii reposi. 
 tarn,) in qua juvenis custodem stationis mcerens alloqui 
 tur.
 
 DIRGE. 
 
 *' Dr. Birch's young friends will reassemble to-day, Feb. ist. " 
 
 T T 7HITE is the wold, and ghostly 
 
 The dank and leafless trees; 
 And 'M's and 'N's are mostly 
 
 Pronounced like 'B's and 'D's: 
 'Neath bleak sheds, ice-encrusted, 
 
 The sheep stands, mute and stolid : 
 And ducks find out, disgusted, 
 
 That all the ponds are solid. 
 
 Many a stout steer's work is 
 
 (At least in this world) finished; 
 
 The gross amount of turkeys 
 Is sensibly diminished :
 
 230 DIRGE. 
 
 The holly-boughs are faded, 
 The painted crackers gone ; 
 
 Would I could write, as Gray did, 
 An Elegy thereon ! 
 
 For Christmas-time is ended : 
 
 Now is "our youth" regaining 
 Those sweet spots where are " blended 
 
 Home-comforts and school-training." 
 Now they're, I dare say, venting 
 
 Their grief in transient sobs, 
 And I am " left lamenting " 
 
 At home, with Mrs. Dobbs. 
 
 O Posthumus ! " Fugaces 
 
 Labuntur anni " still ; 
 Time robs us of our graces, 
 
 Evade him as we will.
 
 DIRGE. 231 
 
 We were the twins of Siam : 
 Now she thinks me a bore, 
 
 And I admit that / am 
 Inclined at times to snore. 
 
 1 was her own Nathaniel ; 
 
 With her I took s\\v~t counsel, 
 Brought seed-cake for her spaniel, 
 
 And kept her bird in groundsel: 
 We've murmured, " How delightful 
 
 A landscape seen by night, is," — 
 
 And woke next day in frightful 
 
 Pain from acute bronchitis. 
 * * * * 
 
 But ah ! for them, whose laughter 
 We heard last New Year's Day,— 
 
 (They recked not of Hereafter, 
 Or what the Doctor 'd say,) —
 
 232 DIRGE. 
 
 For those small forms that fluttered 
 Moth-like around the plate, 
 
 When Sally brought the buttered 
 Buns in at half-past eight ! 
 
 Ah for the altered visage 
 
 Of her, our tiny Belle, 
 Whom my boy Gus (at his age !) 
 
 Said was a " deuced swell ! " 
 P'raps now Miss Tickler's tocsin 
 
 Has caged that pert young linnet ; 
 Old Birch perhaps is boxing 
 
 My Gus's ears this minute. 
 • 
 
 Yet, though your young ears be as 
 Red as mamma's geraniums, 
 
 Yet grieve not ! Thus ideas 
 Pass into infant craniums.
 
 DIRGE. 
 
 Use not complaints unseemly; 
 
 Tho' you must work like bricks; 
 And it is cold, extremely, 
 
 Rising at half-past six. 
 
 Soon sunnier will the day grow, 
 
 And the east wind not blow so ; 
 Soon, as of yore, L' Allegro 
 
 Succeed II Penseroso : 
 Stick to your Magnall's Questions 
 
 And Long Division sums ; 
 And come — with good digestions — 
 
 Home when next Christmas comes. 
 
 233
 
 THE CUCKOO.* 
 
 TJ*ORTH I wandered, years ago, 
 
 When the summer sun was low, 
 And the forest all aglow 
 
 With his light : 
 'Twas a day of cloudless skies ; 
 
 When the trout declines to rise, 
 And in vain the angler sighs 
 
 For a bite. 
 
 And the cuckoo piped away — 
 How I love his simple lay, 
 
 O'er the cowslip-fields of May 
 As it floats ! 
 
 * From Scribner's Monthly for January, 1873.
 
 THE CUCKOO. 235 
 
 May was over, and of course, 
 
 He was just a little hoarse, 
 And appeared to me to force 
 
 Certain notes. 
 
 Since mid-April, men averred, 
 
 People's pulses, inly stirred 
 By the music of the bird, 
 
 Had upleapt : 
 It was now the close of June ; 
 
 I reflected that he'd soon 
 Sing entirely out of tune, 
 
 And I wept. 
 
 Looking up, I marked a maid 
 
 Float balloon-like o'er the glade 9 
 Casting evermore a staid 
 
 Glance around :
 
 236 THE CUCKOO. 
 
 And I thrilled with sweet surprise 
 When she dropt, all virgin-wise, 
 
 First a courtesy, then her eyes 
 To the ground. 
 
 Others' eyes have p'raps to you 
 
 Seemed ethereally blue. 
 But you see you never knew 
 
 Kate Adair. 
 What a mien she had ! Her hat 
 
 With what dignity it sat 
 On the mystery, or mat, 
 
 Of her hair ! 
 
 We were neighbors. I had doff'd 
 Cap and hat to her so oft 
 
 That the latter had grown soft 
 In the brim :
 
 THE CUCKOO. 237 
 
 I had gone out of my way 
 
 To bid e'en her sire good-day, 
 Though I wasn't, I may say, 
 
 Fond of him : — 
 
 And we met, in streets and shops, 
 
 But by rill or mazy copse, * 
 
 Where your speech abruptly stops 
 
 And you get 
 Incoherent ere you know it — 
 
 Where, though nothing of a poet, 
 You intuitively go it — 
 
 Never yet. 
 
 So my love had ne'er been told ! 
 
 Till the day when forth I strolled 
 And the jolly cuckoo trolled 
 
 Ort his song,
 
 233 THE CUCKOO. 
 
 Naught had passed betwixt us two 
 
 Save a bashful ' How d'ye do' 
 And a blushing ' How do you 
 
 Get along ? ' 
 
 But that eve — how swift it passed ! — 
 
 AVords that burned flew from me fast 
 For the first time and the last 
 
 In my life : 
 Low and lower drooped her chin, 
 
 As I murmured how I'd skin 
 Or behead myself to win 
 
 Such a wife. 
 
 There we stood. The squirrel leaped 
 Overhead : the throstle peeped 
 
 Through the leaves, all sunshine-steeped, 
 Of the lime.
 
 THE CUCKOO. 239 
 
 There we stood alone : a third 
 
 Would have made the thing absurd : 
 
 And she scarcely spoke a word 
 All the time. 
 
 ******* 
 
 We've a little Kate, a dear ! 
 
 She's attained her thirteenth year, 
 And declares she feels a queer 
 
 Sort of shock — 
 Not unpleasant though at all — 
 
 When she hears a cuckoo call : 
 So I've purchased her a small 
 
 Cuckoo-clock. 
 
 THE END.
 
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