The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood

by Thomas Hood

SONNET.

By ev'ry sweet tradition of true hearts,

Graven by Time, in love with his own lore;

By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts,

Wherein Love died to be alive the more;

Yea, by the sad impression on the shore,

Left by the drown'd Leander, to endear

That coast for ever, where the billow's roar

Moaneth for pity in the Poet's ear;

By Hero's faith, and the foreboding tear

That quench'd her brand's last twinkle in its fall;

By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear

That sigh'd around her flight; I swear by all,

The world shall find such pattern in my act,

As if Love's great examples still were lack'd.

[SONNET.]

TO MY WIFE.

The curse of Adam, the old curse of all,

Though I inherit in this feverish life

Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife,

And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall,

Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall

I taste, through thee, my Eve, my sweet wife.

Then what was Man's lost Paradise!—how rife

Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall!

Such as our own pure passion still might frame,

Of this fair earth, and its delightful bow'rs,

If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came

To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flow'rs;—

But oh! as many and such tears are ours,

As only should be shed for guilt and shame!

[SONNET.]

ON RECEIVING A GIFT.

Look how the golden ocean shines above

Its pebbly stones, and magnifies their girth;

So does the bright and blessed light of Love

Its own things glorify, and raise their worth.

As weeds seem flowers beneath the flattering brine,

And stones like gems, and gems as gems indeed,

Ev'n so our tokens shine; nay, they outshine

Pebbles and pearls, and gems and coral weed;

For where be ocean waves but half so clear,

So calmly constant, and so kindly warm,

As Love's most mild and glowing atmosphere,

That hath no dregs to be upturn'd by storm?

Thus, sweet, thy gracious gifts are gifts of price,

And more than gold to doting Avarice.

[SONNET.]

Love, dearest Lady, such as I would speak,

Lives not within the humor of the eye;—

Not being but an outward phantasy,

That skims the surface of a tinted cheek,—

Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,

As if the rose made summer,—and so lie

Amongst the perishable things that die,

Unlike the love which I would give and seek:

Whose health is of no hue—to feel decay

With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime.

Love is its own great loveliness alway,

And takes new lustre from the touch of time;

Its bough owns no December and no May,

But bears its blossom into Winter's clime.

[THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM.][9]

I.

'Twas in the prime of summer time,

An evening calm and cool,

And four-and-twenty happy boys

Came bounding out of school:

There were some that ran and some that leapt,

Like troutlets in a pool.

II.

Away they sped with gamesome minds,

And souls untouch'd by sin;

To a level mead they came, and there

They drave the wickets in:

Pleasantly shone the setting sun

Over the town of Lynn.

III.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,

And shouted as they ran,—

Turning to mirth all things of earth,

As only boyhood can;

But the Usher sat remote from all,

A melancholy man!

IV.

His hat was off, his vest apart,

To catch heaven's blessed breeze;

For a burning thought was in his brow,

And his bosom ill at ease:

So he lean'd his head on his hands, and read

The book between his knees!

V.

Leaf after leaf he turn'd it o'er,

Nor ever glanced aside,

For the peace of his soul he read that book

In the golden eventide:

Much study had made him very lean,

And pale, and leaden-eyed.

VI.

At last he shut the ponderous tome,

With a fast and fervent grasp

He strain'd the dusky covers close,

And fix'd the brazen hasp:

"Oh, God! could I so close my mind,

And clasp it with a clasp!"

VII.

Then leaping on his feet upright,

Some moody turns he took,—

Now up the mead, then down the mead,

And past a shady nook,—

And, lo! he saw a little boy

That pored upon a book!

VIII.

"My gentle lad, what is't you read—

Romance or fairy fable?

Of is it some historic page,

Or kings and crowns unstable?"

The young boy gave an upward glance,—

"It is 'The Death of Abel.'"

IX.

The Usher took six hasty strides,

As smit with sudden pain,—

Six hasty strides beyond the place,

Then slowly back again;

And down he sat beside the lad,

And talk'd with him of Cain;

X.

And, long since then, of bloody men,

Whose deeds tradition saves;

Of lonely folk cut off unseen,

And hid in sudden graves;

Of horrid stabs, in groves forlorn,

And murders done in caves;

XI.

And how the sprites of injured men

Shriek upward from the sod,—

Ay, how the ghostly hand will point

To show the burial clod;

And unknown facts of guilty acts

Are seen in dreams from God!

XII.

He told how murderers walk the earth

Beneath the curse of Cain,—

With crimson clouds before their eyes,

And flames about their brain:

For blood has left upon their souls

Its everlasting stain!

XIII.

"And well," quoth he, "I know, for truth,

Their pangs must be extreme,—

Woe, woe, unutterable woe,—

Who spill life's sacred stream!

For why? Methought, last night, I wrought

A murder, in a dream!"

XIV.

"One that had never done me wrong—

A feeble man, and old;

I led him to a lonely field,—

The moon shone clear and cold:

Now here, said I, this man shall die,

And I will have his gold!"

XV.

"Two sudden blows with a ragged stick,

And one with a heavy stone,

One hurried gash with a hasty knife,—

And then the deed was done:

There was nothing lying at my foot

But lifeless flesh and bone!"

XVI.

"Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone,

That could not do me ill;

And yet I feared him all the more,

For lying there so still:

There was a manhood in his look,

That murder could not kill!"

XVII.

"And, lo! the universal air

Seemed lit with ghastly flame;—

Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes

Were looking down in blame:

I took the dead man by his hand,

And called upon his name!"

XVIII.

"Oh, God! it made me quake to see

Such sense within the slain!

But when I touched the lifeless clay,

The blood gush'd out amain!

For every clot, a burning spot

Was scorching in my brain!"

XIX.

"My head was like an ardent coal,

My heart as solid ice:

My wretched, wretched soul, I knew,

Was at the Devil's price:

A dozen times I groan'd the dead

Had never groan'd but twice!"

XX.

And now, from forth the frowning sky,

From the Heaven's topmost height,

I heard a voice—the awful voice

Of the blood-avenging Sprite:—

"Thou guilty man! take up thy dead

And hide it from my sight!"

XXI.

"I took the dreary body up,

And cast it in a stream,—

A sluggish water, black as ink,

The depth was so extreme:—

My gentle Boy, remember this

Is nothing but a dream!"

XXII.

"Down went the corse with a hollow plunge,

And vanish'd in the pool;

Anon I cleansed my bloody hands,

And wash'd my forehead cool,

And sat among the urchins young,

That evening in the school."

XXIII.

"Oh, Heaven! to think of their white souls,

And mine so black and grim!

I could not share in childish prayer,

Nor join in Evening Hymn:

Like a Devil of the Pit I seem'd,

'Mid holy Cherubim!"

XXIV.

"And peace went with them, one and all,

And each calm pillow spread:

But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain

That lighted me to bed;

And drew my midnight curtains round,

With fingers bloody red!"

XXV.

"All night I lay in agony,

In anguish dark and deep;

My fever'd eyes I dared not close,

But stared aghast at Sleep:

For Sin had render'd unto her

The keys of Hell to keep!"

XXVI.

"All night I lay in agony,

From weary chime to chime,

With one besetting horrid hint,

That rack'd me all the time;

A mighty yearning, like the first

Fierce impulse unto crime!"

XXVII.

"One stern tyrannic thought, that made

All other thoughts its slave;

Stronger and stronger every pulse

Did that temptation crave,—

Still urging me to go and see

The Dead Man in his grave!"

XXVIII.

"Heavily I rose up, as soon

As light was in the sky,

And sought the black accursed pool

With a wild misgiving eye;

And I saw the Dead in the river bed,

For the faithless stream was dry."

XXIX.

"Merrily rose the lark, and shook

The dew-drop from its wing;

But I never mark'd its morning flight,

I never heard it sing:

For I was stooping once again

Under the horrid thing."

XXX.

"With breathless speed, like a soul in chase,

I took him up and ran;—

There was no time to dig a grave

Before the day began:

In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves,

I hid the murder'd man!"

XXXI.

"And all that day I read in school,

But my thought was other where;

As soon as the mid-day task was done,

In secret I was there:

And a mighty wind had swept the leaves,

And still the corse was bare!"

XXXII.

"Then down I cast me on my face,

And first began to weep,

For I knew my secret then was one

That earth refused to keep:

Or land or sea, though he should be

Ten thousand fathoms deep."

XXXIII.

"So wills the fierce avenging Sprite,

Till blood for blood atones!

Ay, though he's buried in a cave,

And trodden down with stones,

And years have rotted off his flesh,—

The world shall see his bones!"

XXXIV.

"Oh, God! that horrid, horrid dream

Besets me now awake!

Again again, with dizzy brain,

The human life I take;

And my red right hand grows raging hot,

Like Cranmer's at the stake."

XXXV.

"And still no peace for the restless clay

Will wave or mould allow;

The horrid thing pursues my soul,—

It stands before me now!"

The fearful Boy look'd up, and saw

Huge drops upon his brow.

XXXVI.

That very night, while gentle sleep

The urchin eyelids kiss'd,

Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,

Through the cold and heavy mist;

And Eugene Aram walk'd between.

With gyves upon his wrist.

[SONNET.]

FOR THE 14TH OF FEBRUARY.

No popular respect will I omit

To do thee honor on this happy day,

When every loyal lover tasks his wit

His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay,

And to his mistress dear his hopes convey.

Rather thou knowest I would still outrun

All calendars with Love's,—whose date alway

Thy bright eyes govern better than the Sun,—

For with thy favor was my life begun;

And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles,

And not by summers, for I thrive on none

But those thy cheerful countenance complies:

Oh! if it be to choose and call thee mine,

Love, thou art every day my Valentine.

[THE DEATH-BED.][10]

We watch'd her breathing through the night.

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,

So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers

To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,

Our fears our hopes belied—

We thought her dying when she slept,

And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,

And chill with early showers,

Her quiet eyelids closed—she had

Another morn than ours.

[ANTICIPATION.][11]

"Coming events cast their shadow before."

I had a vision in the summer light—

Sorrow was in it, and my inward sight

Ached with sad images. The touch of tears

Gushed down my cheeks:—the figured woes of years

Casting their shadows across sunny hours.

Oh, there was nothing sorrowful in flowers

Wooing the glances of an April sun,

Or apple blossoms opening one by one

Their crimson bosoms—or the twittered words

And warbled sentences of merry birds;—

Or the small glitter and the humming wings

Of golden flies and many colored things—

Oh, these were nothing sad—nor to see Her,

Sitting beneath the comfortable stir

Of early leaves—casting the playful grace

Of moving shadows in so fair a face—

Nor in her brow serene—nor in the love

Of her mild eyes drinking the light above

With a long thirst—nor in her gentle smile—

Nor in her hand that shone blood-red the while

She raised it in the sun. All these were dear

To heart and eye—but an invisible fear

Shook in the trees and chilled upon the air,

And if one spot was laughing brightest—there

My soul most sank and darkened in despair!—

As if the shadows of a curtained room

Haunted me in the sun—as if the bloom

Of early flow'rets had no sweets for me,

Nor apple blossoms any blush to see—

As if the hour had brought too bright a day—

And little birds were all too gay!—too gay!—

As if the beauty of that Lovely One

Were all a fable.—Full before the sun

Stood Death and cast a shadow long before,

Like a dark pall enshrouding her all o'er,

Till eyes, and lips, and smiles, were all no more!

[TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTHER.]

Love thy mother, little one!

Kiss and clasp her neck again,—

Hereafter she may have a son

Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain.

Love thy mother, little one!

Gaze upon her living eyes,

And mirror back her love for thee,—

Hereafter thou mayst shudder sighs

To meet them when they cannot see.

Gaze upon her living eyes!

Press her lips the while they glow

With love that they have often told,—

Hereafter thou mayst press in woe,

And kiss them till thine own are cold.

Press her lips the while they glow!

Oh, revere her raven hair!

Although it be not silver-gray;

Too early Death, led on by Care,

May snatch save one dear lock away.

Oh, revere her raven hair!

Pray for her at eve and morn,

That Heaven may long the stroke defer,—

For thou mayst live the hour forlorn

When thou wilt ask to die with her.

Pray for her at eve and morn!

[STANZAS][12]

(FROM TYLNEY HALL.)

Still glides the gentle streamlet on,

With shifting current new and strange;

The water that was here is gone,

But those green shadows do not change.

Serene, or ruffled by the storm,

On present waves as on the past,

The mirrored grave retains its form,

The self-same trees their semblance cast.

The hue each fleeting globule wears,

That drop bequeaths it to the next,

One picture still the surface bears,

To illustrate the murmured text.

So, love, however time may flow,

Fresh hours pursuing those that flee

One constant image still shall show

My tide of life is true to thee!

[SONNET TO OCEAN.][13]

Shall I rebuke thee, Ocean, my old love,

That once, in rage, with the wild winds at strife,

Thou darest menace my unit of a life,

Sending my clay below, my soul above,

Whilst roar'd thy waves, like lions when they rove

By night, and bound upon their prey by stealth!

Yet didst thou n'er restore my fainting health?—

Didst thou ne'er murmur gently like the dove?

Nay, dost thou not against my own dear shore

Full break, last link between my land and me?—

My absent friends talk in thy very roar,

In thy waves' beat their kindly pulse I see,

And, if I must not see my England more,

Next to her soil, my grave be found in thee!

[TO ——]

COMPOSED AT ROTTERDAM.

I.

I gaze upon a city,—

A city new and strange,—

Down many a watery vista

My fancy takes a range;

From side to side I saunter,

And wonder where I am;

And can you be in England,

And I at Rotterdam!

II.

Before me lie dark waters

In broad canals and deep,

Whereon the silver moonbeams

Sleep, restless in their sleep;

A sort of vulgar Venice

Reminds me where I am;

Yes, yes, you are in England,

And I'm at Rotterdam.

III.

Tall houses with quaint gables,

Where frequent windows shine,

And quays that lead to bridges,

And trees in formal line,

And masts of spicy vessels

From western Surinam,

All tell me you're in England,

But I'm in Rotterdam.

IV.

Those sailors, how outlandish

The face and form of each!

They deal in foreign gestures,

And use a foreign speech;

A tongue not learn'd near Isis,

Or studied by the Cam,

Declares that you're in England,

And I'm at Rotterdam.

V.

And now across a market

My doubtful way I trace,

Where stands a solemn statue,

The Genius of the place;

And to the great Erasmus

I offer my salaam;

Who tells me you're in England,

But I'm at Rotterdam.

VI.

The coffee-room is open—

I mingle in its crowd,—

The dominos are noisy—

The hookahs raise a cloud;

The flavor, none of Fearon's,

That mingles with my dram,

Reminds me you're in England,

And I'm at Rotterdam.

VII.

Then here it goes, a bumper—

The toast it shall be mine,

In schiedam, or in sherry,

Tokay, or hock of Rhine;

It well deserves the brightest,

Where sunbeam ever swam—

"The Girl I love in England"

I drink at Rotterdam!

[LINES]

ON SEEING MY WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN SLEEPING

IN THE SAME CHAMBER.[14]

And has the earth lost its so spacious round,

The sky its blue circumference above,

That in this little chamber there is found

Both earth and heaven—my universe of love!

All that my God can give me, or remove,

Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death.

Sweet that in this small compass I behove

To live their living and to breathe their breath!

Almost I wish that, with one common sigh,

We might resign all mundane care and strife,

And seek together that transcendent sky,

Where Father, Mother, Children, Husband, Wife,

Together pant in everlasting life!

[STANZAS.][15]

Is there a bitter pang for love removed,

O God! The dead love doth not cost more tears

Than the alive, the loving, the beloved—

Not yet, not yet beyond all hopes and fears!

Would I were laid

Under the shade

Of the calm grave, and the long grass of years,—

That love might die with sorrow:—I am sorrow;

And she, that loves me tenderest, doth press

Most poison from my cruel lips, and borrow

Only new anguish from the old caress;

Oh, this world's grief

Hath no relief

In being wrung from a great happiness.

Would I had never filled thine eyes with love,

For love is only tears: would I had never

Breathed such a curse-like blessing as we prove;

Now, if "Farewell" could bless thee, I would sever!

Would I were laid

Under the shade

Of the cold tomb, and the long grass forever!

[ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATHENÆUM.

MY DEAR SIR—The following Ode was written anticipating the tone of some strictures on my writings by the gentleman to whom it is addressed. I have not seen his book; but I know by hearsay that some of my verses are characterized as "profaneness and ribaldry"—citing, in proof, the description of a certain sow, from whose jaw a cabbage sprout

"Protruded, as the dove so staunch

For peace supports an olive branch."

If the printed works of my Censor had not prepared me for any misapplication of types, I should have been surprised by this misapprehension of one of the commonest emblems. In some cases the dove unquestionably stands for the Divine Spirit; but the same bird is also a lay representative of the peace of this world, and, as such, has figured time out of mind in allegorical pictures. The sense in which it was used by me is plain from the context; at least, it would be plain to any one but a fisher for faults, predisposed to carp at some things, to dab at others, and to flounder in all. But I am possibly in error. It is the female swine, perhaps, that is profaned in the eyes of the Oriental tourist. Men find strange ways of marking their intolerance; and the spirit is certainly strong enough, in Mr. W.'s works, to set up a creature as sacred, in sheer opposition to the Mussulman, with whom she is a beast of abomination. It would only be going the whole sow.—I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, THOS. HOOD.

"Close, close your eyes with holy dread,

And weave a circle round him thrice,

For he on honey-dew hath fed

And drunk the milk of Paradise."—COLERIDGE.

"It's very hard them kind of men

Won't let a body be."—Old Ballad.

A wanderer, Wilson, from my native land,

Remote, O Rae, from godliness and thee,

Where rolls between us the eternal sea,

Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand,—

Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall;

Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call;

Across the wavy waste between us stretch'd,

A friendly missive warns me of a stricture,

Wherein my likeness you have darkly etch'd,

And though I have not seen the shadow sketch'd,

Thus I remark prophetic on the picture.

I guess the features:—in a line to paint

Their moral ugliness, I'm not a saint.

Not one of those self-constituted saints,

Quacks—not physicians—in the cure of souls,

Censors who sniff out mortal taints,

And call the devil over his own coals—

Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God,

Who write down judgments with a pen hard-nibb'd;

Ushers of Beelzebub's Black Rod,

Commending sinners, not to ice thick-ribb'd,

But endless flames, to scorch them up like flax—

Yet sure of heav'n themselves, as if they'd cribb'd

Th' impression of St. Peter's keys in wax!

Of such a character no single trace

Exists, I know, in my fictitious face;

There wants a certain cast about the eye;

A certain lifting of the nose's tip;

A certain curling of the nether lip,

In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky;

In brief it is an aspect deleterious,

A face decidedly not serious,

A face profane, that would not do at all

To make a face at Exeter Hall,—

That Hall where bigots rant, and cant, and pray,

And laud each other face to face,

Till ev'ry farthing-candle ray

Conceives itself a great gas-light of grace.

Well!—be the graceless lineaments confest!

I do enjoy this bounteous beauteous earth;

And dote upon a jest

"Within the limits of becoming mirth";—

No solemn sanctimonious face I pull,

Nor think I'm pious when I'm only bilious—

Nor study in my sanctum supercilious

To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull.

I pray for grace—repent each sinful act—

Peruse, but underneath the rose, my Bible;

And love my neighbor far too well, in fact,

To call and twit him with a godly tract

That's turn'd by application to a libel.

My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven,

All creeds I view with toleration thorough,

And have a horror of regarding heaven

As anybody's rotten borough.

What else? no part I take in party fray,

With troops from Billingsgate's slang-whanging tartars,

I fear no Pope—and let great Ernest play

At Fox and Goose with Foxs' Martyrs!

I own I laugh at over-righteous men,

I own I shake my sides at ranters,

And treat sham-Abr'am saints with wicked banters,

I even own, that there are times—but then

It's when I've got my wine—I say d——canters!

I've no ambition to enact the spy

On fellow souls, a Spiritual Pry—

'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses,

Who thrust them into matters none of theirs;

And tho' no delicacy discomposes

Your Saint, yet I consider faith and pray'rs

Amongst the privatest of men's affairs.

I do not hash the Gospel in my books,

And thus upon the public mind intrude it,

As if I thought, like Otaheitan cooks,

No food was fit to eat till I had chewed it.

On Bible stilts I don't affect to stalk;

Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk,—

For man may pious texts repeat,

And yet religion have no inward seat;

'Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth,

A man has got his belly full of meat

Because he talks with victuals in his mouth!

Mere verbiage,—it is not worth a carrot!

Why, Socrates—or Plato—where's the odds?—

Once taught a jay to supplicate the Gods,

And made a Polly-theist of a Parrot!

A mere professor, spite of all his cant, is

Not a whit better than a Mantis,—

An insect, of what clime I can't determine,

That lifts its paws most parson-like, and thence,

By simple savages—thro' sheer pretence—

Is reckon'd quite a saint amongst the vermin.

But where's the reverence, or where the nous,

To ride on one's religion thro' the lobby,

Whether a stalking-horse or hobby,

To show its pious paces to "the house"?

I honestly confess that I would hinder

The Scottish member's legislative rigs,

That spiritual Pinder,

Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs,

That must be lash'd by law, wherever found,

And driv'n to church, as to the parish pound.

I do confess, without reserve or wheedle,

I view that grovelling idea as one

Worthy some parish clerk's ambitious son,

A charity-boy, who longs to be a beadle.

On such a vital topic sure 'tis odd

How much a man can differ from his neighbor:

One wishes worship freely giv'n to God,

Another wants to make it statute-labor—

The broad distinction in a line to draw,

As means to lead us to the skies above,

You say—Sir Andrew and his love of law,

And I—the Saviour with his law of love.

Spontaneously to God should tend the soul,

Like the magnetic needle to the Pole;

But what were that intrinsic virtue worth,

Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge,

Fresh from St. Andrew's College,

Should nail the conscious needle to the north?

I do confess that I abhor and shrink

From schemes, with a religious willy-nilly,

That frown upon St. Giles's sins, but blink

The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly—

My soul revolts at such a bare hypocrisy,

And will not, dare not, fancy in accord

The Lord of Hosts with an Exclusive Lord

Of this world's aristocracy.

It will not own a notion so unholy,

As thinking that the rich by easy trips

May go to heav'n, whereas the poor and lowly

Must work their passage, as they do in ships.

One place there is—beneath the burial sod,

Where all mankind are equalized by death;

Another place there is—the Fane of God,

Where all are equal, who draw living breath;—

Juggle who will elsewhere with his own soul,

Playing the Judas with a temporal dole—

He who can come beneath that awful cope,

In the dread presence of a Maker just,

Who metes to ev'ry pinch of human dust

One even measure of immortal hope—

He who can stand within that holy door,

With soul unbow'd by that pure spirit-level,

And frame unequal laws for rich and poor,—

Might sit for Hell and represent the Devil!

Such are the solemn sentiments, O Rae,

In your last Journey-Work, perchance you ravage,

Seeming, but in more courtly terms, to say

I'm but a heedless, creedless, godless savage;

A very Guy, deserving fire and faggots,—

A Scoffer, always on the grin,

And sadly given to the mortal sin

Of liking Maw-worms less than merry maggots!

The humble records of my life to search,

I have not herded with mere pagan beasts;

But sometimes I have "sat at good men's feasts,"

And I have been "where bells have knoll'd to church."

Dear bells! how sweet the sounds of village bells

When on the undulating air they swim!

Now loud as welcomes! faint, now, as farewells!

And trembling all about the breezy dells

As flutter'd by the wings of Cherubim.

Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn;

And lost to sight th' ecstatic lark above

Sings, like a soul beatified, of love,—

With, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon;—

O Pagans, Heathens, Infidels and Doubters!

If such sweet sounds can't woo you to religion,

Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters?

A man may cry "Church! Church!" at ev'ry word,

With no more piety than other people—

A daw's not reckon'd a religious bird

Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple.

The Temple is a good, a holy place,

But quacking only gives it an ill savor;

While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace,

And bring religion's self into disfavor!

Behold yon servitor of God and Mammon,

Who, binding up his Bible with his Ledger,

Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon,

A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger,

Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak,

Against the wicked remnant of the week,

A saving bet against his sinful bias—

"Rogue that I am," he whispers to himself,

"I lie—I cheat—do anything for pelf,

But who on earth can say I am not pious?"

In proof how over-righteousness re-acts,

Accept an anecdote well based on facts.

One Sunday morning—(at the day don't fret)—

In riding with a friend to Ponder's End

Outside the stage, we happened to commend

A certain mansion that we saw To Let.

"Ay," cried our coachman, with our talk to grapple

"You're right! no house along the road comes nigh it!

'Twas built by the same man as built yon chapel

And master wanted once to buy it,—

But t'other driv the bargain much too hard—

He ax'd sure-ly a sum purdigious!

But being so particular religious,

Why, that, you see, put master on his guard!"

Church is "a little heav'n below,

I have been there and still would go,"—

Yet I am none of those, who think it odd

A man can pray unbidden from the cassock,

And, passing by the customary hassock,

Kneel down remote upon the simple sod,

And sue in formâ pauperis to God.

As for the rest,—intolerant to none,

Whatever shape the pious rite may bear,

Ev'n the poor Pagan's homage to the Sun

I would not harshly scorn, lest even there

I spurn'd some elements of Christian pray'r—

An aim, tho' erring, at a "world ayont,"

Acknowledgment of good—of man's futility,

A sense of need, and weakness, and indeed

That very thing so many Christians want—

Humility.

Such, unto Papists, Jews or turban'd Turks,

Such is my spirit—(I don't mean my wraith!)

Such, may it please you, is my humble faith;

I know, full well, you do not like my works!

I have not sought, 'tis true, the Holy Land,

As full of texts as Cuddie Headrigg's mother,

The Bible in one hand,

And my own commonplace-book in the other—

But you have been to Palestine—alas!

Some minds improve by travel, others, rather,

Resemble copper wire, or brass,

Which gets the narrower by going farther!

Worthless are all such Pilgrimages—very!

If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive

The human heats and rancor to revive

That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury.

A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on,

To see a Christian creature graze at Sion,

Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full,

Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke,

At crippled Papistry to butt and poke,

Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull

Hunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak!

Why leave a serious, moral, pious home,

Scotland, renown'd for sanctity of old,

Far distant Catholics to rate and scold

For—doing as the Romans do at Rome?

With such a bristling spirit wherefore quit

The Land of Cakes for any land of wafers,

About the graceless images to flit,

And buzz and chafe importunate as chafers,

Longing to carve the carvers to Scotch collops?—

People who hold such absolute opinions

Should stay at home, in Protestant dominions,

Not travel like male Mrs. Trollopes.

Gifted with noble tendency to climb,

Yet weak at the same time,

Faith is a kind of parasitic plant,

That grasps the nearest stem with tendril-rings;

And as the climate and the soil may grant,

So is the sort of tree to which it clings.

Consider then, before, like Hurlothrumbo

You aim your club at any creed on earth,

That, by the simple accident of birth,

You might have been High Priest to Mumbo Jumbo.

For me—thro' heathen ignorance perchance,

Not having knelt in Palestine,—I feel

None of that griffinish excess of zeal,

Some travellers would blaze with here in France.

Dolls I can see in virgin-like array,

Nor for a scuffle with the idols hanker

Like crazy Quixote at the puppet's play,

If their "offence be rank," should mine be rancor?

Mild light, and by degrees, should be the plan

To cure the dark and erring mind;

But who would rush at a benighted man,

And give him two black eyes for being blind?

Suppose the tender but luxuriant hop

Around a canker'd stem should twine,

What Kentish boor would tear away the prop

So roughly as to wound, nay, kill the bine?

The images, 'tis true, are strangely dress'd,

With gauds and toys extremely out of season;

The carving nothing of the very best,

The whole repugnant to the eye of reason,

Shocking to Taste, and to Fine Arts a treason—

Yet ne'er o'erlook in bigotry of sect

One truly Catholic, one common form,

At which uncheck'd

All Christian hearts may kindle or keep warm.

Say, was it to my spirit's gain or loss,

One bright and balmy morning, as I went

From Liege's lovely environs to Ghent,

If hard by the wayside I found a cross,

That made me breathe a pray'r upon the spot—

While Nature of herself, as if to trace

The emblem's use, had trail'd around its base

The blue significant Forget-me-not?

Methought, the claims of Charity to urge

More forcibly, along with Faith and Hope,

The pious choice had pitched upon the verge

Of a delicious slope

Giving the eye much variegated scope;—

"Look round," it whisper'd, "on that prospect rare,

Those vales so verdant, and those hills so blue;

Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh, and fair,

But"—(how the simple legend pierced me thro'!)

"PRIEZ POUR LES MALHEUREUX."

With sweet kind natures, as in honey'd cells,

Religion lives, and feels herself at home;

But only on a formal visit dwells

Where wasps instead of bees have formed the comb.

Shun pride, O Rae!—whatever sort beside

You take in lieu, shun spiritual pride!

A pride there is of rank—a pride of birth,

A pride of learning, and a pride of purse,

A London pride—in short, there be on earth

A host of prides, some better and some worse;

But of all prides, since Lucifer's attaint,

The proudest swells a self-elected Saint.

To picture that cold pride so harsh and hard,

Fancy a peacock in a poultry yard.

Behold him in conceited circles sail,

Strutting and dancing, and now planted stiff,

In all his pomp of pageantry, as if

He felt "the eyes of Europe" on his tail!

As for the humble breed retain'd by man,

He scorns the whole domestic clan—

He bows, he bridles,

He wheels, he sidles,

At last, with stately dodgings, in a corner

He pens a simple russet hen, to scorn her

Full in the blaze of his resplendent fan!

"Look here," he cries (to give him words),

"Thou feather'd clay—thou scum of birds!"

Flirting the rustling plumage in her eyes,—

"Look here, thou vile predestined sinner,

Doom'd to be roasted for a dinner,

Behold those lovely variegated dyes!

These are the rainbow colors of the skies,

That Heav'n has shed upon me con amore—

A Bird of Paradise?—a pretty story!

I am that Saintly Fowl, thou paltry chick!

Look at my crown of glory!

Thou dingy, dirty, drabbled, draggled jill!"

And off goes Partlet, wriggling from a kick,

With bleeding scalp laid open by his bill!

That little simile exactly paints

How sinners are despised by saints.

By saints!—the Hypocrites that ope heav'n's door

Obsequious to the sinful man of riches—

But put the wicked, naked, barelegg'd poor

In parish stocks instead of breeches.

The Saints!—the Bigots that in public spout,

Spread phosphorus of zeal on scraps of fustian,

And go like walking "Lucifers" about

Mere living bundles of combustion.

The Saints!—the aping Fanatics that talk

All cant and rant, and rhapsodies high-flown—

That bid you baulk

A Sunday walk,

And shun God's work as you should shun your own.

The Saints!—the Formalists, the extra pious,

Who think the mortal husk can save the soul,

By trundling with a mere mechanic bias,

To church, just like a lignum-vitæ bowl!

The Saints!—the Pharisees, whose beadle stands

Beside a stern coercive kirk.

A piece of human mason-work,

Calling all sermons contrabands,

In that great Temple that's not made with hands!

Thrice blessed, rather, is the man, with whom

The gracious prodigality of nature,

The balm, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom,

The bounteous providence in ev'ry feature,

Recall the good Creator to his creature,

Making all earth a fane, all heav'n its dome!

To his tuned spirit the wild heather-bells

Ring Sabbath knells;

The jubilate of the soaring lark

Is chant of clerk;

For choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet;

The sod's a cushion for his pious want;

And, consecrated by the heav'n within it,

The sky-blue pool, a font.

Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar;

An organ breathes in every grove;

And the full heart's a Psalter,

Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love!

Sufficiently by stern necessitarians

Poor Nature, with her face begrimed by dust,

Is stoked, coked, smoked, and almost choked; but must

Religion have its own Utilitarians,

Labell'd with evangelical phylacteries,

To make the road to heav'n a railway trust,

And churches—that's the naked fact—mere factories?

Oh! simply open wide the Temple door,

And let the solemn, swelling, organ greet,

With Voluntaries meet,

The willing advent of the rich and poor!

And while to God the loud Hosannas soar,

With rich vibrations from the vocal throng—

From quiet shades that to the woods belong,

And brooks with music of their own,

Voices may come to swell the choral song

With notes of praise they learned in musings lone.

How strange it is while on all vital questions,

That occupy the House and public mind,

We always meet with some humane suggestions

Of gentle measures of a healing kind,

Instead of harsh severity and vigor,

The Saint alone his preference retains

For bills of penalties and pains,

And marks his narrow code with legal rigor!

Why shun, as worthless of affiliation,

What men of all political persuasion

Extol—and even use upon occasion—

That Christian principle, Conciliation?

But possibly the men who make such fuss

With Sunday pippins and old Trots infirm,

Attach some other meaning to the term,

As thus:

One market morning, in my usual rambles,

Passing along Whitechapel's ancient shambles,

Where meat was hung in many a joint and quarter,

I had to halt awhile, like other folks,

To let a killing butcher coax

A score of lambs and fatted sheep to slaughter.

A sturdy man he looke'd to fell an ox,

Bull-fronted, ruddy, with a formal streak

Of well-greased hair down either cheek,

As if he dee-dash-dee'd some other flocks

Beside those woolly-headed stubborn blocks

That stood before him, in vexatious huddle—

Poor little lambs, with bleating wethers group'd,

While, now and then, a thirsty creature stoop'd

And meekly snuff'd, but did not taste the puddle.

Fierce bark'd the dog, and many a blow was dealt,

That loin, and chump, and scrag and saddle felt,

Yet still, that fatal step they all declined it,—

And shunn'd the tainted door as if they smelt

Onions, mint sauce, and lemon juice behind it.

At last there came a pause of brutal force,

The cur was silent, for his jaws were full

Of tangled locks of tarry wool,

The man had whoop'd and holloed till dead hoarse.

The time was ripe for mild expostulation,

And thus it stammer'd from a stander-by—

"Zounds!—my good fellow,—it quite makes me—why,

It really—my dear fellow—do just try Conciliation!"

Stringing his nerves like flint,

The sturdy butcher seized upon the hint,—

At least he seized upon the foremost wether,—

And hugg'd and lugg'd and tugg'd him neck and crop

Just nolens volens thro' the open shop—

If tails come off he didn't care a feather,—

Then walking to the door and smiling grim,

He rubb'd his forehead and his sleeve together—

"There!—I have conciliated him!"

Again—good-humoredly to end our quarrel—

(Good humor should prevail!)

I'll fit you with a tale,

Whereto is tied a moral.

Once on a time a certain English lass

Was seized with symptoms of such deep decline,

Cough, hectic flushes, ev'ry evil sign,

That, as their wont is at such desperate pass,

The Doctors gave her over—to an ass.

Accordingly, the grisly Shade to bilk,

Each morn the patient quaff'd a frothy bowl

Of asinine new milk,

Robbing a shaggy suckling of a foal

Which got proportionably spare and skinny—

Meanwhile the neighbors cried "Poor Mary Ann!

She can't get over it! she never can!"

When lo! to prove each prophet was a ninny

The one that died was the poor wet-nurse Jenny.

To aggravate the case,

There were but two grown donkeys in the place;

And most unluckily for Eve's sick daughter,

The other long ear'd creature was a male,

Who never in his life had given a pail

Of milk, or even chalk and water.

No matter: at the usual hour of eight

Down trots a donkey to the wicket-gate,

With Mister Simon Gubbins on his back,—

"Your sarvant, Miss",—a worry spring-like day,—

Bad time for hasses tho'! good lack! good lack!

Jenny be dead, Miss,—but I've brought ye Jack,

He doesn't give no milk—but he can bray.

So runs the story,

And, in vain self-glory,

Some Saints would sneer at Gubbins for his blindness—

But what the better are their pious saws

To ailing souls, than dry hee-haws,

Without the milk of human kindness?

[TO MY DAUGHTER][16]

ON HER BIRTHDAY.

Dear Fanny! nine long years ago,

While yet the morning sun was low,

And rosy with the Eastern glow

The landscape smiled—

Whilst lowed the newly-waken'd herds—

Sweet as the early song of birds,

I heard those first, delightful words,

"Thou hast a Child!"

Along with that uprising dew

Tears glisten'd in my eyes, though few,

To hail a dawning quite as new

To me, as Time:

It was not sorrow—not annoy—

But like a happy maid, though coy,

With grief-like welcome even Joy

Forestalls its prime.

So mayst thou live, dear! many years,

In all the bliss that life endears,

Not without smiles, nor yet from tears

Too strictly kept:

When first thy infant littleness

I folded in my fond caress,

The greatest proof of happiness

Was this—I wept.

[MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG.][17]

A GOLDEN LEGEND.

"What is here?

Gold! yellow, glittering, precious gold?"

Timon of Athens.

HER PEDIGREE.

I.

To trace the Kilmansegg pedigree

To the very root of the family tree

Were a task as rash as ridiculous:

Through antediluvian mists as thick

As London fog such a line to pick

Were enough, in truth, to puzzle old Nick,

Not to name Sir Harris Nicolas.

II.

It wouldn't require much verbal strain

To trace the Kill-man, perchance, to Cain;

But, waiving all such digressions,

Suffice it, according to family lore,

A Patriarch Kilmansegg lived of yore,

Who was famed for his great possessions.

III.

Tradition said he feather'd his nest

Through an Agricultural Interest

In the Golden Age of Farming;

When golden eggs were laid by the geese,

And Colehian sheep wore a golden fleece,

And golden pippins—the sterling kind

Of Hesperus—now so hard to find—

Made Horticulture quite charming!

IV.

A Lord of Land, on his own estate,

He lived at a very lively rate,

But his income would bear carousing;

Such acres he had of pastures and heath,

With herbage so rich from the ore beneath,

The very ewe's and lambkin's teeth

Were turn'd into gold by browsing.

V.

He gave, without any extra thrift,

A flock of sheep for a birthday gift

To each son of his loins, or daughter:

And his debts—if debts he had—at will

He liquidated by giving each bill

A dip in Pactolian water.

VI.

'Twas said that even his pigs of lead,

By crossing with some by Midas bred,

Made a perfect mine of his piggery.

And as for cattle, one yearling bull

Was worth all Smithfield-market full

Of the Golden Bulls of Pope Gregory.

VII.

The high-bred horses within his stud,

Like human creatures of birth and blood,

Had their Golden Cups and flagons:

And as for the common husbandry nags,

Their noses were tied in money-bags,

When they stopp'd with the carts and wagons.

VIII.

Moreover, he had a Golden Ass,

Sometimes at stall, and sometimes at grass,

That was worth his own weight in money

And a golden hive, on a Golden Bank,

Where golden bees, by alchemical prank,

Gather'd gold instead of honey.

IX.

Gold! and gold! and gold without end!

He had gold to lay by, and gold to spend,

Gold to give, and gold to lend,

And reversions of gold in futuro.

In wealth the family revell'd and roll'd,

Himself and wife and sons so bold;—

And his daughters sang to their harps of gold

"O bella eta del'oro!"

X.

Such was the tale of the Kilmansegg Kin,

In golden text on a vellum skin,

Though certain people would wink and grin,

And declare the whole story a parable—

That the Ancestor rich was one Jacob Ghrimes,

Who held a long lease, in prosperous times,

Of acres, pasture and arable.

XI.

That as money makes money, his golden bees

Were the Five per Cents, or which you please,

When his cash was more than plenty—

That the golden cups were racing affairs;

And his daughters, who sang Italian airs,

Had their golden harps of Clementi.

XII.

That the Golden Ass, or Golden Bull,

Was English John, with his pockets full,

Then at war by land and water:

While beef, and mutton, and other meat,

Were almost as dear as money to eat,

And farmers reaped Golden Harvests of wheat

At the Lord knows what per quarter!

XIII.

What different dooms our birthdays bring!

For instance, one little manikin thing

Survives to wear many a wrinkle;

While Death forbids another to wake,

And a son that it took nine moons to make

Expires without even a twinkle!

XIV.

Into this world we come like ships,

Launch'd from the docks, and stocks, and slips,

For fortune fair or fatal;

And one little craft is cast away

In its very first trip in Babbicome Bay,

While another rides safe at Port Natal.

XV.

What different lots our stars accord!

This babe to be hail'd and woo'd as a Lord!

And that to be shun'd like a leper!

One, to the world's wine, honey, and corn,

Another, like Colchester native, born

To its vinegar, only, and pepper.

XVI.

One is litter'd under a roof

Neither wind nor water proof—

That's the prose of Love in a Cottage—

A puny, naked, shivering wretch,

The whole of whose birthright would not fetch,

Though Robins himself drew up the sketch,

The bid of "a mess of pottage."

XVII.

Born of Fortunatus's kin

Another comes tenderly ushered in

To a prospect all bright and burnish'd:

No tenant he for life's back slums—

He comes to the world, as a gentleman comes

To a lodging ready furnish'd.

XVIII.

And the other sex—the tender—the fair—

What wide reverses of fate are there!

Whilst Margaret, charm'd by the Bulbul rare,

In a garden of Gul reposes—

Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street

Till—think of that, who find life so sweet!—

She hates the smell of roses!

XIX.

Not so with the infant Kilmansegg!

She was not born to steal or beg,

Or gather cresses in ditches;

To plait the straw, or bind the shoe,

Or sit all day to hem and sew,

As females must—and not a few—

To fill their insides with stitches!

XX.

She was not doom'd, for bread to eat,

To be put to her hands as well as her feet—

To carry home linen from mangles—

Or heavy-hearted, and weary-limb'd,

To dance on a rope in a jacket trimm'd

With as many blows as spangles.

XXI.

She was one of those who by Fortune's boon

Are born, as they say, with a silver spoon

In her mouth, not a wooden ladle:

To speak according to poet's wont,

Plutus as sponsor stood at her font,

And Midas rocked the cradle.

XXII.

At her first début she found her head

On a pillow of down, in a downy bed,

With a damask canopy over.

For although, by the vulgar popular saw,

All mothers are said to be "in the straw,"

Some children are born in clover.

XXIII.

Her very first draught of vital air,

It was not the common chameleon fare

Of plebeian lungs and noses,—

No—her earliest sniff

Of this world was a whiff

Of the genuine Otto of Roses!

XXIV.

When she saw the light, it was no mere ray

Of that light so common—so everyday—

That the sun each morning launches—

But six wax tapers dazzled her eyes,

From a thing—a gooseberry bush for size—

With a golden stem and branches.

XXV.

She was born exactly at half-past two,

As witness'd a timepiece in ormolu

That stood on a marble table—

Showing at once the time of day,

And a team of Gildings running away

As fast as they were able,

With a golden God, with a golden Star,

And a golden Spear, in a golden Car,

According to Grecian fable.

XXVI.

Like other babes, at her birth she cried;

Which made a sensation far and wide—

Ay, for twenty miles around her:

For though to the ear 'twas nothing more

Than an infant's squall, it was really the roar

Of a Fifty-thousand Pounder!

It shook the next heir

In his library chair,

And made him cry, "Confound her!"

XXVII.

Of signs and omens there was no dearth,

Any more than at Owen Glendower's birth,

Or the advent of other great people

Two bullocks dropp'd dead,

As if knock'd on the head,

And barrels of stout

And ale ran about,

And the village bells such a peal rang out,

That they crack'd the village steeple.

XXVIII.

In no time at all, like mushroom spawn,

Tables sprang up all over the lawn;

Not furnish'd scantly or shabbily,

But on scale as vast

As that huge repast,

With its loads and cargoes

Of drink and botargoes,

At the Birth of the Babe in Rabelais.

XXIX.

Hundreds of men were turn'd into beasts,

Like the guests at Circe's horrible feasts,

By the magic of ale and cider:

And each country lass, and each country lad

Began to caper and dance like mad,

And ev'n some old ones appear'd to have had

A bite from the Naples Spider.

XXX.

Then as night came on,

It had scared King John

Who considered such signs not risible,

To have seen the maroons,

And the whirling moons,

And the serpents of flame,

And wheels of the same,

That according to some were "whizzable."

XXXI.

Oh, happy Hope of the Kilmanseggs!

Thrice happy in head, and body, and legs,

That her parents had such full pockets!

For had she been born of Want and Thrift,

For care and nursing all adrift,

It's ten to one she had had to make shift

With rickets instead of rockets!

XXXII.

And how was the precious baby drest?

In a robe of the East, with lace of the West,

Like one of Croesus's issue—

Her best bibs were made

Of rich gold brocade,

And the others of silver tissue.

XXXIII.

And when the baby inclined to nap,

She was lull'd on a Gros de Naples lap,

By a nurse in a modish Paris cap,

Of notions so exalted,

She drank nothing lower than Curaçoa

Maraschino, or pink Noyau,

And on principle never malted.

XXXIV.

From a golden boat, with a golden spoon,

The babe was fed night, morning, and noon;

And altho' the tale seems fabulous,

'Tis said her tops and bottoms were gilt,

Like the oats in that Stable-yard Palace built

For the horse of Heliogabalus.

XXXV.

And when she took to squall and kick—

For pain will wring, and pins will prick,

E'en the wealthiest nabob's daughter—

They gave her no vulgar Dalby or gin,

But a liquor with leaf of gold therein,

Videlicet,—Dantzic Water.

XXXVI.

In short she was born, and bred, and nurst,

And drest in the best from the very first,

To please the genteelest censor—

And then, as soon as strength would allow,

Was vaccinated, as babes are now,

With virus ta'en from the best-bred cow

Of Lord Althorpe's—now Earl Spencer.

HER CHRISTENING.

XXXVII.

Though Shakspeare asks us, "What's in a name?"

(As if cognomens were much the same),

There's really a very great scope in it.

A name?—why, wasn't there Doctor Dodd,

That servant at once of Mammon and God,

Who found four thousand pounds and odd,

A prison—a cart—and a rope in it?

XXXVIII.

A name?—if the party had a voice,

What mortal would be a Bugg by choice?

As a Hogg, a Grubb, or a Chubb rejoice?

Or any such nauseous blazon?

Not to mention many a vulgar name,

That would make a door-plate blush for shame,

If door-plates were not so brazen!

XXXIX.

A name?—it has more than nominal worth,

And belongs to good or bad luck at birth—

As dames of a certain degree know.

In spite of his Page's hat and hose,

His Page's jacket, and buttons in rows,

Bob only sounds like a page in prose

Till turn'd into Rupertino.

XL.

Now to christen the infant Kilmansegg,

For days and days it was quite a plague,

To hunt the list in the Lexicon:

And scores were tried, like coin, by the ring,

Ere names were found just the proper thing

For a minor rich as a Mexican.

XLI.

Then cards were sent, the presence to beg

Of all the kin of Kilmansegg,

White, yellow, and brown relations:

Brothers, Wardens of City Halls,

And Uncles—rich as three Golden Balls

From taking pledges of nations.

XLII.

Nephews, whom Fortune seem'd to bewitch,

Rising in life like rockets—

Nieces, whose dowries knew no hitch—

Aunts, as certain of dying rich

As candles in golden sockets—

Cousins German and Cousins' sons,

All thriving and opulent—some had tons

Of Kentish hops in their pockets!

XLIII.

For money had stuck to the race through life

(As it did to the bushel when cash so rife

Posed Ali Baba's brother's wife)—

And down to the Cousins and Coz-lings,

The fortunate brood of the Kilmanseggs,

As if they had come out of golden eggs,

Were all as wealthy as "Goslings."

XLIV.

It would fill a Court Gazette to name

What East and West End people came

To the rite of Christianity:

The lofty Lord, and the titled Dame,

All di'monds, plumes, and urbanity:

His Lordship the May'r with his golden chain,

And two Gold Sticks, and the Sheriffs twain,

Nine foreign Counts, and other great men

With their orders and stars, to help "M. or N."

To renounce all pomp and vanity.

XLV.

To paint the maternal Kilmansegg

The pen of an Eastern Poet would beg,

And need an elaborate sonnet;

How she sparkled with gems whenever she stirr'd,

And her head niddle-noddled at every word,

And seem'd so happy, a Paradise Bird

Had nidificated upon it.

XLVI.

And Sir Jacob the Father strutted and bow'd,

And smiled to himself, and laugh'd aloud,

To think of his heiress and daughter—

And then in his pockets he made a grope,

And then, in the fulness of joy and hope,

Seem'd washing his hands with invisible soap

In imperceptible water.

XLVII.

He had roll'd in money like pigs in mud.

Till it scem'd to have entered into his blood

By some occult projection:

And his cheeks instead of a healthy hue,

As yellow as any guinea grew,

Making the common phrase seem true,

About a rich complexion.

XLVIII.

And now came the nurse, and during a pause,

Her dead-leaf satin would fitly cause

A very autumnal rustle—

So full of figure, so full of fuss,

As she carried about the babe to buss,

She seem'd to be nothing but bustle.

XLIX.

A wealthy Nabob was Godpapa,

And an Indian Begum was Godmamma,

Whose jewels a Queen might covet—

And the Priest was a Vicar, and Dean withal

Of that Temple we see with a Golden Ball,

And a Golden Cross above it.

L.

The Font was a bowl of American gold,

Won by Raleigh in days of old,

In spite of Spanish bravado;

And the Book of Pray'r was so overrun

With gilt devices, it shone in the sun

Like a copy—a presentation one—

Of Humboldt's "El Dorada."

LI.

Gold! and gold! and nothing but gold!

The same auriferous shine behold

Wherever the eye could settle!

On the walls—the sideboard—the ceiling-sky—

On the gorgeous footmen standing by,

In coats to delight a miner's eye

With seams of the precious metal.

LII.

Gold! and gold! and besides the gold,

The very robe of the infant told

A tale of wealth in every fold,

It lapp'd her like a vapor!

So fine! so thin! the mind at a loss

Could compare it to nothing except a cross

Of cobweb with bank-note paper.

LIII.

Then her pearls—'twas a perfect sight, forsooth,

To see them, like "the dew of her youth,"

In such a plentiful sprinkle.

Meanwhile, the Vicar read through the form,

And gave her another, not overwarm,

That made her little eyes twinkle.

LIV.

Then the babe was cross'd and bless'd amain!

But instead of the Kate, or Ann, or Jane,

Which the humbler female endorses—

Instead of one name, as some people prefix,

Kilmansegg went at the tails of six,

Like a carriage of state with its horses.

LV.

Oh, then the kisses she got and hugs!

The golden mugs and the golden jugs

That lent fresh rays to the midges!

The golden knives, and the golden spoons,

The gems that sparkled like fairy boons,

It was one of the Kilmansegg's own saloons,

But looked like Rundell and Bridge's!

LVI.

Gold! and gold! the new and the old!

The company ate and drank from gold,

They revell'd, they sang, and were merry;

And one of the Gold Sticks rose from his chair,

And toasted "the Lass with the golden hair"

In a bumper of Golden Sherry.

LVII.

Gold! still gold! it rained on the nurse,

Who—unlike Danäe—was none the worse!

There was nothing but guineas glistening!

Fifty were given to Doctor James,

For calling the little Baby names,

And for saying, Amen!

The Clerk had ten,

And that was the end of the Christening.

HER CHILDHOOD.

LVIII.

Our youth! our childhood! that spring of springs!

'Tis surely one of the blessedest things

That nature ever intended!

When the rich are wealthy beyond their wealth,

And the poor are rich in spirits and health,

And all with their lots contented!

LIX.

There's little Phelim, he sings like a thrush,

In the selfsame pair of patchwork plush,

With the selfsame empty pockets,

That tempted his daddy so often to cut

His throat, or jump in the water-butt—

But what cares Phelim? an empty nut

Would sooner bring tears to their sockets.

LX.

Give him a collar without a skirt,

(That's the Irish linen for shirt)

And a slice of bread with a taste of dirt,

(That's Poverty's Irish butter)

And what does he lack to make him blest?

Some oyster-shells, or a sparrow's nest,

A candle-end and a gutter.

LXI.

But to leave the happy Phelim alone,

Gnawing, perchance, a marrowless bone,

For which no dog would quarrel—

Turn we to little Miss Kilmansegg,

Cutting her first little toothy-peg

With a fifty-guinea coral—

A peg upon which

About poor and rich

Reflection might hang a moral.

LXII.

Born in wealth, and wealthily nursed,

Capp'd, papp'd, napp'd, and lapp'd from the first

On the knees of Prodigality,

Her childhood was one eternal round

Of the game of going on Tickler's ground

Picking up gold—in reality.

LXIII.

With extempore carts she never play'd,

Or the odds and ends of a Tinker's Trade,

Or little dirt pies and puddings made,

Like children happy and squalid;

The very puppet she had to pet,

Like a bait for the "Nix my Dolly" set,

Was a Dolly of gold—and solid!

LXIV.

Gold! and gold! 'twas the burden still!

To gain the Heiress's early good-will

There was much corruption and bribery—

The yearly cost of her golden toys

Would have given half London's Charity Boys

And Charity Girls the annual joys

Of a holiday dinner at Highbury.

LXV.

Bon-bons she ate from the gilt cornet;

And gilded queens on St. Bartlemy's day;

Till her fancy was tinged by her presents—

And first a Goldfinch excited her wish,

Then a spherical bowl with its Golden fish,

And then two Golden Pheasants.

LXVI.

Nay, once she squall'd and scream'd like wild—

And it shows how the bias we give to a child

Is a thing most weighty and solemn:—

But whence was wonder or blame to spring

If little Miss K.,—after such a swing—

Made a dust for the flaming gilded thing

On the top of the Fish Street column?

HER EDUCATION.

LXVII.

According to metaphysical creed,

To the earliest books that children read

For much good or much bad they are debtors—

But before with their A B C they start,

There are things in morals, as well as art,

That play a very important part—

"Impressions before the letters."

LXVIII.

Dame Education begins the pile,

Mayhap in the graceful Corinthian style,

But alas for the elevation!

If the Lady's maid or Gossip the Nurse

With a load of rubbish, or something worse,

Have made a rotten foundation.

LXIX.

Even thus with little Miss Kilmansegg,

Before she learnt her E for egg,

Ere her Governess came, or her Masters—

Teachers of quite a different kind

Had "cramm'd" her beforehand, and put her mind

In a go-cart on golden casters.

LXX.

Long before her A B and C,

They had taught her by heart her L. S. D.

And as how she was born a great Heiress;

And as sure as London is built of bricks,

My Lord would ask her the day to fix,

To ride in a fine gilt coach and six,

Like Her Worship the Lady May'ress.

LXXI.

Instead of stories from Edgeworth's page,

The true golden lore for our golden age,

Or lessons from Barbauld and Trimmer,

Teaching the worth of Virtue and Health,

All that she knew was the Virtue of Wealth,

Provided by vulgar nursery stealth

With a Book of Leaf Gold for a primer.

LXXII.

The very metal of merit they told,

And praised her for being as "good as gold"!

Till she grew as a peacock haughty;

Of money they talk'd the whole day round,

And weigh'd desert, like grapes, by the pound,

Till she had an idea from the very sound

That people with nought were naughty.

LXXIII.

They praised—poor children with nothing at all!

Lord! how you twaddle and waddle and squall

Like common-bred geese and ganders!

What sad little bad little figures you make

To the rich Miss K., whose plainest seed-cake

Was stuff'd with corianders!

LXXIV.

They praised her falls, as well as her walk,

Flatterers make cream cheese of chalk,

They praised—how they praised—her very small talk,

As if it fell from the Solon;

Or the girl who at each pretty phrase let drop

A ruby comma, or pearl full-stop,

Or an emerald semi-colon.

LXXV.

They praised her spirit, and now and then

The Nurse brought her own little "nevy" Ben,

To play with the future May'ress,

And when he got raps, and taps, and slaps,

Scratches, and pinches, snips, and snaps,

As if from a Tigress or Bearess,

They told him how Lords would court that hand,

And always gave him to understand,

While he rubb'd, poor soul,

His carroty poll,

That his hair has been pull'd by a Hairess.

LXXVI.

Such were the lessons from maid and nurse,

A Governess help'd to make still worse,

Giving an appetite so perverse

Fresh diet whereon to batten—

Beginning with A B C to hold

Like a royal playbill printed in gold

On a square of pearl-white satin

LXXVII.

The books to teach the verbs and nouns,

And those about countries, cities, and towns,

Instead of their sober drabs and browns,

Were in crimson silk, with gilt edges;—

Her Butler, and Enfield, and Entick—in short

Her "Early Lessons" of every sort,

Look'd like Souvenirs, Keepsakes, and Pledges.

LXXVIII.

Old Johnson shone out in as fine array

As he did one night when he went to the play;

Chambaud like a beau of King Charles's day—

Lindley Murray in like conditions—

Each weary, unwelcome, irksome task,

Appear'd in a fancy dress and a mask;—

If you wish for similar copies, ask

For Howell and James's Editions.

LXXIX.

Novels she read to amuse her mind,

But always the affluent match-making kind

That ends with Promessi Sposi,

And a father-in-law so wealthy and grand,

He could give cheque-mate to Coutts in the Strand;

So, along with a ring and posy,

He endows the Bride with Golconda off hand,

And gives the Groom Potosi.

LXXX.

Plays she perused—but she liked the best

Those comedy gentlefolks always possess'd

Of fortunes so truly romantic—

Of money so ready that right or wrong

It always is ready to go for a song,

Throwing it, going it, pitching it strong—

They ought to have purses as green and long

As the cucumber call'd the Gigantic.

LXXXI.

Then Eastern Tales she loved for the sake

Of the Purse of Oriental make,

And the thousand pieces they put in it—

But Pastoral scenes on her heart fell cold,

For Nature with her had lost its hold,

No field but the Field of the Cloth of Gold

Would ever have caught her foot in it.

LXXXII.

What more? She learnt to sing, and dance,

To sit on a horse, although he should prance,

And to speak a French not spoken in France

Any more than at Babel's building—

And she painted shells, and flowers, and Turks,

But her great delight was in Fancy Works

That are done with gold or gilding.

LXXXIII.

Gold! still gold!—the bright and the dead,

With golden beads, and gold lace, and gold thread

She work'd in gold, as if for her bread;

The metal had so undermined her,

Gold ran in her thoughts and fill'd her brain,

She was golden-headed as Peter's cane

With which he walked behind her.

HER ACCIDENT.

LXXXIV.

The horse that carried Miss Kilmansegg,

And a better nether lifted leg,

Was a very rich bay, call'd Banker—

A horse of a breed and a mettle so rare,—

By Bullion out of an Ingot mare,—

That for action, the best of figures, and air,

It made many good judges hanker.

LXXXV.

And when she took a ride in the Park,

Equestrian Lord, or pedestrian Clerk,

Was thrown in an amorous fever,

To see the Heiress how well she sat,

With her groom behind her, Bob or Nat,

In green, half smother'd with gold, and a hat

With more gold lace than beaver.

LXXXVI.

And then when Banker obtain'd a pat,

To see how he arch'd his neck at that!

He snorted with pride and pleasure!

Like the Steed in the fable so lofty and grand,

Who gave the poor Ass to understand

That he didn't carry a bag of sand,

But a burden of golden treasure.

LXXXVII.

A load of treasure?—alas! alas!

Had her horse been fed upon English grass,

And shelter'd in Yorkshire spinneys,

Had he scour'd the sand with the Desert Ass,

Or where the American whinnies—

But a hunter from Erin's turf and gorse,

A regular thoroughbred Irish horse,

Why, he ran away, as a matter of course,

With a girl worth her weight in guineas!

LXXXVIII.

Mayhap 'tis the trick of such pamper'd nags

To shy at the sight of a beggar in rags,—

But away, like the bolt of a rabbit,—

Away went the horse in the madness of fright,

And away went the horsewoman mocking the sight—

Was yonder blue flash a flash of blue light,

Or only the skirt of her habit?

LXXXIX.

Away she flies, with the groom behind,—

It looks like a race of the Calmuck kind,

When Hymen himself is the starter,

And the Maid rides first in the fourfooted strife,

Riding, striding, as if for her life,

While the Lover rides after to catch him a wife,

Although it's catching a Tartar.

XC.

But the Groom has lost his glittering hat!

Though he does not sigh and pull up for that—

Alas! his horse is a tit for Tat

To sell to a very low bidder—

His wind is ruin'd, his shoulder is sprung,

Things, though a horse be handsome and young,

A purchaser will consider.

XCI.

But still flies the Heiress through stones and dust,

Oh, for a fall, if she must,

On the gentle lap of Flora!

But still, thank Heaven! she clings to her seat—

Away! away! she could ride a dead heat

With the Dead who ride so fast and fleet,

In the Ballad of Leonora!

XCII.

Away she gallops!—it's awful work!

It's faster than Turpin's ride to York,

On Bess that notable clipper!

She has circled the Ring!—she crosses the Park!

Mazeppa, although he was stripp'd so stark,

Mazeppa couldn't outstrip her!

XCIII.

The fields seem running away with the folks!

The Elms are having a race for the Oaks

At a pace that all Jockeys disparages!

All, all is racing! the Serpentine

Seems rushing past like the "arrowy Rhine,"

The houses have got on a railway line,

And are off like the first-class carriages!

XCIV.

She'll lose her life! she is losing her breath!

A cruel chase, she is chasing Death,

As female shriekings forewarn her:

And now—as gratis as blood of Guelph—

She clears that gate, which has clear'd itself

Since then, at Hyde Park Corner!

XCV.

Alas! for the hope of the Kilmanseggs!

For her head, her brains, her body, and legs,

Her life's not worth a copper!

Willy-nilly,

In Piccadilly,

A hundred hearts turn sick and chilly,

A hundred voices cry, "Stop her!"

And one old gentleman stares and stands,

Shakes his head and lifts his hands,

And says, "How very improper!"

XCVI.

On and on!—what a perilous run!

The iron rails seem all mingling in one,

To shut out the Green Park scenery!

And now the Cellar its dangers reveals,

She shudders—she shrieks—she's doom'd, she feels,

To be torn by powers of horses and wheels,

Like a spinner by steam machinery!

XCVII.

Sick with horror she shuts her eyes,

But the very stones seem uttering cries,

As they did to that Persian daughter,

When she climb'd up the steep vociferous hill,

Her little silver flagon to fill

With the magical Golden Water!

XCVIII.

"Batter her! shatter her!

Throw and scatter her!"

Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer!

"Dash at the heavy Dover!

Spill her! kill her! tear and tatter her!

Smash her! crash her!" (the stones didn't flatter her!)

"Kick her brains out! let her blood spatter her!

Roll on her over and over!"

XCIX.

For so she gather'd the awful sense

Of the street in its past unmacadamized tense,

As the wild horse overran it,—

His four heels making the clatter of six,

Like a Devil's tattoo, play'd with iron sticks

On a kettle-drum of granite!

C.

On! still on! she's dazzled with hints

Of oranges, ribbons, and color'd prints,

A Kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints,

And human faces all flashing,

Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints,

That the desperate hoof keeps dashing!

CI.

On and on! still frightfully fast!

Dover Street, Bond Street, all are past!

But—yes—no—yes!—they're down at last!

The Furies and Fates have found them!

Down they go with sparkle and crash,

Like a Bark that's struck by the lightning flash—

There's a shriek—and a sob—

And the dense dark mob

Like a billow closes around them!

---

CII.

"She breathes!"

"She don't!"

"She'll recover!"

"She won't!"

"She's stirring! she's living, by Nemesis!"

Gold, still gold! on counter and shelf!

Golden dishes as plenty as delf;

Miss Kilmansegg's coming again to herself

On an opulent Goldsmith's premises!

CIII.

Gold! fine gold!—both yellow and red,

Beaten, and molten—polish'd, and dead—

To see the gold with profusion spread

In all forms of its manufacture!

But what avails gold to Miss Kilmansegg,

When the femoral bone of her dexter log

Has met with a compound fracture?

CIV.

Gold may soothe Adversity's smart;

Nay, help to bind up a broken heart;

But to try it on any other part

Were as certain a disappointment,

As if one should rub the dish and plate,

Taken out of a Staffordshire crate—

In the hope of a Golden Service of State—

With Singleton's "Golden Ointment."

CV.

"As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined,"

Is an adage often recall'd to mind,

Referring to juvenile bias:

And never so well is the verity seen,

As when to the weak, warp'd side we lean,

While Life's tempests and hurricanes try us.

CVI.

Even thus with Miss K. and her broken limb:

By a very, very remarkable whim,

She show'd her early tuition:

While the buds of character came into blow

With a certain tinge that served to show

The nursery culture long ago,

As the graft is known by fruition!

CVII.

For the King's Physician, who nursed the case,

His verdict gave with an awful face,

And three others concurr'd to egg it;

That the Patient to give old Death the slip,

Like the Pope, instead of a personal trip,

Must send her Leg as a Legate.

CVIII.

The limb was doom'd—it couldn't be saved!

And like other people the patient behaved,

Nay, bravely that cruel parting braved,

Which makes some persons so falter,

They rather would part, without a groan,

With the flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone,

They obtain'd at St. George's altar.

CIX.

But when it came to fitting the stump

With a proxy limb—then flatly and plump

She spoke, in the spirit olden;

She couldn't—she shouldn't—she wouldn't have wood!

Nor a leg of cork, if she never stood,

And she swore an oath, or something as good,

The proxy limb should be golden!

CX.

A wooden leg! what, a sort of peg,

For your common Jockeys and Jennies!

No, no, her mother might worry and plague—

Weep, go down on her knees, and beg,

But nothing would move Miss Kilmansegg!

She could—she would have a Golden Leg,

If it cost ten thousand guineas!

CXI.

Wood indeed, in Forest or Park,

With its sylvan honors and feudal bark,

Is an aristocratic article:

But split and sawn, and hack'd about town,

Serving all needs of pauper or clown,

Trod on! stagger'd on! Wood cut down

Is vulgar—fibre and particle!

CXII.

And Cork!—when the noble Cork Tree shades

A lovely group of Castilian maids,

'Tis a thing for a song or sonnet!—

But cork, as it stops the bottle of gin,

Or bungs the beer—the small beer—in,

It pierced her heart like a corking-pin,

To think of standing upon it!

CXIII.

A Leg of Gold—solid gold throughout,

Nothing else, whether slim or stout,

Should ever support her, God willing!

She must—she could—she would have her whim,

Her father, she turn'd a deaf ear to him—

He might kill her—she didn't mind killing!

He was welcome to cut off her other limb—

He might cut her all off with a shilling!

CXIV.

All other promised gifts were in vain.

Golden Girdle, or Golden Chain,

She writhed with impatience more than pain,

And utter'd "pshaws!" and "pishes!"

But a Leg of Gold as she lay in bed,

It danced before her—it ran in her head!

It jump'd with her dearest wishes!

CXV.

"Gold—gold—gold! Oh, let it be gold!"

Asleep or awake that tale she told,

And when she grew delirious:

Till her parents resolved to grant her wish,

If they melted down plate, and goblet, and dish,

The case was getting so serious.

CXVI.

So a Leg was made in a comely mould,

Of gold, fine virgin glittering gold,

As solid as man could make it—

Solid in foot, and calf, and shank,

A prodigious sum of money it sank;

In fact 'twas a Branch of the family Bank,

And no easy matter to break it.

CXVII.

All sterling metal—not half-and-half,

The Goldsmith's mark was stamp'd on the calf—

'Twas pure as from Mexican barter!

And to make it more costly, just over the knee,

Where another ligature used to be,

Was a circle of jewels, worth shillings to see,

A new-fangled Badge of the Garter!

CXVIII.

'Twas a splendid, brilliant, beautiful Leg,

Fit for the Court of Scander-Beg,

That Precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg!

For, thanks to parental bounty,

Secure from Mortification's touch,

She stood on a Member that cost as much

As a Member for all the County!

HER FAME.

CXIX.

To gratify stern ambition's whims,

What hundreds and thousands of precious limbs

On a field of battle we scatter!

Sever'd by sword, or bullet, or saw,

Off they go, all bleeding and raw,—

But the public seems to get the lock-jaw,

So little is said on the matter!

CXX.

Legs, the tightest that ever were seen,

The tightest, the lightest, that danced on the green,

Cutting capers to sweet Kitty Clover;

Shatter'd, scatter'd, cut, and bowl'd down,

Off they go, worse off for renown,

A line in the Times, or a talk about town,

Than the leg that a fly runs over!

CXXI.

But the Precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg,

That gowden, goolden, golden leg,

Was the theme of all conversation!

Had it been a Pillar of Church and State,

Or a prop to support the whole Dead Weight,

It could not have furnished more debate

To the heads and tails of the nation!

CXXII.

East and west, and north and south,

Though useless for either hunger or drouth,—

The Leg was in everybody's mouth,

To use a poetical figure,

Rumor, in taking her ravenous swim,

Saw, and seized on the tempting limb,

Like a shark on the leg of a nigger.

CXXIII.

Wilful murder fell very dead;

Debates in the House were hardly read;

In vain the Police Reports were fed

With Irish riots and rumpuses—

The Leg! the Leg! was the great event,

Through every circle in life it went,

Like the leg of a pair of compasses.

CXXIV.

The last new Novel seem'd tame and flat,

The Leg, a novelty newer than that,

Had tripp'd up the heels of Fiction!

It Burked the very essays of Burke,

And, alas! how Wealth over Wit plays the Turk!

As a regular piece of goldsmith's work,

Got the better of Goldsmith's diction.

CXXV.

"A leg of gold! what, of solid gold?"

Cried rich and poor, and young and old,—

And Master and Miss and Madam—

'Twas the talk of 'Change—the Alley—the Bank—

And with men of scientific rank,

It made as much stir as the fossil shank

Of a Lizard coeval with Adam!

CXXVI.

Of course with Greenwich and Chelsea elves,

Men who had lost a limb themselves,

Its interest did not dwindle—

But Bill, and Ben, and Jack, and Tom

Could hardly have spun more yarns therefrom,

If the leg had been a spindle.

CXXVII.

Meanwhile the story went to and fro,

Till, gathering like the ball of snow,

By the time it got to Stratford-le-Bow,

Through Exaggeration's touches,

The Heiress and hope of the Kilmanseggs

Was propp'd on two fine Golden Legs,

And a pair of Golden Crutches!

CXXVIII.

Never had Leg so great a run!

'Twas the "go" and the "Kick" thrown into one!

The mode—the new thing under the sun,

The rage—the fancy—the passion!

Bonnets were named, and hats were worn,

A la Golden Leg instead of Leghorn,

And stockings and shoes,

Of golden hues,

Took the lead in the walks of fashion!

CXXIX.

The Golden Leg had a vast career,

It was sung and danced—and to show how near

Low Folly to lofty approaches,

Down to society's very dregs,

The Belles of Wapping wore "Kilmanseggs,"

And St. Gile's Beaux sported Golden Legs

In their pinchbeck pins and brooches!

HER FIRST STEP.

CXXX.

Supposing the Trunk and Limbs of Man

Shared, on the allegorical plan,

By the Passions that mark Humanity,

Whichever might claim the head, or heart,

The stomach, or any other part,

The Legs would be seized by Vanity.

CXXXI.

There's Bardus, a six-foot column of fop,

A lighthouse without any light atop,

Whose height would attract beholders,

If he had not lost some inches clear

By looking down at his kerseymere,

Ogling the limbs he holds so dear,

Till he got a stoop in his shoulders.

CXXXII.

Talk of Art, of Science, or Books,

And down go the everlasting looks,

To his rural beauties so wedded!

Try him, wherever you will, you find

His mind in his legs, and his legs in his mind,

All prongs and folly—in short a kind

Of fork—that is Fiddle-headed.

CXXXIII.

What wonder, then, if Miss Kilmansegg,

With a splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg,

Fit for the court of Scander-Beg,

Disdain'd to hide it like Joan or Meg,

In petticoats stuff'd or quilted?

Not she! 'twas her convalescent whim

To dazzle the world with her precious limb,—

Nay, to go a little high-kilted.

CXXXIV.

So cards were sent for that sort of mob

Where Tartars and Africans hob-and-nob,

And the Cherokee talks of his cab and cob

To Polish or Lapland lovers—

Cards like that hieroglyphical call

To a geographical Fancy Ball

On the recent Post-Office covers.

CXXXV.

For if Lion-hunters—and great ones too—

Would mob a savage from Latakoo,

Or squeeze for a glimpse of Prince Le Boo,

That unfortunate Sandwich scion—

Hundreds of first-rate people, no doubt,

Would gladly, madly, rush to a rout

That promised a Golden Lion!

HER FANCY BALL.

CXXXVI.

Of all the spirits of evil fame,

That hurt the soul or injure the frame,

And poison what's honest and hearty,

There's none more needs a Mathew to preach

A cooling, antiphlogistic speech,

To praise and enforce

A temperate course,

Than the Evil Spirit of Party.

CXXXVII.

Go to the House of Commons, or Lords,

And they seem to be busy with simple words

In their popular sense or pedantic—

But, alas! with their cheers, and sneers, and jeers,

They're really busy, whatever appears,

Putting peas in each other's ears,

To drive their enemies frantic!

CXXXVII.

Thus Tories like to worry the Whigs,

Who treat them in turn like Schwalbach pigs,

Giving them lashes, thrashes, and digs,

With their writhing and pain delighted—

But after all that's said, and more,

The malice and spite of Party are poor

To the malice and spite of a party next door,

To a party not invited.

CXXXIX.

On with the cap and out with the light,

Weariness bids the world good night,

At least for the usual season;

But hark! a clatter of horses' heels;

And Sleep and Silence are broken on wheels,

Like Wilful Murder and Treason!

CXL.

Another crash—and the carriage goes—

Again poor Weariness seeks the repose

That Nature demands, imperious;

But Echo takes up the burden now,

With a rattling chorus of row-de-dow-dow,

Till Silence herself seems making a row,

Like a Quaker gone delirious!

CXLI.

'Tis night—a winter night—and the stars

Are shining like winkin'—Venus and Mars

Are rolling along in their golden cars

Through the sky's serene expansion—

But vainly the stars dispense their rays,

Venus and Mars are lost in the blaze

Of the Kilmanseggs' luminous mansion!

CXLII.

Up jumps Fear in a terrible fright!

His bedchamber windows look so bright,—

With light all the Square is glutted!

Up he jumps, like a sole from the pan,

And a tremor sickens his inward man,

For he feels as only a gentleman can,

Who thinks he's being "gutted."

CXLIII.

Again Fear settles, all snug and warm;

But only to dream of a dreadful storm

From Autumn's sulphurous locker;

But the only electrical body that falls

Wears a negative coat, and positive smalls,

And draws the peal that so appals

From the Kilmanseggs' brazen knocker!

CXLIV.

'Tis Curiosity's Benefit night—

And perchance 'tis the English Second-Sight,

But whatever it be, so be it—

As the friends and guests of Miss Kilmansegg

Crowd in to look at her Golden Leg,

As many more

Mob round the door,

To see them going to see it!

CXLV.

In they go—in jackets and cloaks,

Plumes and bonnets, turbans and toques,

As if to a Congress of Nations:

Greeks and Malays, with daggers and dirks,

Spaniards, Jews, Chinese, and Turks—

Some like original foreign works,

But mostly like bad translations.

CXLVI.

In they go, and to work like a pack,

Juan, Moses, and Shacabac,

Tom, and Jerry and Springheel'd Jack,—

For some of low Fancy are lovers—

Skirting, zigzagging, casting about,

Here and there, and in and out,

With a crush, and a rush, for a full-bodied rout

In one of the stiffest of covers.

CXLVII.

In they went, and hunted about,

Open-mouth'd like chub and trout,

And some with the upper lip thrust out,

Like that fish for routing, a barbel—

While Sir Jacob stood to welcome the crowd,

And rubb'd his hands, and smiled aloud,

And bow'd, and bow'd, and bow'd, and bow'd,

Like a man who is sawing marble.

CXLVIII.

For Princes were there, and Noble Peers;

Dukes descended from Norman spears;

Earls that dated from early years;

And lords in vast variety—

Besides the Gentry both new and old—

For people who stand on legs of gold

Are sure to stand well with society.

CXLIX.

"But where—where—where?" with one accord,

Cried Moses and Mufti, Jack and my Lord,

Wang-Fong and Il Bondocani—

When slow, and heavy, and dead as a dump,

They heard a foot begin to stump,

Thump! lump!

Lump! thump!

Like the Spectre in "Don Giovanni"!

CL.

And lo! the Heiress, Miss Kilmansegg,

With her splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg,

In the garb of a Goddess olden—

Like chaste Diana going to hunt,

With a golden spear—which of course was blunt,

And a tunic loop'd up to a gem in front,

To show the Leg that was Golden!

CLI.

Gold! still gold; her Crescent behold,

That should be silver, but would be gold;

And her robe's auriferous spangles!

Her golden stomacher—how she would melt!

Her golden quiver, and golden belt,

Where a golden bugle dangles!

CLII.

And her jewell'd Garter! Oh Sin, oh Shame!

Let Pride and Vanity bear the blame,

That bring such blots on female fame!

But to be a true recorder,

Besides its thin transparent stuff,

The tunic was loop'd quite high enough

To give a glimpse of the Order!

CLIII.

But what have sin or shame to do

With a Golden Leg—and a stout one too?

Away with all Prudery's panics!

That the precious metal, by thick and thin,

Will cover square acres of land or sin,

Is a fact made plain

Again and again,

In Morals as well as Mechanics.

CLIV.

A few, indeed, of her proper sex,

Who seem'd to feel her foot on their necks,

And fear'd their charms would meet with checks

From so rare and splendid a blazon—

A few cried "fie!"—and "forward"—and "bold!"

And said of the Leg it might be gold,

But to them it look'd like brazen!

CLV.

'Twas hard they hinted for flesh and blood,

Virtue and Beauty, and all that's good,

To strike to mere dross their topgallants—

But what were Beauty, or Virtue, or Worth,

Gentle manners, or gentle birth,

Nay, what the most talented head on earth

To a Leg worth fifty Talents!

CLVI.

But the men sang quite another hymn

Of glory and praise to the precious Limb—

Age, sordid Age, admired the whim

And its indecorum pardon'd—

While half of the young—ay, more than half—

Bow'd down and worshipp'd the Golden Calf,

Like the Jews when their hearts were harden'd.

CLVII.

A Golden Leg!—what fancies it fired!

What golden wishes and hopes inspired!

To give but a mere abridgment—

What a leg to leg-bail Embarrassment's serf!

What a leg for a Leg to take on the turf!

What a leg for a marching regiment!

CLVIII.

A Golden Leg!—whatever Love sings,

'Twas worth a bushel of "Plain Gold Rings"

With which the Romantic wheedles.

'Twas worth all the legs in stockings and socks—

'Twas a leg that might be put in the Stocks,

N.B.—Not the parish beadle's!

CLIX.

And Lady K. nid-nodded her head,

Lapp'd in a turban fancy-bred,

Just like a love-apple huge and red,

Some Mussul-womanish mystery;

But whatever she meant

To represent,

She talked like the Muse of History.

CLX.

She told how the filial leg was lost;

And then how much the gold one cost;

With its weight to a Trojan fraction:

And how it took off, and how it put on;

And call'd on Devil, Duke, and Don,

Mahomet, Moses, and Prester John,

To notice its beautiful action.

CLXI.

And then of the Leg she went in quest;

And led it where the light was best;

And made it lay itself up to rest

In postures for painter's studies:

It cost more tricks and trouble by half,

Than it takes to exhibit a six-legg'd Calf

To a boothful of country Cuddies.

CLXII.

Nor yet did the Heiress herself omit

The arts that help to make a hit,

And preserve a prominent station.

She talk'd and laugh'd far more than her share;

And took a part in "Rich and Rare

Were the gems she wore"—and the gems were there,

Like a Song with an Illustration.

CLXIII.

She even stood up with a Count of France

To dance—alas! the measures we dance

When Vanity plays the piper!

Vanity, Vanity, apt to betray,

And lead all sorts of legs astray,

Wood, or metal, or human clay,—

Since Satan first play'd the Viper!

CLXIV.

But first she doff'd her hunting gear,

And favor'd Tom Tug with her golden spear

To row with down the river—

A Bonz had her golden bow to hold;

A Hermit her belt and bugle of gold;

And an Abbot her golden quiver.

CLXV.

And then a space was clear'd on the floor,

And she walk'd the Minuet de la Cour,

With all the pomp of a Pompadour,

But although she began andante,

Conceive the faces of all the Rout,

When she finished off with a whirligig bout,

And the Precious Leg stuck stiffly out

Like the leg of a Figuranté.

CLXVI.

So the courtly dance was goldenly done,

And golden opinions, of course, it won

From all different sorts of people—

Chiming, ding-dong, with flattering phrase,

In one vociferous peal of praise,

Like the peal that rings on Royal days

From Loyalty's parish steeple.

CLXVII.

And yet, had the leg been one of those

That danced for bread in flesh-color'd hose,

With Rosina's pastora bevy,

The jeers it had met,—the shouts! the scoff!

The cutting advice to "take itself off"

For sounding but half so heavy.

CLXVIII.

Had it been a leg like those, perchance,

That teach little girls and boys to dance,

To set, poussette, recede, and advance,

With the steps and figures most proper,—

Had it hopp'd for a weekly or quarterly sum,

How little of praise or grist would have come

To a mill with such a hopper!

CLXIX.

But the Leg was none of those limbs forlorn—

Bartering capers and hops for corn—

That meet with public hisses and scorn,

Or the morning journal denounces—

Had it pleased to caper from morning till dusk,

There was all the music of "Money Musk"

In its ponderous bangs and bounces.

CLXX.

But hark;—as slow as the strokes of a pump,

Lump, thump!

Thump, lump!

As the Giant of Castle Otranto might stump,

To a lower room from an upper—

Down she goes with a noisy dint,

For, taking the crimson turban's hint,

A noble Lord at the Head of the Mint

Is leading the Leg to supper!

CLXXI.

But the supper, alas! must rest untold,

With its blaze of light and its glitter of gold,

For to paint that scene of glamour,

It would need the Great Enchanter's charm,

Who waves over Palace, and Cot, and Farm,

An arm like the Goldbeater's Golden Arm

That wields a Golden Hammer.

CLXXII.

He—only HE—could fitly state

THE MASSIVE SERVICE OF GOLDEN PLATE,

With the proper phrase and expansion—

The Rare Selection of FOREIGN WINES—

The ALPS OF ICE and MOUNTAINS OF PINES,

The punch in OCEANS and sugary shrines,

The TEMPLE OF TASTE from GUNTER'S DESIGNS—

In short, all that WEALTH with A FEAST combines,

In a SPLENDID FAMILY MANSION.

CLXXIII.

Suffice it each mask'd outlandish guest

Ate and drank of the very best,

According to critical conners—

And then they pledged the Hostess and Host,

But the Golden Leg was the standing toast,

And as somebody swore,

Walk'd off with more

Than its share of the "Hips!" and honors!

CLXXIV.

"Miss Kilmansegg!—

Full-glasses I beg!—

Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg!"

And away went the bottle careering!

Wine in bumpers! and shouts in peals!

Till the Clown didn't know his head from his heels,

The Mussulman's eyes danced two-some reels,

And the Quaker was hoarse from cheering!

HER DREAM.

CLXXV.

Miss Kilmansegg took off her leg,

And laid it down like a cribbage-peg,

For the Rout was done and the riot:

The Square was hush'd; not a sound was heard;

The sky was gray, and no creature stirr'd,

Except one little precocious bird,

That chirp'd—and then was quiet.

CLXXVI.

So still without,—so still within;—

It had been a sin

To drop a pin—

So intense is silence after a din,

It seem'd like Death's rehearsal!

To stir the air no eddy came;

And the taper burnt with as still a flame,

As to flicker had been a burning shame,

In a calm so universal.

CLXXVII.

The time for sleep had come at last;

And there was the bed, so soft, so vast,

Quite a field of Bedfordshire clover;

Softer, cooler, and calmer, no doubt,

From the piece of work just ravell'd out,

For one of the pleasures of having a rout

Is the pleasure of having it over.

CLXXVIII.

No sordid pallet, or truckle mean,

Of straw, and rug, and tatters unclean;

But a splendid, gilded, carved machine,

That was fit for a Royal Chamber.

On the top was a gorgeous golden wreath;

And the damask curtains hung beneath,

Like clouds of crimson and amber;

CLXXIX.

Curtains, held up by two little plump things,

With golden bodies and golden wings,—

Mere fins for such solidities—

Two cupids, in short,

Of the regular sort,

But the housemaid call'd them "Cupidities."

CLXXX.

No patchwork quilt, all seams and scars,

But velvet, powder'd with golden stars,

A fit mantle for Night-Commanders!

And the pillow, as white as snow undimm'd

And as cool as the pool that the breeze has skimmed,

Was cased in the finest cambric, and trimm'd

With the costliest lace of Flanders.

CLXXXI.

And the bed—of the Eider's softest down,

'Twas a place to revel, to smother, to drown

In a bliss inferr'd by the Poet;

For if Ignorance be indeed a bliss,

What blessed ignorance equals this,

To sleep—and not to know it?

CLXXXII.

Oh bed! oh bed! delicious bed!

That heaven upon earth to the weary head;

But a place that to name would be ill-bred,

To the head with a wakeful trouble—

'Tis held by such a different lease!

To one, a place of comfort and peace,

All stuff'd with the down of stubble geese,

To another with only the stubble!

CLXXXIII.

To one, a perfect Halcyon nest,

All calm, and balm, and quiet, and rest,

And soft as the fur of the cony—

To another, so restless for body and head,

That the bed seems borrow'd from Nettlebed,

And the pillow from Stratford the Stony!

CLXXXIV.

To the happy, a first-class carriage of ease,

To the Land of Nod, or where you please;

But alas! for the watchers and weepers,

Who turn, and turn, and turn again,

But turn, and turn, and turn in vain,

With an anxious brain,

And thoughts in a train

That does not run upon sleepers!

CLXXXV.

Wide awake as the mousing owl,

Night-hawk, or other nocturnal fowl,—

But more profitless vigils keeping,—

Wide awake in the dark they stare,

Filling with phantoms the vacant air,

As if that Crookback'd Tyrant Care

Had plotted to kill them sleeping.

CLXXXVI.

And oh! when the blessed diurnal light

Is quench'd by the providential night,

To render our slumber more certain!

Pity, pity the wretches that weep,

For they must be wretched, who cannot sleep

When God himself draws the curtain!

CLXXXVII.

The careful Betty the pillow beats,

And airs the blankets, and smooths the sheets,

And gives the mattress a shaking—

But vainly Betty performs her part,

If a ruffled head and a rumpled heart,

As well as the couch want making.

CLXXXVIII.

There's Morbid, all bile, and verjuice, and nerves,

Where other people would make preserves,

He turns his fruits into pickles:

Jealous, envious, and fretful by day,

At night, to his own sharp fancies a prey,

He lies like a hedgehog roll'd up the wrong way,

Tormenting himself with his prickles.

CLXXXIX.

But a child—that bids the world good night

In downright earnest and cuts it quite—

A Cherub no Art can copy,—

'Tis a perfect picture to see him lie

As if he had supp'd on a dormouse pie,

(An ancient classical dish, by the bye)

With a sauce of syrup of poppy.

CXC.

Oh, bed! bed! bed! delicious bed!

That heaven upon earth to the weary head,

Whether lofty or low its condition!

But instead of putting our plagues on shelves,

In our blankets how often we toss ourselves,

Or are toss'd by such allegorical elves

As Pride, Hate, Greed, and Ambition!

CXCI.

The independent Miss Kilmansegg

Took off her independent Leg

And laid it beneath her pillow,

And then on the bed her frame she cast,

The time for repose had come at last,

But long, long, after the storm is past

Rolls the turbid, turbulent billow.

CXCII.

No part she had in vulgar cares

That belong to common household affairs—

Nocturnal annoyances such as theirs,

Who lie with a shrewd surmising,

That while they are couchant (a bitter cup!)

Their bread and butter are getting up,

And the coals, confound them, are rising.

CXCIII.

No fear she had her sleep to postpone,

Like the crippled Widow who weeps alone,

And cannot make a doze her own,

For the dread that mayhap on the morrow,

The true and Christian reading to baulk,

A broker will take up her bed and walk,

By way of curing her sorrow.

CXCIV.

No cause like these she had to bewail:

But the breath of applause had blown a gale,

And winds from that quarter seldom fail

To cause some human commotion;

But whenever such breezes coincide

With the very spring-tide

Of human pride,

There's no such swell on the ocean!

CXCV.

Peace, and ease, and slumber lost,

She turn'd, and roll'd, and tumbled and toss'd,

With a tumult that would not settle.

A common case, indeed, with such

As have too little, or think too much,

Of the precious and glittering metal.

CXCVI.

Gold!—she saw at her golden foot

The Peer whose tree had an olden root,

The Proud, the Great, the Learned to boot,

The handsome, the gay, and the witty—

The Man of Science—of Arms—of Art,

The man who deals but at Pleasure's mart,

And the man who deals in the City.

CXCVII.

Gold, still gold—and true to the mould!

In the very scheme of her dream it told;

For, by magical transmutation,

From her Leg through her body it seem'd to go,

Till, gold above, and gold below.

She was gold, all gold, from her little gold toe

To her organ of Veneration!

CXCVIII.

And still she retain'd through Fancy's art

The Golden Bow, and the Golden Dart,

With which she had play'd a Goddess's part

In her recent glorification:

And still, like one of the selfsame brood,

On a Plinth of the selfsame metal she stood

For the whole world's adoration.

CXCIX.

And hymns and incense around her roll'd,

From Golden Harps and Censers of Gold,—

For Fancy in dreams is as uncontroll'd

As a horse without a bridle:

What wonder, then, from all checks exempt,

If, inspired by the Golden Leg, she dreamt

She was turn'd to a Golden Idol?

HER COURTSHIP.

CC.

When leaving Eden's happy land

The grieving Angel led by the hand

Our banish'd Father and Mother,

Forgotten amid their awful doom,

The tears, the fears, and the future's gloom,

On each brow was a wreath of Paradise bloom,

That our Parents had twined for each other.

CCI.

It was only while sitting like figures of stone,

For the grieving Angel had skyward flown,

As they sat, those Two in the world alone,

With disconsolate hearts nigh cloven,

That scenting the gust of happier hours,

They look'd around for the precious flow'rs,

And lo!—a last relic of Eden's dear bow'rs—

The chaplet that Love had woven!

CCII.

And still, when a pair of Lovers meet,

There's a sweetness in air, unearthly sweet,

That savors still of that happy retreat

Where Eve by Adam was courted:

Whilst the joyous Thrush, and the gentle Dove,

Woo'd their mates in the boughs above,

And the Serpent, as yet, only sported.

CCIII.

Who hath not felt that breath in the air,

A perfume and freshness strange and rare,

A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere,

When young hearts yearn together?

All sweets below, and all sunny above,

Oh! there's nothing in life like making love,

Save making hay in fine weather!

CCIV.

Who hath not found amongst his flow'rs

A blossom too bright for this world of ours,

Like a rose among snows of Sweden?

But to turn again to Miss Kilmansegg,

Where must Love have gone to beg,

If such a thing as a Golden Leg

Had put its foot in Eden!

CCV.

And yet—to tell the rigid truth—

Her favor was sought by Age and Youth—

For the prey will find a prowler!

She was follow'd, flatter'd, courted, address'd,

Woo'd, and coo'd, and wheedled, and press'd,

By suitors from North, South, East, and West,

Like that Heiress, in song, Tibbie Fowler!

CCVI.

But, alas! alas! for the Woman's fate,

Who has from a mob to choose a mate!

'Tis a strange and painful mystery!

But the more the eggs, the worse the hatch;

The more the fish, the worse the catch;

The more the sparks, the worse the match;

Is a fact in Woman's history.

CCVII.

Give her between a brace to pick,

And, mayhap, with luck to help the trick,

She will take the Faustus, and leave the Old Nick—

But her future bliss to baffle,

Amongst a score let her have a voice,

And she'll have as little cause to rejoice,

As if she had won the "Man of her choice"

In a matrimonial raffle!

CCVIII.

Thus, even thus, with the Heiress and Hope,

Fulfilling the adage of too much rope,

With so ample a competition,

She chose the least worthy of all the group,

Just as the vulture makes a stoop,

And singles out from the herd or troop

The beast of the worst condition.

CCIX.

A Foreign Count—who came incog.,

Not under a cloud, but under a fog,

In a Calais packet's fore-cabin,

To charm some lady British-born,

With his eyes as black as the fruit of the thorn,

And his hooky nose, and his beard half-shorn,

Like a half-converted Rabbin.

CCX.

And because the Sex confess a charm

In the man who has slash'd a head or arm

Or has been a throat's undoing,

He was dress'd like one of the glorious trade,

At least when glory is off parade,

With a stock, and a frock, well trimm'd with braid,

And frogs—that went a-wooing.

CCXI.

Moreover, as Counts are apt to do,

On the left-hand side of his dark surtout,

At one of those holes that buttons go through,

(To be a precise recorder,)

A ribbon he wore, or rather a scrap,

About an inch of ribbon mayhap.

That one of his rivals, a whimsical chap,

Described as his "Retail Order."

CCXII.

And then—and much it help'd his chance—

He could sing, and play first fiddle, and dance,

Perform charades, and Proverbs of France—

Act the tender, and do the cruel;

For amongst his other killing parts,

He had broken a brace of female hearts,

And murder'd three men in duel!

CCXIII.

Savage at heart, and false of tongue,

Subtle with age, and smooth to the young,

Like a snake in his coiling and curling—

Such was the Count—to give him a niche—

Who came to court that Heiress rich,

And knelt at her foot—one needn't say which—

Besieging her castle of Stirling.

CCXIV.

With pray'rs and vows he open'd his trench,

And plied her with English, Spanish, and French

In phrases the most sentimental:

And quoted poems in High and Low Dutch,

With now and then an Italian touch,

Till she yielded, without resisting much,

To homage so continental.

CCXV.

And then—the sordid bargain to close—

With a miniature sketch of his hooky nose,

And his dear dark eyes, as black as sloes,

And his beard and whiskers as black as those,

The lady's consent he requited—

And instead of the lock that lovers beg,

The Count received from Miss Kilmansegg

A model, in small, of her Precious Leg—

And so the couple were plighted!

CCXVI.

But, oh! the love that gold must crown!

Better—better, the love of the clown,

Who admires his lass in her Sunday gown,

As if all the fairies had dress'd her!

Whose brain to no crooked thought gives birth,

Except that he never will part on earth

With his true love's crooked tester!

CCXVII.

Alas! for the love that's link'd with gold!

Better—better a thousand times told—

More honest, happy, and laudable,

The downright loving of pretty Cis,

Who wipes her lips, though there's nothing amiss,

And takes a kiss, and gives a kiss,

In which her heart is audible!

CCXVIII.

Pretty Cis, so smiling and bright,

Who loves—as she labors—with all her might,

And without any sordid leaven!

Who blushes as red as haws and hips,

Down to her very finger-tips,

For Roger's blue ribbons—to her, like strips

Cut out of the azure of Heaven!

HER MARRIAGE.

CCXIX.

'Twas morn—a most auspicious one!

From the Golden East, the Golden Sun

Came forth his glorious race to run,

Through clouds of most splendid tinges;

Clouds that lately slept in shade,

But now seem'd made

Of gold brocade,

With magnificent golden fringes.

CCXX.

Gold above, and gold below,

The earth reflected the golden glow,

From river, and hill, and valley;

Gilt by the golden light of morn,

The Thames—it look'd like the Golden Horn,

And the Barge, that carried coal or corn,

Like Cleopatra's Galley!

CCXXI.

Bright as clusters of Golden-rod,

Suburban poplars began to nod,

With extempore splendor furnish'd;

While London was bright with glittering clocks,

Golden dragons, and Golden cocks,

And above them all,

The dome of St. Paul,

With its Golden Cross and its Golden Ball,

Shone out as if newly burnished!

CCXXII.

And lo! for Golden Hours and Joys,

Troops of glittering Golden Boys

Danced along with a jocund noise,

And their gilded emblems carried!

In short, 'twas the year's most Golden Day,

By mortals call'd the First of May,

When Miss Kilmansegg,

Of the Golden Leg,

With a Golden Ring was married!

CCXXIII.

And thousands of children, women, and men,

Counted the clock from eight till ten,

From St. James's sonorous steeple;

For next to that interesting job,

The hanging of Jack, or Bill, or Bob,

There's nothing so draws a London mob

As the noosing of very rich people.

CCXXIV.

And a treat it was for the mob to behold

The Bridal Carriage that blazed with gold!

And the Footmen tall and the Coachman bold,

In liveries so resplendent—

Coats you wonder'd to see in place,

They seem'd so rich with golden lace,

That they might have been independent.

CCXXV.

Coats, that made those menials proud

Gaze with scorn on the dingy crowd,

From their gilded elevations;

Not to forget that saucy lad

(Ostentation's favorite cad);

The Page, who look'd, so splendidly clad,

Like a Page of the "Wealth of Nations."

CCXXVI.

But the Coachman carried off the state,

With what was a Lancashire body of late

Turn'd into a Dresden Figure;

With a bridal Nosegay of early bloom,

About the size of a birchen broom,

And so huge a White Favor, had Gog been Groom

He need not have worn a bigger.

CCXXVII.

And then to see the Groom! the Count

With Foreign Orders to such an amount,

And whiskers so wild—nay, bestial;

He seem'd to have borrow'd the shaggy hair

As well as the Stars of the Polar Bear,

To make him look celestial!

CCXXVIII.

And then—Great Jove!—the struggle, the crush,

The screams, the heaving, the awful rush,

The swearing, the tearing, and fighting,—

The hats and bonnets smash'd like an egg—

To catch a glimpse of the Golden Leg,

Which, between the steps and Miss Kilmansegg,

Was fully display'd in alighting!

CCXXIX.

From the Golden Ankle up to the Knee

There it was for the mob to see!

A shocking act had it chanced to be

A crooked leg or a skinny:

But although a magnificent veil she wore.

Such as never was seen before,

In case of blushes, she blush'd no more

Than George the First on a guinea!

CCXXX.

Another step, and lo! she was launched!

All in white, as Brides are blanched,

With a wreath of most wonderful splendor—

Diamonds, and pearls, so rich in device,

That, according to calculation nice,

Her head was worth as royal a price

As the head of the Young Pretender.

CCXXXI.

Bravely she shone—and shone the more

As she sail'd through the crowd of squalid and poor,

Thief, beggar, and tatterdemalion—

Led by the Count, with his sloe-black eyes

Bright with triumph, and some surprise,

Like Anson on making sure of his prize

The famous Mexican Galleon!

CCXXXII.

Anon came Lady K., with her face

Quite made up to act with grace,

But she cut the performance shorter;

For instead of pacing stately and stiff,

At the stare of the vulgar she took a miff,

And ran, full speed, into Church, as if

To get married before her daughter.

CCXXXIII.

But Sir Jacob walk'd more slowly, and bow'd

Eight and left to the gaping crowd,

Wherever a glance was seizable;

For Sir Jacob thought he bow'd like a Guelph,

And therefore bow'd to imp and elf,

And would gladly have made a bow to himself,

Had such a bow been feasible.

CCXXXIV.

And last—and not the least of the sight,

Six "Handsome Fortunes," all in white,

Came to help in the marriage rite,—

And rehearse their own hymeneals;

And then the bright procession to close,

They were followed by just as many Beaux

Quite fine enough for Ideals.

CCXXXV.

Glittering men, and splendid dames,

Thus they enter'd the porch of Saint James',

Pursued by a thunder of laughter;

For the Beadle was forced to intervene,

For Jim the Crow, and his Mayday Queen,

With her gilded ladle, and Jack i' the Green,

Would fain have follow'd after!

CCXXXVI.

Beadle-like he hush'd the shouts;

But the temple was full "inside and out,"

And a buzz kept buzzing all round about

Like bees when the day is sunny—

A buzz universal that interfered

With the right that ought to have been revered,

As if the couple already were smear'd

With Wedlock's treacle and honey!

CCXXXVII.

Yet Wedlock's a very awful thing!

'Tis something like that feat in the ring,

Which requires good nerve to do it—

When one of a "Grand Equestrian Troop"

Makes a jump at a gilded hoop,

Not certain at all

Of what may befall

After his getting through it!

CCCXXXVIII.

But the Count he felt the nervous work

No more than any polygamous Turk,

Or bold piratical skipper,

Who, during his buccaneering search,

Would as soon engage a hand in church

As a hand on board his clipper!

CCXXXIX.

And how did the Bride perform her part?

Like any bride who is cold at heart.

Mere snow with the ice's glitter;

What but a life of winter for her!

Bright but chilly, alive without stir,

So splendidly comfortless,—just like a Fir

When the frost is severe and bitter.

CCXL.

Such were the future man and wife!

Whose bale or bliss to the end of life

A few short words were to settle—

"Wilt thou have this woman?"

"I will"—and then,

"Wilt thou have this man?"

"I will," and "Amen"—

And those Two were one Flesh, in the Angels' ken,

Except one Leg—that was metal.

CCXLI.

Then the names were sign'd—and kiss'd the kiss:

And the Bride, who came from her coach a Miss,

As a Countess walk'd to her carriage—

Whilst Hymen preen'd his plumes like a dove,

And Cupid flutter'd his wings above,

In the shape of a fly—as little a Love

As ever look'd in at a marriage!

CCXLII.

Another crash—and away they dash'd,

And the gilded carriage and footmen flash'd

From the eyes of the gaping people—

Who turn'd to gaze at the toe-and-heel

Of the Golden Boys beginning a reel,

To the merry sound of a wedding peal

From St. James's musical steeple.

CCXLIII.

Those wedding bells! those wedding bells!

How sweetly they sound in pastoral dells

From a tow'r in an ivy-green jacket!

But town-made joys how dearly they cost;

And after all are tumbled and tost,

Like a peal from a London steeple, and lost

In town-made riot and racket.

CCXLIV.

The wedding peal, how sweetly it peals

With grass or heather beneath our heels,—

For bells are Music's laughter!—

But a London peal, well mingled, be sure,

With vulgar noises and voices impure,—

With a harsh and discordant overture

To the Harmony meant to come after!

CCXLV.

But hence with Discord—perchance, too soon

To cloud the face of the honeymoon

With a dismal occultation!—

Whatever Fate's concerted trick,

The Countess and Count, at the present nick,

Have a chicken, and not a crow, to pick

At a sumptuous Cold Collation.

CCXLVI.

A Breakfast—no unsubstantial mess,

But one in the style of Good Queen Bess,

Who,—hearty as hippocampus,—

Broke her fast with ale and beef,

Instead of toast and the Chinese leaf,

And—in lieu of anchovy—grampus.

CCXLVII.

A breakfast of fowl, and fish, and flesh,

Whatever was sweet, or salt, or fresh;

With wines the most rare and curious—

Wines, of the richest flavor and hue;

With fruits from the worlds both Old and New;

And fruits obtain'd before they were due

At a discount most usurious.

CCXLVIII.

For wealthy palates there be, that scout

What is in season, for what is out,

And prefer all precocious savor:

For instance, early green peas, of the sort

That costs some four or five guineas a quart;

Where the Mint is the principal flavor.

CCXLIX.

And many a wealthy man was there,

Such as the wealthy City could spare,

To put in a portly appearance—

Men, whom their fathers had help'd to gild:

And men, who had had their fortunes to build

And—much to their credit—had richly fill'd

Their purses by pursy-verance.

CCL.

Men, by popular rumor at least,

Not the last to enjoy a feast!

And truly they were not idle!

Luckier far than the chestnut tits,

Which, down at the door, stood champing their bits,

At a different sort of bridle.

CCLI.

For the time was come—and the whisker'd Count

Help'd his Bride in the carriage to mount,

And fain would the Muse deny it,

But the crowd, including two butchers in blue,

(The regular killing Whitechapel hue,)

Of her Precious Calf had as ample a view,

As if they had come to buy it!

CCLII.

Then away! away! with all the speed

That golden spurs can give to the steed,—

Both Yellow Boys and Guineas, indeed,

Concurr'd to urge the cattle—

Away they went, with favors white,

Yellow jackets, and panels bright,

And left the mob, like a mob at night,

Agape at the sound of a rattle.

CCLIII.

Away! away! they rattled and roll'd,

The Count, and his Bride, and her Leg of Gold—

That faded charm to the charmer!

Away,—through old Brentford rang the din

Of wheels and heels, on their way to win

That hill, named after one of her kin,

The Hill of the Golden Farmer!

CCLIV.

Gold, still gold—it flew like dust!

It tipp'd the post-boy, and paid the trust;

In each open palm it was freely thrust;

There was nothing but giving and taking!

And if gold could ensure the future hour,

What hopes attended that Bride to her bow'r,

But alas! even hearts with a four-horse pow'r

Of opulence end in breaking!

HER HONEYMOON.

CCLV.

The moon—the moon, so silver and cold,

Her fickle temper has oft been told,

Now shady—now bright and sunny—

But of all the lunar things that change,

The one that shows most fickle and strange,

And takes the most eccentric range,

Is the moon—so call'd—of honey!

CCLVI.

To some a full-grown orb reveal'd

As big and as round as Norval's shield,

And as bright as a burner Bude-lighted;

To others as dull, and dingy, and damp,

As any oleaginous lamp,

Of the regular old parochial stamp,

In a London fog benighted.

CCLVII.

To the loving, a bright and constant sphere,

That makes earth's commonest things appear

All poetic, romantic, and tender:

Hanging with jewels a cabbage-stump,

And investing a common post, or a pump,

A currant-bush, or a gooseberry clump,

With a halo of dreamlike splendor.

CCLVIII.

A sphere such as shone from Italian skies,

In Juliet's dear, dark, liquid eyes,

Tipping trees with its argent braveries—

And to couples not favor'd with Fortune's boons

One of the most delightful of moons,

For it brightens their pewter platters and spoons

Like a silver service of Savory's!

CCLIX.

For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear,

And the meanest thing most precious and dear

When the magic of love is present:

Love, that lends a sweetness and grace

To the humblest spot and the plainest face—

That turns Wilderness Row into Paradise Place,

And Garlick Hill to Mount Pleasant!

CCLX.

Love that sweetens sugarless tea,

And makes contentment and joy agree

With the coarsest boarding and bedding:

Love, that no golden ties can attach,

But nestles under the humblest thatch,

And will fly away from an Emperor's match

To dance at a Penny Wedding!

CCLXI.

Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state,

When such a bright Planet governs the fate

Of a pair of united lovers!

'Tis theirs, in spite of the Serpent's hiss,

To enjoy the pure primeval kiss,

With as much of the old original bliss

As mortality ever recovers!

CCLXII.

There's strength in double joints, no doubt,

In double X Ale, and Dublin Stout,

That the single sorts know nothing about—

And a fist is strongest when doubled—

And double aqua-fortis, of course,

And double soda-water, perforce,

Are the strongest that ever bubbled!

CCLXIII.

There's double beauty whenever a Swan

Swims on a Lake, with her double thereon;

And ask the gardener, Luke or John,

Of the beauty of double-blowing—

A double dahlia delights the eye;

And it's far the loveliest sight in the sky

When a double rainbow is glowing!

CCLXIV.

There's warmth in a pair of double soles;

As well as a double allowance of coals—

In a coat that is double-breasted—

In double windows and double doors;

And a double U wind is blest by scores

For its warmth to the tender-chested.

CCLXV.

There's a twofold sweetness in double pipes;

And a double barrel and double snipes

Give the sportsman a duplicate pleasure;

There's double safety in double locks:

And double letters bring cash for the box:

And all the world knows that double knocks,

Are gentility's double measure.

CCLXVI.

There's a double sweetness in double rhymes,

And a double at Whist and a double Times

In profit are certainly double—

By doubling, the Hare contrives to escape;

And all seamen delight in a doubled Cape,

And a double-reef'd topsail in trouble.

CCLXVII.

There's a double chuck at a double chin,

And of course there's a double pleasure therein,

If the parties were brought to telling:

And however our Dennises take offence,

A double meaning shows double sense;

And if proverbs tell truth,

A double tooth

Is Wisdom's adopted dwelling!

CCLXVIII.

But double wisdom, and pleasure, and sense,

Beauty, respect, strength, comfort, and thence

Through whatever the list discovers,

They are all in the double blessedness summ'd,

Of what was formerly doubled-drumm'd,

The Marriage of two true Lovers!

CCLXIX.

Now the Kilmansegg Moon,—it must be told—

Though instead of silver it tipp'd with gold—

Shone rather wan, and distant, and cold,

And before its days were at thirty,

Such gloomy clouds began to collect,

With an ominous ring of ill effect,

As gave but too much cause to expect

Such weather as seamen call dirty!

CCLXX.

And yet the moon was the "Young May Moon,"

And the scented hawthorn had blossom'd soon,

And the thrush and the blackbird were singing—

The snow-white lambs were skipping in play,

And the bee was humming a tune all day

To flowers, as welcome as flowers in May,

And the trout in the stream was springing!

CCLXXI.

But what were the hues of the blooming earth,

Its scents—its sounds—or the music and mirth

Of its furr'd or its feather'd creatures,

To a Pair in the world's last sordid stage,

Who had never look'd into Nature's page,

And had strange ideas of a Golden Age,

Without any Arcadian features?

CCLXXII.

And what were joys of the pastoral kind

To a Bride—town-made—with a heart and a mind

With simplicity ever at battle?

A bride of an ostentatious race,

Who, thrown in the Golden Farmer's place,

Would have trimm'd her shepherds with golden lace,

And gilt the horns of her cattle.

CCLXXIII.

She could not please the pigs with her whim,

And the sheep wouldn't cast their eyes at a limb

For which she had been such a martyr:

The deer in the park, and the colts at grass,

And the cows unheeded let it pass;

And the ass on the common was such an ass,

That he wouldn't have swopp'd

The thistle he cropp'd

For her Leg, including the Garter!

CCLXXIV.

She hated lanes and she hated fields—

She hated all that the country yields—

And barely knew turnips from clover;

She hated walking in any shape,

And a country stile was an awkward scrape,

Without the bribe of a mob to gape

At the Leg in clambering over!

CCLXXV.

O blessed nature, "O rus! O rus!"

Who cannot sigh for the country thus,

Absorb'd in a wordly torpor—

Who does not yearn for its meadow-sweet breath,

Untainted by care, and crime, and death,

And to stand sometimes upon grass or heath—

That soul, spite of gold, is a pauper!

CCLXXVI.

But to hail the pearly advent of morn,

And relish the odor fresh from the thorn,

She was far too pamper'd a madam—

Or to joy in the daylight waxing strong,

While, after ages of sorrow and wrong,

The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong,

And all the woes that to man belong,

The Lark still carols the selfsame song

That he did to the uncurst Adam!

CCLXXVII.

The Lark! she had given all Leipzig's flocks

For a Vauxhall tune in a musical box;

And as for the birds in the thicket,

Thrush or ousel in leafy niche,

The linnet or finch, she was far too rich

To care for a Morning Concert, to which

She was welcome without any ticket.

CCLXXVIII.

Gold, still gold, her standard of old,

All pastoral joys were tried by gold,

Or by fancies golden and crural—

Till ere she had pass'd one week unblest,

As her agricultural Uncle's guest,

Her mind was made up, and fully imprest,

That felicity could not be rural!

CCLXXIX.

And the Count?—to the snow-white lambs at play,

And all the scents and the sights of May,

And the birds that warbled their passion,

His ears and dark eyes, and decided nose,

Were as deaf and as blind and as dull as those

That overlook the Bouquet de Rose,

The Huile Antique,

The Parfum Unique,

In a Barber's Temple of Fashion.

CCLXXX.

To tell, indeed, the true extent

Of his rural bias, so far it went

As to covet estates in ring fences—

And for rural lore he had learn'd in town

That the country was green, turn'd up with brown,

And garnish'd with trees that a man might cut down

Instead of his own expenses.

CCLXXXI.

And yet had that fault been his only one,

The Pair might have had few quarrels or none,

For their tastes thus far were in common;

But faults he had that a haughty bride

With a Golden Leg could hardly abide—

Faults that would even have roused the pride

Of a far less metalsome woman!

CCLXXXII.

It was early days indeed for a wife,

In the very spring of her married life,

To be chill'd by its wintry weather—

But instead of sitting as Love-Birds do,

On Hymen's turtles that bill and coo—

Enjoying their "moon and honey for two,"

They were scarcely seen together!

CCLXXXIII.

In vain she sat with her Precious Leg

A little exposed, à la Kilmansegg,

And roll'd her eyes in their sockets!

He left her in spite of her tender regards,

And those loving murmurs described by bards,

For the rattling of dice and the shuffling of cards,

And the poking of balls into pockets!

CCLXXXIV.

Moreover he loved the deepest stake

And the heaviest bets the players would make;

And he drank—the reverse of sparely,—

And he used strange curses that made her fret;

And when he play'd with herself at piquet,

She found, to her cost,

For she always lost,

That the Count did not count quite fairly.

CCLXXXV.

And then came dark mistrust and doubt,

Gather'd by worming his secrets out,

And slips in his conversations—

Fears, which all her peace destroy'd,

That his title was null—his coffers were void—

And his French Château was in Spain, or enjoy'd

The most airy of situations.

CCLXXXVI.

But still his heart—if he had such a part—

She—only she—might possess his heart,

And hold his affections in fetters—

Alas! that hope, like a crazy ship,

Was forced its anchor and cable to slip

When, seduced by her fears, she took a dip

In his private papers and letters.

CCLXXXVII.

Letters that told of dangerous leagues;

And notes that hinted as many intrigues

As the Count's in the "Barber of Seville"—

In short such mysteries came to light,

That the Countess-Bride, on the thirtieth night,

Woke and started up in affright,

And kick'd and scream'd with all her might,

And finally fainted away outright,

For she dreamt she had married the Devil!

HER MISERY.

CCLXXXVIII.

Who hath not met with home-made bread,

A heavy compound of putty and lead—

And home-made wines that rack the head,

And home-made liqueurs and waters?

Home-made pop that will not foam,

And home-made dishes that drive one from home,

Not to name each mess,

For the face or dress,

Home-made by the homely daughters?

CCLXXXIX.

Home-made physic that sickens the sick;

Thick for thin and thin for thick;—

In short each homogeneous trick

For poisoning domesticity?

And since our Parents, call'd the First,

A little family squabble nurst,

Of all our evils the worst of the worst

Is home-made infelicity.

CCXC.

There's a Golden Bird that claps its wings,

And dances for joy on its perch, and sings

With a Persian exultation:

For the Sun is shining into the room,

And brightens up the carpet-bloom,

As if it were new, bran new, from the loom,

Or the lone Nun's fabrication.

CCXCI.

And thence the glorious radiance flames

On pictures in massy gilded frames—

Enshrining, however, no painted Dames,

But portraits of colts and fillies—

Pictures hanging on walls, which shine,

In spite of the bard's familiar line,

With clusters of "Gilded lilies."

CCXCII.

And still the flooding sunlight shares

Its lustre with gilded sofas and chairs,

That shine as if freshly burnish'd—

And gilded tables, with glittering stocks

Of gilded china, and golden clocks,

Toy, and trinket, and musical box,

That Peace and Paris have furnish'd.

CCXCIII.

And lo! with the brightest gleam of all

The glowing sunbeam is seen to fall

On an object as rare as spendid—

The golden foot of the Golden Leg

Of the Countess—once Miss Kilmansegg—

But there all sunshine is ended.

CCXCIV.

Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim,

And downward cast, yet not at the limb,

Once the centre of all speculation;

But downward dropping in comfort's dearth,

As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the earth—

Whence human sorrows derive their birth—

By a moral gravitation.

CCXCV.

Her golden hair is out of its braids,

And her sighs betray the gloomy shades

That her evil planet revolves in—

And tears are falling that catch a gleam

So bright as they drop in the sunny beam,

That tears of aqua regia they seem,

The water that gold dissolves in;

CCXCVI.

Yet, not in filial grief were shed

Those tears for a mother's insanity;

Nor yet because her father was dead,

For the bowing Sir Jacob had bow'd his head

To Death—with his usual urbanity;

The waters that down her visage rill'd

Were drops of unrectified spirit distill'd

From the limbeck of Pride and Vanity.

CCXCVII.

Tears that fell alone and unchecked,

Without relief, and without respect,

Like the fabled pearls that the pigs neglect,

When pigs have that opportunity—

And of all the griefs that mortals share,

The one that seems the hardest to bear

Is the grief without community.

CCXCVIII.

How bless'd the heart that has a friend

A sympathising ear to lend

To troubles too great to smother!

For as ale and porter, when flat, are restored

Till a sparkling bubbling head they afford,

So sorrow is cheer'd by being pour'd

From one vessel into another.

CCXCIX.

But a friend or gossip she had not one

To hear the vile deeds that the Count had done,

How night after night he rambled;

And how she had learn'd by sad degrees

That he drank, and smoked, and worse than these,

That he "swindled, intrigued, and gambled."

CCC.

How he kiss'd the maids, and sparr'd with John;

And came to bed with his garments on;

With other offences as heinous—

And brought strange gentlemen home to dine

That he said were in the Fancy Line,

And they fancied spirits instead of wine,

And call'd her lap-dog "Wenus."

CCCI.

Of "Making a book" how he made a stir,

But never had written a line to her,

Once his idol and Cara Sposa:

And how he had storm'd, and treated her ill,

Because she refused to go down to a mill,

She didn't know where, but remember'd still

That the Miller's name was Mendoza.

CCCII.

How often he waked her up at night,

And oftener still by the morning light,

Reeling home from his haunts unlawful;

Singing songs that shouldn't be sung,

Except by beggars and thieves unhung—

Or volleying oaths, that a foreign tongue

Made still more horrid and awful!

CCCIII.

How oft, instead of otto rose,

With vulgar smells he offended her nose,

From gin, tobacco, and onion!

And then how wildly he used to stare!

And shake his fist at nothing, and swear,—

And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair,

Till he look'd like a study of Giant Despair

For a new Edition of Bunyan!

CCCIV.

For dice will run the contrary way,

As well is known to all who play,

And cards will conspire as in treason:

And what with keeping a hunting-box,

Following fox—

Friends in flocks,

Burgundies, Hocks,

From London Docks,

Stultz's frocks,

Manton and Nock's

Barrels and locks,

Shooting blue rocks,

Trainers and jocks,

Buskins and socks,

Pugilistical knocks,

And fighting-cocks,

If he found himself short in funds and stocks,

These rhymes will furnish the reason!

CCCV.

His friends, indeed, were falling away—

Friends who insist on play or pay—

And he fear'd at no very distant day

To be cut by Lord and by cadger,

As one, who has gone, or is going, to smash,

For his checks no longer drew the cash,

Because, as his comrades explain'd in flash,

"He had overdrawn his badger."

CCCVI.

Gold, gold—alas! for the gold

Spent where souls are bought and sold,

In Vice's Walpurgis revel!

Alas! for muffles, and bulldogs, and guns,

The leg that walks, and the leg that runs,

All real evils, though Fancy ones,

When they lead to debt, dishonor, and duns,

Nay, to death, and perchance the devil!

CCCVII.

Alas! for the last of a Golden race!

Had she cried her wrongs in the market-place,

She had warrant for all her clamor—

For the worst of rogues, and brutes, and rakes,

Was breaking her heart by constant aches,

With as little remorse as the Pauper, who breaks

A flint with a parish hammer!

HER LAST WILL.

CCCVIII.

Now the Precious Leg while cash was flush,

Or the Count's acceptance worth a rush,

Had never created dissension;

But no sooner the stocks began to fall,

Than, without any ossification at all,

The limb became what people call

A perfect bone of contention.

CCCIX.

For alter'd days brought alter'd ways,

And instead of the complimentary phrase,

So current before her bridal—

The Countess heard, in language low,

That her Precious Leg was precious slow,

A good 'un to look at but bad to go,

And kept quite a sum lying idle.

CCCX.

That instead of playing musical airs,

Like Colin's foot in going upstairs—

As the wife in the Scottish ballad declares—

It made an infernal stumping.

Whereas a member of cork, or wood,

Would be lighter and cheaper and quite as good,

Without the unbearable thumping.

CCCXI.

P'raps she thought it a decent thing

To show her calf to cobbler and king,

But nothing could be absurder—

While none but the crazy would advertise

Their gold before their servants' eyes,

Who of course some night would make it a prize,

By a Shocking and Barbarous Murder.

CCCXII.

But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff,

The Leg kept its situation:

For legs are not to be taken off

By a verbal amputation.

And mortals when they take a whim,

The greater the folly the stiffer the limb

That stand upon it or by it—

So the Countess, then Miss Kilmansegg,

At her marriage refused to stir a peg,

Till the Lawyers had fasten'd on her Leg

As fast as the Law could tie it.

CCCXIII.

Firmly then—and more firmly yet—

With scorn for scorn, and with threat for threat,

The Proud One confronted the Cruel:

And loud and bitter the quarrel arose,

Fierce and merciless—one of those,

With spoken daggers, and looks like blows,

In all but the bloodshed a duel!

CCCXIV.

Rash, and wild, and wretched, and wrong,

Were the words that came from Weak and Strong,

Till madden'd for desperate matters,

Fierce as tigress escaped from her den,

She flew to her desk—'twas open'd—and then,

In the time it takes to try a pen,

Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen,

Her Will was in fifty tatters!

CCCXV.

But the Count, instead of curses wild,

Only nodded his head and smiled,

As if at the spleen of an angry child;

But the calm was deceitful and sinister!

A lull like the lull of the treacherous sea—

For Hate in that moment had sworn to be

The Golden Leg's sole Legatee,

And that very night to administer!

HER DEATH.

CCCXVI.

'Tis a stern and startling thing to think

How often mortality stands on the brink

Of its grave without any misgiving:

And yet in this slippery world of strife,

In the stir of human bustle so rife,

There are daily sounds to tell us that Life

Is dying, and Death is living!

CCCXVII.

Ay, Beauty the Girl, and Love the Boy,

Bright as they are with hope and joy,

How their souls would sadden instanter,

To remember that one of those wedding bells,

Which ring so merrily through the dells,

Is the same that knells

Our last farewells,

Only broken into a canter!

CCCXVIII.

But breath and blood set doom at nought—

How little the wretched Countess thought,

When at night she unloosed her sandal,

That the Fates had woven her burial-cloth,

And that Death, in the shape of a Death's Head Moth,

Was fluttering round her candle!

CCCXIX.

As she look'd at her clock of or-molu,

For the hours she had gone so wearily through

At the end of a day of trial—

How little she saw in her pride of prime

The dart of Death in the Hand of Time—

That hand which moved on the dial!

CCCXX.

As she went with her taper up the stair,

How little her swollen eye was aware

That the Shadow which followed was double!

Or when she closed her chamber door,

It was shutting out, and forevermore,

The world—and its worldly trouble.

CCCXXI.

Little she dreamt, as she laid aside

Her jewels—after one glance of pride—

They were solemn bequests to Vanity—

Or when her robes she began to doff,

That she stood so near to the putting off

Of the flesh that clothes humanity.

CCCXXII.

And when she quench'd the taper's light,

How little she thought as the smoke took flight,

That her day was done—and merged in a night

Of dreams and duration uncertain—

Or along with her own,

That a Hand of Bone

Was closing mortality's curtain!

CCCXXIII.

But life is sweet, and mortality blind,

And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind

In concealing the day of sorrow;

And enough is the present tense of toil—

For this world is, to all, a stiffish soil—

And the mind flies back with a glad recoil

From the debts not due till to-morrow.

CCCXXIV.

Wherefore else does the Spirit fly

And bid its daily cares good-bye,

Along with its daily clothing?

Just as the felon condemn'd to die—

With a very natural loathing—

Leaving the Sheriff to dream of ropes,

From his gloomy cell in a vision elopes,

To a caper on sunny gleams and slopes,

Instead of a dance upon nothing.

CCCXXV.

Thus, even thus, the Countess slept,

While Death still nearer and nearer crept,

Like the Thane who smote the sleeping—

But her mind was busy with early joys,

Her golden treasures and golden toys;

That flash'd a bright

And golden light

Under lids still red with weeping.

CCCXXVI.

The golden doll that she used to hug!

Her coral of gold, and the golden mug!

Her godfather's golden presents!

The golden service she had at her meals,

The golden watch, and chain, and seals,

Her golden scissors, and thread, and reels,

And her golden fishes and pheasants!

CCCXXVII.

The golden guineas in silken purse—

And the Golden Legends she heard from her nurse

Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage—

And London streets that were paved with gold—

And the Golden Eggs that were laid of old—

With each golden thing

To the golden ring

At her own auriferous Marriage!

CCCXXVIII.

And still the golden light of the sun

Through her golden dream appear'd to run,

Though the night, that roared without, was one

To terrify seamen or gypsies—

While the moon, as if in malicious mirth,

Kept peeping down at the ruffled earth,

As though she enjoy'd the tempest's birth,

In revenge of her old eclipses.

CCCXXIX.

But vainly, vainly, the thunder fell,

For the soul of the Sleeper was under a spell

That time had lately embitter'd—

The Count, as once at her foot he knelt—

That foot, which now he wanted to melt!

But—hush!—'twas a stir at her pillow she felt—

And some object before her glitter'd.

CCCXXX.

'Twas the Golden Leg!—she knew its gleam!

And up she started and tried to scream,—

But ev'n in the moment she started

Down came the limb with a frightful smash,

And, lost in the universal flash

That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash,

The Spark, call'd Vital, departed!

---

CCCXXXI.

Gold, still gold! hard, yellow, and cold,

For gold she had lived, and she died for gold—

By a golden weapon—not oaken;

In the morning they found her all alone—

Stiff, and bloody, and cold as stone—

But her Leg, the Golden Leg, was gone,

And the "Golden Bowl was broken!"

CCCXXXII.

Gold—still gold! it haunted her yet—

At the Golden Lion the Inquest met—

Its foreman, a carver and gilder—

And the Jury debated from twelve till three

What the Verdict ought to be,

And they brought it in as Felo de Se,

"Because her own Leg had kill'd her!"

HER MORAL.

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!

Bright and yellow, hard and cold,

Molten, graven, hammer'd and roll'd;

Heavy to get, and light to hold;

Hoarded, barter'd, bought, and sold,

Stolen, borrow'd, squander'd, doled:

Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old

To the very verge of the churchyard mould;

Price of many a crime untold;

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold:

Good or bad a thousand-fold!

How widely its agencies vary—

To save—to ruin—to curse—to bless—

As even its minted coins express,

Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess,

And now of a Bloody Mary.

[THE LEE SHORE.]

Sleet! and Hail! and Thunder!

And ye Winds that rave,

Till the sands thereunder

Tinge the sullen wave—

Winds, that like a Demon,

Howl with horrid note

Round the toiling Seaman,

In his tossing boat—

From his humble dwelling,

On the shingly shore,

Where the billows swelling,

Keep such hollow roar—

From that weeping Woman,

Seeking with her cries

Succor superhuman

From the frowning skies—

From the Urchin pining

For his Father's knee—

From the lattice shining—

Drive him out to sea!

Let broad leagues dissever

Him from yonder foam—

Oh, God! to think Man ever

Comes too near his Home!

[SONNET.]

The world is with me, and its many cares,

Its woes—its wants—the anxious hopes and fears

That wait on all terrestrial affairs—

The shades of former and of future years—

Foreboding fancies, and prophetic tears,

Quelling a spirit that was once elate:—

Heavens! what a wilderness the earth appears,

Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of date!

But no—a laugh of innocence and joy

Resounds, like music of the fairy race,

And gladly turning from the world's annoy

I gaze upon a little radiant face,

And bless, internally, the merry boy

Who "makes a son-shine in a shady-place."

[THE ELM TREE.]

A DREAM IN THE WOODS.

"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees."—As You Like It.

'Twas in a shady Avenue,

Where lofty Elms abound—

And from a Tree

There came to me

A sad and solemn sound,

That sometimes murmur'd overhead,

And sometimes underground.

Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh,

Amid the boughs to moan;

It mutter'd in the stem, and then

The roots took up the tone;

As if beneath the dewy grass

The dead began to groan.

No breeze there was to stir the leaves;

No bolts that tempests launch,

To rend the trunk or rugged bark;

No gale to bend the branch;

No quake of earth to heave the roots,

That stood so stiff and staunch.

No bird was preening up aloft,

To rustle with its wing;

No squirrel, in its sport or fear.

From bough to bough to spring.

The solid bole

Had ne'er a hole

To hide a living thing!

No scooping hollow cell to lodge

A furtive beast or fowl,

The martin, bat,

Or forest cat

That nightly loves to prowl,

Nor ivy nooks so apt to shroud

The moping, snoring owl.

But still the sound was in my ear,

A sad and solemn sound,

That sometimes murmur'd overhead,

And sometimes underground—

'Twas in a shady Avenue

Where lofty Elms abound.

Oh hath the Dryad still a tongue

In this ungenial clime?

Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice

As in the classic prime—

To make the forest voluble,

As in the olden time?

The olden time is dead and gone;

Its years have fill'd their sum—

And e'en in Greece—her native Greece—

The Sylvan Nymph is dumb—

From ash, and beech, and aged oak,

No classic whispers come,

From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch,

And fragrant Linden Trees;

No living sound

E'er hovers round,

Unless the vagrant breeze,

The music of the merry bird,

Or hum of busy bees.

But busy bees forsake the Elm

That bears no bloom aloft—

The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush,

The Blackbird in the croft;

And among the firs the brooding Dove,

That else might murmur soft.

Yet still I heard that solemn sound,

And sad it was to boot,

From ev'ry overhanging bough,

And each minuter shoot;

From rugged trunk and mossy rind,

And from the twisted root.

From these,—a melancholy moan;

From those,—a dreary sigh;

As if the boughs were wintry bare,

And wild winds sweeping by—

Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud

Was steadfast in the sky.

No sign or touch of stirring air

Could either sense observe—

The zephyr had not breath enough

The thistle-down to swerve,

Or force the filmy gossamers

To take another curve.

In still and silent slumber hush'd

All Nature seem'd to be:

From heaven above, or earth beneath,

No whisper came to me—

Except the solemn sound and sad

From that MYSTERIOUS TREE!

A hollow, hollow, hollow, sound,

As is that dreamy roar

When distant billows boil and bound

Along a shingly shore—

But the ocean brim was far aloof,

A hundred miles or more.

No murmur of the gusty sea,

No tumult of the beach,

However they may foam and fret,

The bounded sense could reach—

Methought the trees in mystic tongue

Were talking each to each!—

Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales

Of greenwood love or guilt,

Of whisper'd vows

Beneath their boughs;

Or blood obscurely spilt,

Or of that near-hand Mansion House

A royal Tudor built.

Perchance, of booty won or shared

Beneath the starry cope—

Or where the suicidal wretch

Hung up the fatal rope;

Or Beauty kept an evil tryste,

Insnared by Love and Hope.

Of graves, perchance, untimely scoop'd

At midnight dark and dank—

And what is underneath the sod

Whereon the grass is rank—

Of old intrigues,

And privy leagues,

Tradition leaves in blank.

Of traitor lips that mutter'd plots—

Of Kin who fought and fell—

God knows the undiscovered schemes,

The arts and acts of Hell,

Perform'd long generations since,

If trees had tongues to tell!

With wary eyes, and ears alert,

As one who walks afraid,

I wander'd down the dappled path

Of mingled light and shade—

How sweetly gleam'd that arch of blue

Beyond the green arcade!

How cheerily shone the glimpse of Heav'n

Beyond that verdant aisle!

All overarch'd with lofty elms,

That quench'd the light, the while,

As dim and chill

As serves to fill

Some old Cathedral pile!

And many a gnarlèd trunk was there,

That ages long had stood,

Till Time had wrought them into shapes

Like Pan's fantastic brood;

Or still more foul and hideous forms

That Pagans carve in wood!

A crouching Satyr lurking here—

And there a Goblin grim—

As staring full of demon life

As Gothic sculptor's whim—

A marvel it had scarcely been

To hear a voice from him!

Some whisper from that horrid mouth

Of strange, unearthly tone;

Or wild infernal laugh, to chill

One's marrow in the bone.

But no—it grins like rigid Death,

And silent as a stone!

As silent as its fellows be,

For all is mute with them—

The branch that climbs the leafy roof—

The rough and mossy stem—

The crooked root,

And tender shoot,

Where hangs the dewy gem.

One mystic Tree alone there is,

Of sad and solemn sound—

That sometimes murmurs overhead,

And sometimes underground—

In all that shady Avenue,

Where lofty Elms abound.

PART II.

The Scene is changed! No green Arcade,

No Trees all ranged a-row—

But scatter'd like a beaten host,

Dispersing to and fro;

With here and there a sylvan corse,

That fell before the foe.

The Foe that down in yonder dell

Pursues his daily toil;

As witness many a prostrate trunk,

Bereft of leafy spoil,

Hard by its wooden stump, whereon

The adder loves to coil.

Alone he works—his ringing blows

Have banish'd bird and beast;

The Hind and Fawn have canter'd off

A hundred yards at least;

And on the maple's lofty top

The linnet's song has ceased.

No eye his labor overlooks,

Or when he takes his rest,

Except the timid thrush that peeps

Above her secret nest,

Forbid by love to leave the young

Beneath her speckled breast.

The Woodman's heart is in his work,

His axe is sharp and good:

With sturdy arm and steady aim

He smites the gaping wood;

From distant rocks

His lusty knocks

Re-echo many a rood.

His axe is keen, his arm is strong;

The muscles serve him well;

His years have reach'd an extra span,

The number none can tell;

But still his lifelong task has been

The Timber Tree to fell.

Through Summer's parching sultriness,

And Winter's freezing cold,

From sapling youth

To virile growth.

And Age's rigid mould,

His energetic axe hath rung

Within that Forest old.

Aloft, upon his poising steel

The vivid sunbeams glance—

About his head and round his feet

The forest shadows dance;

And bounding from his russet coat

The acorn drops askance.

His face is like a Druid's face,

With wrinkles furrow'd deep,

And tann'd by scorching suns as brown

As corn that's ripe to reap;

But the hair on brow, and cheek, and chin,

Is white as wool of sheep.

His frame is like a giant's frame;

His legs are long and stark;

His arms like limbs of knotted yew;

His hands like rugged bark;

So he felleth still

With right good will,

As if to build an Ark!

Oh! well within His fatal path

The fearful Tree might quake

Through every fibre, twig, and leaf,

With aspen tremor shake;

Through trunk and root,

And branch and shoot,

A low complaining make!

Oh! well to Him the Tree might breathe

A sad and solemn sound,

A sigh that murmur'd overhead,

And groans from underground;

As in that shady Avenue

Where lofty Elms abound!

But calm and mute the Maple stands,

The Plane, the Ash, the Fir,

The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch,

Without the least demur;

And e'en the Aspen's hoary leaf

Makes no unusual stir.

The Pines—those old gigantic Pines,

That writhe—recalling soon

The famous Human Group that writhes

With Snakes in wild festoon—

In ramous wrestlings interlaced

A Forest Laocoon—

Like Titans of primeval girth

By tortures overcome,

Their brown enormous limbs they twine,

Bedew'd with tears of gum—

Fierce agonies that ought to yell,

But, like the marble, dumb.

Nay, yonder blasted Elm that stands

So like a man of sin,

Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad

To feel the Worm within—

For all that gesture, so intense,

It makes no sort of din!

An universal silence reigns

In rugged bark or peel,

Except that very trunk which rings

Beneath the biting steel—

Meanwhile the Woodman plies his axe

With unrelenting zeal!

No rustic song is on his tongue,

No whistle on his lips;

But with a quiet thoughtfulness

His trusty tool he grips,

And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking out

The bright and flying chips.

Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint

He spreads the fatal gash;

Till, lo! the remnant fibres rend,

With harsh and sudden crash,

And on the dull resounding turf

The jarring branches lash!

Oh! now the Forest Trees may sigh,

The Ash, the Poplar tall,

The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch,

The Aspens—one and all,

With solemn groan

And hollow moan

Lament a comrade's fall!

A goodly Elm, of noble girth,

That, thrice the human span—

While on their variegated course

The constant Seasons ran—

Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt,

Had stood erect as Man.

But now, like mortal Man himself,

Struck down by hand of God,

Or heathen Idol tumbled prone

Beneath th' Eternal's nod,

In all its giant bulk and length

It lies along the sod!

Ay, now the Forest Trees may grieve

And make a common moan

Around that patriarchal trunk

So newly overthrown;

And with a murmur recognize

A doom to be their own!

The Echo sleeps: the idle axe,

A disregarded tool,

Lies crushing with its passive weight

The toad's reputed stool—

The Woodman wipes his dewy brow

Within the shadows cool.

No Zephyr stirs: the ear may catch

The smallest insect-hum;

But on the disappointed sense

No mystic whispers come;

No tone of sylvan sympathy,

The Forest Trees are dumb.

No leafy noise, nor inward voice,

No sad and solemn sound,

That sometimes murmurs overhead,

And sometimes underground;

As in that shady Avenue,

Where lofty Elms abound!

PART III.

The deed is done: the Tree is low

That stood so long and firm;

The Woodman and his axe are gone,

His toil has found its term;

And where he wrought the speckled Thrush

Securely hunts the worm.

The Cony from the sandy bank

Has run a rapid race,

Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern,

To seek the open space;

And on its haunches sits erect

To clean its furry face.

The dappled Fawn is close at hand,

The Hind is browsing near,—

And on the Larch's lowest bough

The Ousel whistles clear;

But checks the note

Within its throat,

As choked with sudden fear!

With sudden fear her wormy quest

The Thrush abruptly quits—

Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern

The startled Cony flits;

And on the Larch's lowest bough

No more the Ousel sits.

With sudden fear

The dappled Deer

Effect a swift escape;

But well might bolder creatures start,

And fly, or stand agape,

With rising hair, and curdled blood,

To see so grim a Shape!

The very sky turns pale above;

The earth grows dark beneath;

The human Terror thrills with cold

And draws a shorter breath—

An universal panic owns

The dread approach of DEATH!

With silent pace, as shadows come,

And dark as shadows be,

The grisly Phantom takes his stand

Beside the fallen Tree,

And scans it with his gloomy eyes,

And laughs with horrid glee—

A dreary laugh and desolate,

Where mirth is void and null,

As hollow as its echo sounds

Within the hollow skull—

"Whoever laid this tree along,

His hatchet was not dull!

"The human arm and human tool

Have done their duty well!

But after sound of ringing axe

Must sound the ringing knell;

When Elm or Oak

Have felt the stroke,

My turn it is to fell!

"No passive unregarded tree,

A senseless thing of wood,

Wherein the sluggish sap ascends

To swell the vernal bud—

But conscious, moving, breathing trunks

That throb with living blood!

"No forest Monarch yearly clad

In mantle green or brown;

That unrecorded lives, and falls

By hand of rustic clown—

But Kings who don the purple robe,

And wear the jewell'd crown.

"Ah! little recks the Royal mind,

Within his Banquet Hall,

While tapers shine and Music breathes

And Beauty leads the Ball,—

He little recks the oaken plank

Shall be his palace wall!

"Ah, little dreams the haughty Peer,

The while his Falcon flies—

Or on the blood-bedabbled turf

The antler'd quarry dies—

That in his own ancestral Park

The narrow dwelling lies!

"But haughty Peer and mighty King

One doom shall overwhelm!

The oaken cell

Shall lodge him well

Whose sceptre ruled a realm—

While he, who never knew a home,

Shall find it in the Elm!

"The tatter'd, lean, dejected wretch,

Who begs from door to door,

And dies within the cressy ditch,

Or on the barren moor,

The friendly Elm shall lodge and clothe

That houseless man and poor!

"Yea, this recumbent rugged trunk,

That lies so long and prone,

With many a fallen acorn-cup,

And mast, and furry cone—

This rugged trunk shall hold its share

Of mortal flesh and bone!

"A Miser hoarding heaps of gold,

But pale with ague-fears—

A Wife lamenting love's decay,

With secret cruel tears,

Distilling bitter, bitter drops

From sweets of former years—

"A Man within whose gloomy mind

Offence had deeply sunk,

Who out of fierce Revenge's cup

Hath madly, darkly drunk—

Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep

Within this very trunk!

"This massy trunk that lies along,

And many more must fall—

For the very knave

Who digs the grave,

The man who spreads the pall,

And he who tolls the funeral bell,

The Elm shall have them all!

"The tall abounding Elm that grows

In hedgerows up and down;

In field and forest, copse and park,

And in the peopled town,

With colonies of noisy rooks

That nestle on its crown.

"And well th' abounding Elm may grow

In field and hedge so rife,

In forest, copse, and wooded park,

And 'mid the city's strife,

For, every hour that passes by

Shall end a human life!"

The Phantom ends: the shade is gone;

The sky is clear and bright;

On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree,

There glows a ruddy light;

And bounding through the golden fern

The Rabbit comes to bite.

The Thrush's mate beside her sits

And pipes a merry lay;

The Dove is in the evergreen;

And on the Larch's spray

The Fly-bird flutters up and down,

To catch its tiny prey.

The gentle Hind and dappled Fawn

Are coming up the glade;

Each harmless furr'd and feather'd thing

Is glad, and not afraid—

But on my sadden'd spirit still

The Shadow leaves a shade.

A secret, vague, prophetic gloom,

As though by certain mark

I knew the fore-appointed Tree,

Within whose rugged bark

This warm and living frame shall find

Its narrow house and dark.

That mystic Tree which breathed to me

A sad and solemn sound,

That sometimes murmur'd overhead,

And sometimes underground;

Within that shady Avenue

Where lofty Elms abound.

[LEAR.]

A poor old king, with sorrow for my crown,

Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind—

For pity, my own tears have made me blind

That I might never see my children's frown;

And, may be, madness, like a friend, has thrown

A folded fillet over my dark mind,

So that unkindly speech may sound for kind—

Albeit I know not.—I am childish grown—

And have not gold to purchase wit withal—

I that have once maintain'd most royal state—

A very bankrupt now that may not call

My child, my child—all beggar'd save in tears,

Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate,

Foolish—and blind—and overcome with years!

[SONNET.]

My heart is sick with longing, tho' I feed

On hope; Time goes with such a heavy pace

That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace,

As if he slept—forgetting his old speed:

For, as in sunshine only we can read

The march of minutes on the dial's face,

So in the shadows of this lonely place

There is no love, and Time is dead indeed.

But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart,

Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies,

It seems we only meet to tear apart,

With aching hands and lingering of eyes.

Alas, alas! that we must learn hours' flight

By the same light of love that makes them bright!

[THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.]

With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread—

Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch

She sang the "Song of the Shirt."

"Work! work! work!

While the cock is crowing aloof!

And work—work—work,

Till the stars shine through the roof!

It's Oh! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk,

Where woman has never a soul to save,

If this is Christian work!

"Work—work—work

Till the brain begins to swim;

Work—work—work

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Till over the buttons I fall asleep,

And sew them on in a dream!

"Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!

Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives!

It is not linen you're wearing out,

But human creatures' lives!

Stitch—stitch—stitch,

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

Sewing at once, with a double thread,

A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

"But why do I talk of Death?

That Phantom of grisly bone,

I hardly fear his terrible shape,

It seems so like my own—

It seems so like my own,

Because of the fasts I keep;

Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,

And flesh and blood so cheap!"

"Work—work—work!"

My labor never flags;

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,

A crust of bread—and rags.

That shattered roof—and this naked floor—

A table—a broken chair—

And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank

For sometimes falling there!

"Work—work—work!

From weary chime to chime,

Work—work—work—

As prisoners work for crime!

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,

As well as the weary hand.

"Work—work—work,

In the dull December light,

And work—work—work,

When the weather is warm and bright—

While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling

As if to show me their sunny backs

And twit me with the spring.

"Oh! but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet—

With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet,

For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want

And the walk that costs a meal!

"Oh! but for one short hour!

A respite however brief!

No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,

But only time for Grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart,

But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop

Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread—

Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch—

Would that its tone could reach the Rich!—

She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"

[THE PAUPER'S CHRISTMAS CAROL.]

Full of drink and full of meat,

On our SAVIOUR'S natal day,

CHARITY'S perennial treat;

Thus I heard a Pauper say:—

"Ought not I to dance and sing

Thus supplied with famous cheer?

Heigho!

I hardly know—

Christmas comes but once a year.

"After labor's long turmoil,

Sorry fare and frequent fast,

Two-and-fifty weeks of toil,

Pudding-time is come at last!

But are raisins high or low,

Flour and suet cheap or dear?

Heigho!

I hardly know—

Christmas comes but once a year.

"Fed upon the coarsest fare

Three hundred days and sixty-four,

But for one on viands rare,

Just as if I wasn't poor!

Ought not I to bless my stars,

Warden, clerk, and overseer?

Heigho!

I hardly know—

Christmas comes but once a year.

"Treated like a welcome guest,

One of Nature's social chain,

Seated, tended on, and press'd—

But when shall I be press'd again,

Twice to pudding, thrice to beef,

A dozen times to ale and beer?

Heigho!

I hardly know—

Christmas comes but once a year.

"Come to-morrow how it will;

Diet scant and usage rough,

Hunger once has had its fill,

Thirst for once has had enough,

But shall I ever dine again?

Or see another feast appear?

Heigho!

I only know—

Christmas comes but once a year!

"Frozen cares begin to melt,

Hopes revive and spirits flow—

Feeling as I have not felt

Since a dozen months ago—

Glad enough to sing a song—

To-morrow shall I volunteer?

Heigho!

I hardly know—

Christmas comes but once a year.

"Bright and blessed is the time,

Sorrows end and joys begin,

While the bells with merry chime

Ring the Day of Plenty in!

But the happy tide to hail,

With a sigh or with or a tear,

Heigho!

I hardly know—

Christmas comes but once a year!"

[THE HAUNTED HOUSE][18]

A ROMANCE.

"A jolly place, said he, in days of old,

But something ails it now: the spot is curst."

WORDSWORTH.

PART I.

Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,

Unnatural, and full of contradictions;

Yet others of our most romantic schemes

Are something more than fictions.

It might be only on enchanted ground;

It might be merely by a thought's expansion;

But, in the spirit or the flesh, I found

An old deserted Mansion.

A residence for woman, child, and man,

A dwelling place,—and yet no habitation;

A House,—but under some prodigious ban

Of excommunication.

Unhinged the iron gates half open hung,

Jarr'd by the gusty gales of many winters,

That from its crumbled pedestal had flung

One marble globe in splinters.

No dog was at the threshold, great or small;

No pigeon on the roof—no household creature—

No cat demurely dozing on the wall—

Not one domestic feature.

No human figure stirr'd, to go or come,

No face look'd forth from shut or open casement;

No chimney smoked—there was no sign of Home

From parapet to basement.

With shatter'd panes the grassy court was starr'd;

The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after;

And thro' the ragged roof the sky shone, barr'd

With naked beam and rafter.

O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear;

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is Haunted!

The flow'r grew wild and rankly as the weed,

Roses with thistles struggled for espial,

And vagrant plants of parasitic breed

Had overgrown the Dial.

But gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm,

No heart was there to heed the hour's duration;

All times and tides were lost in one long term

Of stagnant desolation.

The wren had built within the Porch, she found

Its quiet loneliness so sure and thorough;

And on the lawn,—within its turfy mound,—

The rabbit made his burrow.

The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted thro'

The shrubby clumps, and frisk'd, and sat, and vanish'd,

But leisurely and bold, as if he knew

His enemy was banish'd.

The wary crow,—the pheasant from the woods—

Lull'd by the still and everlasting sameness,

Close to the mansion, like domestic broods,

Fed with a "shocking tameness."

The coot was swimming in the reedy pond,

Beside the water-hen, so soon affrighted;

And in the weedy moat the heron, fond

Of solitude, alighted.

The moping heron, motionless and stiff,

That on a stone, as silently and stilly,

Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if

To guard the water-lily.

No sound was heard except, from far away,

The ringing of the witwall's shrilly laughter,

Or, now and then, the chatter of the jay,

That Echo murmur'd after.

But Echo never mock'd the human tongue;

Some weighty crime, that Heaven could not pardon,

A secret curse on that old Building hung,

And its deserted Garden.

The beds were all untouch'd by hand or tool;

No footstep marked the damp and mossy gravel,

Each walk as green as is the mantled pool,

For want of human travel.

The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach,

Droop'd from the wall with which they used to grapple;

And on the canker'd tree, in easy reach,

Rotted the golden apple.

But awfully the truant shunn'd the ground,

The vagrant kept aloof, and daring Poacher;

In spite of gaps that thro' the fences round

Invited the encroacher.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is Haunted!

The pear and quince lay squander'd on the grass;

The mould was purple with unheeded showers

Of bloomy plums—a Wilderness it was

Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers!

The marigold amidst the nettles blew,

The gourd embraced the rose bush in its ramble,

The thistle and the stock together grew,

The holly-hock and bramble.

The bear-bine with the lilac interlaced,

The sturdy bur-dock choked its slender neighbor,

The spicy pink. All tokens were effaced

Of human care and labor.

The very yew Formality had train'd

To such a rigid pyramidal stature,

For want of trimming had almost regain'd

The raggedness of nature.

The Fountain was a-dry—neglect and time

Had marr'd the work of artisan and mason,

And efts and croaking frogs, begot of slime,

Sprawl'd in the ruin'd bason.

The Statue, fallen from its marble base,

Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage rotten,

Lay like the Idol of some bygone race,

Its name and rites forgotten.

On ev'ry side the aspect was the same,

All ruin'd, desolate, forlorn, and savage:

No hand or foot within the precinct came

To rectify or ravage.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is Haunted!

PART II.

O, very gloomy is the House of Woe,

Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling,

With all the dark solemnities which show

That Death is in the dwelling!

O very, very dreary is the room

Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles,

But, smitten by the common stroke of doom,

The Corpse lies on the trestles!

But House of Woe, and hearse, and sable pall,

The narrow home of the departed mortal,

Ne'er look'd so gloomy as that Ghostly Hall,

With its deserted portal!

The centipede along the threshold crept,

The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle,

And in its winding-sheet the maggot slept,

At every nook and angle.

The keyhole lodged the earwig and her brood,

The emmets of the steps had old possession,

And march'd in search of their diurnal food

In undisturb'd procession.

As undisturb'd as the prehensile cell

Of moth or maggot, or the spider's tissue,

For never foot upon that threshold fell,

To enter or to issue.

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is Haunted!

Howbeit, the door I push'd—or so I dream'd—

Which slowly, slowly gaped,—the hinges creaking

With such a rusty eloquence, it seem'd

That Time himself was speaking.

But Time was dumb within that Mansion old,

Or left his tale to the heraldic banners,

That hung from the corroded walls, and told

Of former men and manners:—

Those tatter'd flags, that with the open'd door,

Seem'd the old wave of battle to remember,

While fallen fragments danced upon the floor,

Like dead leaves in December.

The startled bats flew out,—bird after bird,—

The screech-owl overhead began to flutter,

And seem'd to mock the cry that she had heard

Some dying victim utter!

A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof,

And up the stair, and further still and further,

Till in some ringing chamber far aloof

It ceased its tale of murther!

Meanwhile the rusty armor rattled round,

The banner shudder'd, and the ragged streamer;

All things the horrid tenor of the sound

Acknowledged with a tremor.

The antlers, where the helmet hung, and belt,

Stirr'd as the tempest stirs the forest branches,

Or as the stag had trembled when he felt

The blood-hound at his haunches.

The window jingled in its crumbled frame,

And thro' its many gaps of destitution

Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came,

Like those of dissolution.

The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball,

Touch'd by some impulse occult or mechanic;

And nameless beetles ran along the wall

In universal panic.

The subtle spider, that from overhead

Hung like a spy on human guilt and error,

Suddenly turn'd, and up its slender thread

Ran with a nimble terror.

The very stains and fractures on the wall,

Assuming features solemn and terrific,

Hinted some Tragedy of that old Hall,

Lock'd up in hieroglyphic.

Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the doubt,

Wherefore amongst those flags so dull and livid,

The banner of the BLOODY HAND shone out

So ominously vivid.

Some key to that inscrutable appeal,

Which made the very frame of Nature quiver;

And ev'ry thrilling nerve and fibre feel

So ague-like a shiver.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is Haunted!

If but a rat had lingered in the house,

To lure the thought into a social channel!

But not a rat remain'd, or tiny mouse,

To squeak behind the panel.

Huge drops roll'd down the walls, as if they wept;

And where the cricket used to chirp so shrilly

The toad was squatting, and the lizard crept

On that damp hearth and chilly.

For years no cheerful blaze had sparkled there,

Or glanced on coat of buff or knightly metal;

The slug was crawling on the vacant chair,—

The snail upon the settle.

The floor was redolent of mould and must,

The fungus in the rotten seams had quicken'd;

While on the oaken table coats of dust

Perennially had thicken'd.

No mark of leathern jack or metal can,

No cup—no horn—no hospitable token,—

All social ties between that board and Man

Had long ago been broken.

There was so foul a rumor in the air,

The shadow of a Presence so atrocious;

No human creature could have feasted there,

Even the most ferocious.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is Haunted!

PART III.

'Tis hard for human actions to account,

Whether from reason or from impulse only—

But some internal prompting bade me mount

The gloomy stairs and lonely.

Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and damp, and cold,

With odors as from bones and relics carnal,

Deprived of rite, and consecrated mould,

The chapel vault, or charnel.

Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress

Of ev'ry step so many echoes blended,

The mind, with dark misgivings, fear'd to guess

How many feet ascended.

The tempest with its spoils had drifted in,

Till each unwholesome stone was darkly spotted,

As thickly as the leopard's dappled skin,

With leaves that rankly rotted.

The air was thick—and in the upper gloom

The bat—or something in its shape—was winging;

And on the wall, as chilly as a tomb,

The Death's-Head moth was clinging.

That mystic moth, which, with a sense profound

Of all unholy presence, augurs truly;

And with a grim significance flits round

The taper burning bluely.

Such omens in the place there seem'd to be,

At ev'ry crooked turn, or on the landing,

The straining eyeball was prepared to see

Some Apparition standing.

For over all there hung a cloud of fear,

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is Haunted!

Yet no portentous Shape the sight amazed;

Each object plain, and tangible, and valid;

But from their tarnish'd frames dark Figures gazed,

And Faces spectre-pallid.

Not merely with the mimic life that lies

Within the compass of Art's simulation;

Their souls were looking thro' their painted eyes

With awful speculation.

On ev'ry lip a speechless horror dwelt;

On ev'ry brow the burthen of affliction;

The old Ancestral Spirits knew and felt

The House's malediction.

Such earnest woe their features overcast,

They might have stirr'd, or sigh'd, or wept, or spoken;

But, save the hollow moaning of the blast,

The stillness was unbroken.

No other sound or stir of life was there,

Except my steps in solitary clamber,

From flight to flight, from humid stair to stair,

From chamber into chamber.

Deserted rooms of luxury and state,

That old magnificence had richly furnish'd

With pictures, cabinets of ancient date,

And carvings gilt and burnish'd.

Rich hangings, storied by the needle's art

With scripture history, or classic fable;

But all had faded, save one ragged part,

Where Cain was slaying Abel.

The silent waste of mildew and the moth

Had marr'd the tissue with a partial ravage;

But undecaying frown'd upon the cloth

Each feature stern and savage.

The sky was pale; the cloud a thing of doubt;

Some hues were fresh, and some decay'd and duller;

But still the BLOODY HAND shone strangely out

With vehemence of color!

The BLOODY HAND that with a lurid stain

Shone on the dusty floor, a dismal token,

Projected from the casement's painted pane,

Where all beside was broken.

The BLOODY HAND significant of crime,

That glaring on the old heraldic banner,

Had kept its crimson unimpair'd by time,

In such a wondrous manner!

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is Haunted!

The Death Watch tick'd behind the panel'd oak,

Inexplicable tremors shook the arras,

And echoes strange and mystical awoke,

The fancy to embarrass.

Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread,

But thro' one gloomy entrance pointing mostly,

The while some secret inspiration said,

That Chamber is the Ghostly!

Across the door no gossamer festoon

Swung pendulous—no web—no dusty fringes,

No silky chrysalis or white cocoon

About its nooks and hinges.

The spider shunn'd the interdicted room,

The moth, the beetle, and the fly were banish'd,

And where the sunbeam fell athwart the gloom

The very midge had vanish'd.

One lonely ray that glanced upon a Bed,

As if with awful aim direct and certain

To show the BLOODY HAND in burning red

Embroider'd on the curtain.

And yet no gory stain was on the quilt—

The pillow in its place had slowly rotted;

The floor alone retain'd the trace of guilt,

Those boards obscurely spotted.

Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence

With mazy doubles to the grated casement—

Oh what a tale they told of fear intense,

Of horror and amazement!

What human creature in the dead of night

Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel distance?

Had sought the door, the window in his flight,

Striving for dear existence?

What shrieking Spirit in that bloody room

Its mortal frame had violently quitted?—

Across the sunbeam, with a sudden gloom,

A ghostly Shadow flitted.

Across the sunbeam, and along the wall,

But painted on the air so very dimly,

It hardly veil'd the tapestry at all,

Or portrait frowning grimly.

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,

A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,

The place is Haunted!

[THE MARY.]

A SEA-SIDE SKETCH.

Lov'st thou not, Alice, with the early tide

To see the hardy Fisher hoist his mast,

And stretch his sail towards the ocean wide,—

Like God's own beadsman going forth to cast

His net into the deep, which doth provide

Enormous bounties, hidden in its vast

Bosom like Charity's, for all who seek

And take its gracious boon thankful and meek?

The sea is bright with morning,—but the dark

Seems still to linger on his broad black sail,

For it is early hoisted, like a mark

For the low sun to shoot at with his pale

And level beams: All round the shadowy bark

The green wave glimmers, and the gentle gale

Swells in her canvas, till the waters show

The keel's new speed, and whiten at the bow.

Then look abaft—(for thou canst understand

That phrase)—and there he sitteth at the stern,

Grasping the tiller in his broad brown hand,

The hardy Fisherman. Thou may'st discern

Ten fathoms off the wrinkles in the tann'd

And honest countenance that he will turn

To look upon us, with a quiet gaze—

As we are passing on our several ways.

So, some ten days ago, on such a morn,

The Mary, like a seamew, sought her spoil

Amongst the finny race: 'twas when the corn

Woo'd the sharp sickle, and the golden toil

Summon'd all rustic hands to fill the horn

Of Ceres to the brim, that brave turmoil

Was at the prime, and Woodgate went to reap

His harvest too, upon the broad blue deep.

His mast was up, his anchor heaved aboard,

His mainsail stretching in the first gray gleams

Of morning, for the wind. Ben's eye was stored

With fishes—fishes swam in all his dreams,

And all the goodly east seem'd but a hoard

Of silvery fishes, that in shoals and streams

Groped into the deep dusk that fill'd the sky,

For him to catch in meshes of his eye.

For Ben had the true sailor's sanguine heart,

And saw the future with a boy's brave thought,

No doubts, nor faint misgivings had a part

In his bright visions—ay, before he caught

His fish, he sold them in the scaly mart,

And summ'd the net proceeds. This should have brought

Despair upon him when his hopes were foil'd,

But though one crop was marr'd, again he toil'd;

And sow'd his seed afresh.—Many foul blights

Perish'd his hard-won gains—yet he had plann'd

No schemes of too extravagant delights—

No goodly houses on the Goodwin sand—

But a small humble home, and loving nights,

Such as his honest heart and earnest hand

Might fairly purchase. Were these hopes too airy?

Such as they were, they rested on thee, Mary.

She was the prize of many a toilsome year,

And hardwon wages, on the perilous sea—

Of savings ever since the shipboy's tear

Was shed for home, that lay beyond the lee;—

She was purveyor for his other dear

Mary, and for the infant yet to be

Fruit of their married loves. These made him dote

Upon the homely beauties of his boat,

Whose pitch-black hull roll'd darkly on the wave,

No gayer than one single stripe of blue

Could make her swarthy sides. She seem'd a slave,

A negro among boats—that only knew

Hardship and rugged toil—no pennons brave

Flaunted upon the mast—but oft a few

Dark dripping jackets flutter'd to the air,

Ensigns of hardihood and toilsome care.

And when she ventured for the deep, she spread

A tawny sail against the sunbright sky,

Dark as a cloud that journeys overhead—

But then those tawny wings were stretch'd to fly

Across the wide sea desert for the bread

Of babes and mothers—many an anxious eye

Dwelt on her course, and many a fervent pray'r

Invoked the Heavens to protect and spare.

Where is she now? The secrets of the deep

Are dark and hidden from the human ken;

Only the sea-bird saw the surges sweep

Over the bark of the devoted Ben,—

Meanwhile a widow sobs and orphans weep,

And sighs are heard from weatherbeaten men,

Dark sunburnt men, uncouth and rude and hairy,

While loungers idly ask, "Where is the Mary?"

[THE LADY'S DREAM.]

The lady lay in her bed,

Her couch so warm and soft,

But her sleep was restless and broken still;

For turning often and oft

From side to side, she mutter'd and moan'd,

And toss'd her arms aloft.

At last she startled up,

And gazed on the vacant air,

With a look of awe, as if she saw

Some dreadful phantom there—

And then in the pillow she buried her face

From visions ill to bear.

The very curtain shook,

Her terror was so extreme;

And the light that fell on the broider'd quilt

Kept a tremulous gleam;

And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried:—

"Oh me! that awful dream"!

"That weary, weary walk,

In the churchyard's dismal ground!

And those horrible things, with shady wings,

That came and flitted round,—

Death, death, and nothing but death,

In every sight and sound!

"And oh! those maidens young,

Who wrought in that dreary room,

With figures drooping and spectres thin,

And cheeks without a bloom;—

And the Voice that cried, 'For the pomp of pride,

We haste to an early tomb!

"'For the pomp and pleasure of Pride,

We toil like Afric slaves,

And only to earn a home at last,

Where yonder cypress waves;'—

And then they pointed—I never saw

A ground so full of graves!

"And still the coffins came,

With their sorrowful trains and slow;

Coffin after coffin still,

A sad and sickening show;

From grief exempt, I never had dreamt

Of such a World of Woe!

"Of the hearts that daily break,

Of the tears that hourly fall,

Of the many, many troubles of life,

That grieve this earthly ball—

Disease and Hunger, and Pain, and Want,

But now I dreamt of them all!

"For the blind and the cripple were there,

And the babe that pined for bread,

And the houseless man, and the widow poor

Who begged—to bury the dead;

The naked, alas, that I might have clad,

The famish'd I might have fed!

"The sorrow I might have sooth'd,

And the unregarded tears;

For many a thronging shape was there,

From long-forgotten years,

Ay, even the poor rejected Moor,

Who raised my childish fears!

"Each pleading look, that long ago

I scann'd with a heedless eye,

Each face was gazing as plainly there,

As when I pass'd it by:

Woe, woe for me if the past should be

Thus present when I die!

"No need of sulphurous lake,

No need of fiery coal,

But only that crowd of human kind

Who wanted pity and dole—

In everlasting retrospect—

Will wring my sinful soul!

"Alas! I have walk'd through life

Too heedless where I trod;

Nay, helping to trample my fellow-worm,

And fill the burial sod—

Forgetting that even the sparrow falls

Not unmark'd of God!

"I drank the richest draughts;

And ate whatever is good—

Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit,

Supplied my hungry mood;

But I never remember'd the wretched ones

That starve for want of food!

"I dress'd as the noble dress,

In cloth of silver and gold,

With silk, and satin, and costly furs,

In many an ample fold;

But I never remember'd the naked limbs

That froze with winter's cold.

"The wounds I might have heal'd!

The human sorrow and smart!

And yet it never was in my soul

To play so ill a part:

But evil is wrought by want of Thought,

As well as want of Heart!"

She clasp'd her fervent hands,

And the tears began to stream;

Large, and bitter, and fast they fell,

Remorse was so extreme;

And yet, oh yet, that many a Dame

Would dream the Lady's Dream!

[THE KEY.]

A MOORISH ROMANCE.

"On the east coast, towards Tunis, the Moors still preserve the key of their ancestors' houses in Spain; to which country they still express the hopes of one day returning and again planting the crescent on the ancient walls of the Alhambra."—SCOTT'S Travels in Morocco and Algiers.

"Is Spain cloven in such a manner as to want closing?"

SANCHO PANZA.

The Moor leans on his cushion,

With the pipe between his lips;

And still at frequent intervals

The sweet sherbét he sips;

But, spite of lulling vapor

And the sober cooling cup,

The spirit of the swarthy Moor

Is fiercely kindling up!

One hand is on his pistol,

On its ornamented stock,

While his finger feels the trigger

And is busy with the lock—

The other seeks his ataghan,

And clasps its jewell'd hilt—

Oh! much of gore in days of yore

That crooked blade has spilt!

His brows are knit, his eyes of jet

In vivid blackness roll,

And gleam with fatal flashes

Like the fire-damp of the coal;

His jaws are set, and through his teeth

He draws a savage breath,

As if about to raise the shout

Of Victory or Death!

For why? the last Zebeck that came

And moor'd within the Mole,

Such tidings unto Tunis brought

As stir his very soul—

The cruel jar of civil war,

The sad and stormy reign,

That blackens like a thunder cloud

The sunny land of Spain!

No strife of glorious Chivalry,

For honor's gain or loss,

Nor yet that ancient rivalry,

The Crescent with the Cross.

No charge of gallant Paladins

On Moslems stern and stanch;

But Christians shedding Christian blood

Beneath the olive's branch!

A war of horrid parricide,

And brother killing brother;

Yea, like to "dogs and sons of dogs"

That worry one another.

But let them bite and tear and fight,

The more the Kaffers slay,

The sooner Hagar's swarming sons

Shall make the land a prey!

The sooner shall the Moor behold

Th' Alhambra's pile again;

And those who pined in Barbary

Shall shout for joy in Spain—

The sooner shall the Crescent wave

On dear Granada's walls:

And proud Mohammed Ali sit

Within his fathers halls!

"Alla-il-alla!" tiger-like

Up springs the swarthy Moor,

And, with a wide and hasty stride,

Steps o'er the marble floor;

Across the hall, till from the wall,

Where such quaint patterns be,

With eager hand he snatches down

And old and massive Key!

A massive Key of curious shape,

And dark with dirt and rust,

And well three weary centuries

The metal might encrust!

For since the King Boabdil fell

Before the native stock,

That ancient Key, so quaint to see,

Hath never been in lock.

Brought over by the Saracens

Who fled accross the main,

A token of the secret hope

Of going back again;

From race to race, from hand to hand,

From house to house it pass'd;

O will it ever, ever ope

The Palace gate at last?

Three hundred years and fifty-two

On post and wall it hung—

Three hundred years and fifty-two

A dream to old and young;

But now a brighter destiny

The Prophet's will accords:

The time is come to scour the rust,

And lubricate the wards.

For should the Moor with sword and lance

At Algesiras land,

Where is the bold Bernardo now

Their progress to withstand?

To Burgos should the Moslem come,

Where is the noble Cid

Five royal crowns to topple down

As gallant Diaz did?

Hath Xeres any Pounder now,

When other weapons fail,

With club to thrash invaders rash,

Like barley with a flail?

Hath Seville any Perez still,

To lay his clusters low,

And ride with seven turbans green

Around his saddle-bow?

No! never more shall Europe see

Such Heroes brave and bold,

Such Valor, Faith and Loyalty,

As used to shine of old!

No longer to one battle cry

United Spaniards run,

And with their thronging spears uphold

The Virgin and her Son!

From Cadiz Bay to rough Biscay

Internal discord dwells,

And Barcelona bears the scars

Of Spanish shot and shells.

The fleets decline, the merchants pine

For want of foreign trade;

And gold is scant; and Alicante

Is seal'd by strict blockade!

The loyal fly, and Valor falls,

Opposed by court intrigue;

But treachery and traitors thrive,

Upheld by foreign league;

While factions seeking private ends

By turns usurping reign—

Well may the dreaming, scheming Moor

Exulting point to Spain!

Well may he cleanse the rusty Key

With Afric sand and oil,

And hope an Andalusian home

Shall recompense the toil!

Well may he swear the Moorish spear

Through wild Castile shall sweep,

And where the Catalonian sowed

The Saracen shall reap!

Well may he vow to spurn the Cross

Beneath the Arab hoof,

And plant the Crescent yet again

Above th' Alhambra's roof—

When those from whom St. Jago's name

In chorus once arose,

Are shouting Faction's battle-cries,

And Spain forgets to "Close!"

Well may he swear his ataghan

Shall rout the traitor swarm,

And carve them into Arabesques

That show no human form—

The blame be theirs, whose bloody feuds

Invite the savage Moor,

And tempt him with the ancient Key

To seek the ancient door!

[THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK.]

AN ALLEGORY.

There's a murmur in the air,

And noise in every street—

The murmur of many tongues,

The noise of numerous feet—

While round the Workhouse door

The Laboring Classes flock,

For why? the Overseer of the Poor

Is setting the Workhouse Clock.

Who does not hear the tramp

Of thousands speeding along

Of either sex and various stamp,

Sickly, cripple, or strong,

Walking, limping, creeping

From court and alley, and lane,

But all in one direction sweeping

Like rivers that seek the main?

Who does not see them sally

From mill, and garret, and room,

In lane, and court and alley,

From homes in poverty's lowest valley,

Furnished with shuttle and loom—

Poor slaves of Civilization's galley—

And in the road and footways rally,

As if for the Day of Doom?

Some, of hardly human form,

Stunted, crooked, and crippled by toil;

Dingy with smoke and dust and oil,

And smirch'd besides with vicious soil,

Clustering, mustering, all in a swarm.

Father, mother, and careful child,

Looking as if it had never smiled—

The Sempstress, lean, and weary, and wan,

With only the ghosts of garments on—

The Weaver, her sallow neighbor,

The grim and sooty Artisan;

Every soul—child, woman, or man,

Who lives—or dies—by labor.

Stirr'd by an overwhelming zeal,

And social impulse, a terrible throng!

Leaving shuttle, and needle, and wheel,

Furnace, and grindstone, spindle, and reel,

Thread, and yarn, and iron, and steel—

Yea, rest and the yet untasted meal—

Gushing, rushing, crushing along,

A very torrent of Man!

Urged by the sighs of sorrow and wrong,

Grown at last to a hurricane strong,

Stop its course who can!

Stop who can its onward course

And irresistible moral force;

O vain and idle dream!

For surely as men are all akin,

Whether of fair or sable skin,

According to Nature's scheme,

That Human Movement contains within

A Blood-Power stronger than Steam.

Onward, onward, with hasty feet,

They swarm—and westward still—

Masses born to drink and eat,

But starving amidst Whitechapel's meat,

And famishing down Cornhill!

Through the Poultry—but still unfed—

Christian Charity, hang your head!

Hungry—passing the Street of Bread;

Thirsty—the street of Milk;

Ragged—beside the Ludgate Mart,

So gorgeous, through Mechanic-Art,

With cotton, and wool, and silk!

At last, before that door

That bears so many a knock

Ere ever it opens to Sick or Poor,

Like sheep they huddle and flock—

And would that all the Good and Wise

Could see the Million of hollow eyes,

With a gleam deriv'd from Hope and the skies,

Upturn'd to the Workhouse Clock!

Oh that the Parish Powers,

Who regulate Labor's hours,

The daily amount of human trial,

Weariness, pain, and self-denial,

Would turn from the artificial dial

That striketh ten or eleven,

And go, for once, by that older one

That stands in the light of Nature's sun,

And takes its time from Heaven!

[THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.]

"Drown'd! drown'd!"—Hamlet.

One more Unfortunate,

Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,

Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashion'd so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

Look at her garments

Clinging like cerements;

Whilst the wave constantly

Drips from her clothing;

Take her up instantly,

Loving, not loathing.—

Touch her not scornfully;

Think of her mournfully,

Gently and humanly;

Not of the stains of her,

All that remains of her

Now is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny

Into her mutiny

Bash and undutiful:

Past all dishonor,

Death has left on her

Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers,

One of Eve's family—

Wipe those poor lips of hers

Oozing so clammily.

Loop up her tresses

Escaped from the comb,

Her fair auburn tresses;

Whilst wonderment guesses

Where was her home?

Who was her father?

Who was her mother?

Had she a sister?

Had she a brother?

Or was there a dearer one

Still, and a nearer one

Yet, than all other?

Alas! for the rarity

Of Christian charity

Under the sun!

Oh! it was pitiful!

Near a whole city full,

Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly,

Fatherly, motherly

Feelings had changed:

Love, by harsh evidence,

Thrown from its eminence;

Even God's providence

Seeming estranged.

Where the lamps quiver

So far in the river,

With many a light

From window and casement,

From garret to basement,

She stood, with amazement,

Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March

Made her tremble and shiver;

But not the dark arch,

Or the black flowing river:

Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery,

Swit to be hurl'd—

Any where, any where

Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly,

No matter how coldly

The rough river ran,—

Over the brink of it,

Picture it—think of it,

Dissolute Man!

Lave in it, drink of it,

Then, if you can!

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashion'd so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs frigidly

Stiffen too rigidly,

Decently,—kindly,—

Smooth, and compose them;

And her eyes, close them,

Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring

Thro' muddy impurity,

As when with the daring

Last look of despairing

Fix'd on futurity.

Perishing gloomily,

Spurr'd by contumely,

Cold inhumanity,

Burning insanity,

Into her rest.—

Cross her hands humbly,

As if praying dumbly,

Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,

Her evil behavior,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins to her Saviour!

[THE LAY OF THE LABORER.]

A spade! a rake! a hoe!

A pickaxe, or a bill!

A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow,

A flail, or what ye will—

And here's a ready hand

To ply the needful tool,

And skill'd enough, by lessons rough,

In Labor's rugged school.

To hedge, or dig the ditch,

To lop or fell the tree,

To lay the swarth on the sultry field,

Or plough the stubborn lea;

The harvest stack to bind,

The wheaten rick to thatch,

And never fear in my pouch to find

The tinder or the match.

To a flaming barn or farm

My fancies never roam;

The fire I yearn to kindle and burn

Is on the hearth of Home;

Where children huddle and crouch

Through dark long winter days,

Where starving children huddle and crouch,

To see the cheerful rays,

A-glowing on the haggard cheek,

And not in the haggard's blaze!

To Him who sends a drought

To parch the fields forlorn,

The rain to flood the meadows with mud,

The blight to blast the corn,

To Him I leave to guide

The bolt in its crooked path,

To strike the miser's rick, and show

The skies blood-red with wrath.

A spade! a rake! a hoe!

A pickaxe, or a bill!

A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow,

A flail, or what ye will—

The corn to thrash, or the hedge to plash,

The market-team to drive,

Or mend the fence by the cover side,

And leave the game alive.

Ay, only give me work,

And then you need not fear

That I shall snare his Worship's hare,

Or kill his Grace's deer;

Break into his lordship's house,

To steal the plate so rich;

Or leave the yeoman that had a purse

To welter in a ditch.

Wherever Nature needs,

Wherever Labor calls,

No job I'll shirk of the hardest work,

To shun the workhouse walls;

Where savage laws begrudge

The pauper babe its breath,

And doom a wife to a widow's life,

Before her partner's death.

My only claim is this,

With labor stiff and stark,

By lawful turn, my living to earn,

Between the light and dark;

My daily bread, and nightly bed,

My bacon, and drop of beer—

But all from the hand that holds the land,

And none from the overseer!

No parish money, or loaf,

No pauper badges for me,

A son of the soil, by right of toil

Entitled to my fee.

No alms I ask, give me my task:

Here are the arm, the leg,

The strength, the sinews of a Man,

To work, and not to beg.

Still one of Adam's heirs,

Though doom'd by chance of birth

To dress so mean, and to eat the lean

Instead of the fat of the earth;

To make such humble meals

As honest labor can,

A bone and a crust, with a grace to God,

And little thanks to man!

A spade! a rake! a hoe!

A pickaxe, or a bill!

A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow,

A flail, or what ye will—

Whatever the tool to ply,

Here is a willing drudge,

With muscle and limb, and woe to him

Who does their pay begrudge!

Who every weekly score

Docks labor's little mite,

Bestows on the poor at the temple door,

But robb'd them over night.

The very shilling he hoped to save,

As health and morals fail,

Shall visit me in the new Bastille,

The Spital, or the Gaol!

[STANZAS.][19]

Farewell, Life! My senses swim,

And the world is growing dim;

Thronging shadows cloud the light,

Like the advent of the night,—

Colder, colder, colder still,

Upward steals a vapor chill—

Strong the earthy odor grows—

I smell the mould above the rose!

Welcome, Life! the Spirit strives!

Strength returns, and hope revives;

Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn

Fly like shadows at the morn,—

O'er the earth there comes a bloom—

Sunny light for sullen gloom,

Warm perfume for vapor cold—

smell the rose above the mould!

February 1845.

[ODE TO MR. GRAHAM,][20]

THE AERONAUT.

"Up with me!—up with me into the sky!"

WORDSWORTH—on a Lark.

I.

Dear Graham, whilst the busy crowd,

The vain, the wealthy, and the proud,

Their meaner flights pursue,

Let us cast off the foolish ties

That bind us to the earth, and rise

And take a bird's-eye view!—

II.

A few more whiffs of my segar

And then, in Fancy's airy car,

Have with thee for the skies:—

How oft this fragrant smoke upcurl'd

Hath borne me from this little world,

And all that in it lies!—

III.

Away!—away!—the bubble fills—

Farewell to earth and all its hills!—

We seem to cut the wind!—

So high we mount, so swift we go,

The chimney tops are far below,

The Eagle's left behind!—

IV.

Ah me! my brain begins to swim!—

The world is growing rather dim;

The steeples and the trees—

My wife is getting very small!

I cannot see my babe at all!—

The Dollond, if you please!—

V.

Do, Graham, let me have a quiz;

Lord! what a Lilliput it is.

That little world of Mogg's!—

Are those the London Docks?—that channel,

The mighty Thames?—a proper kennel

For that small Isle of Dogs!—

VI.

What is that seeming tea-urn there?

That fairy dome, St. Paul's!—I swear,

Wren must have been a Wren!—

And that small stripe?—it cannot be

The City Road!—Good lack! to see

The little ways of men!

VII.

Little, indeed!—my eyeballs ache

To find a turnpike.—I must take

Their tolls upon my trust!—

And where is mortal labor gone?

Look, Graham, for a little stone

Mac Adamiz'd to dust!

VIII.

Look at the horses!—less than flies!—

Oh, what a waste it was of sighs

To wish to be a Mayor!

What is the honor?—none at all,

One's honor must be very small

For such a civic chair!—

IX.

And there's Guildhall!—'tis far aloof—

Methinks, I fancy through the roof

Its little guardian Gogs,

Like penny dolls—a tiny show!—

Well,—I must say they're rul'd below

By very little logs!—

X.

Oh, Graham! how the upper air

Alters the standards of compare;

One of our silken flags

Would cover London all about—

Nay, then—let's even empty out

Another brace of bags!

XI.

Now for a glass of bright champagne

Above the clouds!—Come, let us drain

A bumper as we go!—

But hold!—for God's sake do not cant

The cork away—unless you want

To brain your friends below.

XII.

Think! what a mob of little men

Are crawling just within our ken,

Like mites upon a cheese!—

Pshaw!—how the foolish sight rebukes

Ambitious thoughts!—can there be Dukes

Of Gloster such as these!—

XIII.

Oh! what is glory?—what is fame?

Hark to the little mob's acclaim,

'Tis nothing but a hum!—

A few near gnats would trump as loud

As all the shouting of a crowd

That has so far to come!—

XIV.

Well—they are wise that choose the near,

A few small buzzards in the ear,

To organs ages hence!—

Ah me! how distance touches all;

It makes the true look rather small,

But murders poor pretence

XV.

"The world recedes!—it disappears!

Heav'n opens on my eyes—my ears

With buzzing noises ring!"—

A fig for Southey's Laureat lore!"—

What's Rogers here?—Who cares for Moore

That hears the Angels sing!—"

XVI.

A fig for earth, and all its minions!—

We are above the world's opinions,

Graham! we'll have our own!—

Look what a vantage height we've got!—

Now—do you think Sir Walter Scott

Is such a Great Unknown?

XVII.

Speak up!—or hath he hid his name

To crawl thro' "subways" unto fame,

Like Williams of Cornhill?—

Speak up, my lad!—when men run small

We'll show what's little in them all,

Receive it how they will!—

XVIII.

Think now of Irving!—shall he preach

The princes down,—shall he impeach

The potent and the rich,

Merely on ethic stilts,—and I

Not moralize at two mile high

The true didactic pitch!

XIX.

Come:—what d'ye think of Jeffrey, sir?

Is Gifford such a Gulliver

In Lilliput's Review,

That like Colossus he should stride

Certain small brazen inches wide

For poets to pass through?

XX.

Look down! the world is but a spot.

Now say—Is Blackwood's low or not,

For all the Scottish tone?

It shall not weigh us here—not where

The sandy burden's lost in air—

Our lading—where is't flown?

XXI.

Now,—like you Croly's verse indeed—

In heaven—where one cannot read

The "Warren" on a wall?

What think you here of that man's fame?

Tho' Jerdan magnified his name,

To me 'tis very small!

XXII.

And, truly, is there such a spell

In those three letters, L. E. L.,

To witch a world with song?

On clouds the Byron did not sit,

Yet dar'd on Shakspeare's head to spit,

And say the world was wrong!

XXIII.

And shall not we? Let's think aloud!

Thus being couch'd upon a cloud,

Graham, we'll have our eyes!

We felt the great when we were less,

But we'll retort on littleness

Now we are in the skies.

XXIV.

O Graham, Graham, how I blame

The bastard blush,—the petty shame,

That used to fret me quite,—

The little sores I cover'd then,

No sores on earth, nor sorrows when

The world is out of sight!

XXV.

My name is Tims.—I am the man

That North's unseen diminish'd clan

So scurvily abused!

I am the very P. A. Z.

The London's Lion's small pin's head

So often hath refused!

XXVI.

Campbell—(you cannot see him here)—

Hath scorn'd my lays:—do his appear

Such great eggs from the sky?—

And Longman, and his lengthy Co.

Long, only, in a little Row,

Have thrust my poems by!

XXVII.

What else?—I'm poor, and much beset

With damn'd small duns—that is—in debt

Some grains of golden dust!

But only worth, above, is worth.—

What's all the credit of the earth?

An inch of cloth on trust?

XXVIII.

What's Rothschild here, that wealthy man!

Nay, worlds of wealth?—Oh, if you can

Spy out,—the Golden Ball!

Sure as we rose, all money sank:

What's gold or silver now?—the Bank

Is gone—the 'Change and all!

XXIX.

What's all the ground-rent of the globe?—

Oh, Graham, it would worry Job

To hear its landlords prate!

But after this survey, I think

I'll ne'er be bullied more, nor shrink

From men of large estate!

XXX.

And less, still less, will I submit

To poor mean acres' worth of wit—

I that have heaven's span—

I that like Shakspeare's self may dream

Beyond the very clouds, and seem

An Universal Man!

XXXI.

Mark, Graham, mark those gorgeous crowds!

Like Birds of Paradise the clouds

Are winging on the wind!

But what is grander than their range?

More lovely than their sunset change?—

The free creative mind!

XXXII.

Well! the Adults' School's in the air!

The greatest men are lesson'd there

As well as the Lessee!

Oh could Earth's Ellistons thus small

Behold the greatest stage of all,

How humbled they would be!

XXXIII.

"Oh would some Power the giftie gie 'em,

To see themselves as others see 'em,"

'Twould much abate their fuss!

If they could think that from the iskies

They are as little in our eyes

As they can think of us!

XXXIV.

Of us! are we gone out of sight?

Lessen'd! diminish'd! vanish'd quite!

Lost to the tiny town!

Beyond the Eagle's ken—the grope

Of Dollond's longest telescope!

Graham! we're going down!

XXXV.

Ah me! I've touch'd a string that opes

The airy valve!—the gas elopes—

Down goes our bright Balloon!—

Farewell the skies! the clouds! I smell

The lower world! Graham, farewell,

Man of the silken moon!

XXXVI.

The earth is close! the City nears—

Like a burnt paper it appears,

Studded with tiny sparks!

Methinks I hear the distant rout

Of coaches rumbling all about—

We're close above the Parks!

XXXVII.

I hear the watchmen on their beats,

Hawking the hour about the streets.

Lord! what a cruel jar

It is upon the earth to light!

Well—there's the finish of our flight!

I've smoked my last segar!

[A FRIENDLY ADDRESS TO MRS. FRY IN NEWGATE.][21]

"Sermons in stones."—As You Like It.

"Out! out! damned spot!"—Macbeth.

I.

I like you, Mrs. Fry! I like your name!

It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressing

In daily act round Charity's great flame—

I like the crisp Browne way you have of dressing,

Good Mrs. Fry! I like the placid claim

You make to Christianity,—professing

Love, and good works—of course you buy of Barton,

Beside the young Fry's bookseller, Friend Darton!

II.

I like, good Mrs. Fry, your brethren mute—

Those serious, solemn gentlemen that sport—

I should have said, that wear, the sober suit

Shap'd like a court dress—but for heaven's court.

I like your sisters too,—sweet Rachel's fruit—

Protestant nuns! I like their stiff support

Of virtue—and I like to see them clad

With such a difference—just like good from bad!

III.

I like the sober colors—not the wet;

Those gaudy manufactures of the rainbow—

Green, orange, crimson, purple, violet—

In which the fair, the flirting, and the vain, go—

The others are a chaste, severer set,

In which the good, the pious, and the plain, go—

They're moral standards, to know Christians by—

In short, they are your colors, Mrs. Fry!

IV.

As for the naughty tinges of the prism—

Crimson's the cruel uniform of war—

Blue—hue of brimstone! minds no catechism;

And green is young and gay—not noted for

Goodness, or gravity, or quietism,

Till it is sadden'd down to tea-green, or

Olive—and purple's giv'n to wine, I guess;

And yellow is a convict by its dress!

V.

They're all the devil's liveries, that men

And women wear in servitude to sin—

But how will they come off, poor motleys, when

Sin's wages are paid down, and they stand in

The Evil presence? You and I know, then,

How all the party colors will begin

To part—the Pittite hues will sadden there,

Whereas the Foxite shades will all show fair!

VI.

Witness their goodly labors one by one!

Russet makes garments for the needy poor—

Dove-color preaches love to all—and dun

Calls every day at Charity's street door—

Brown studies scripture, and bids woman shun

All gaudy furnishing—olive doth pour

Oil into wounds: and drab and slate supply

Scholar and book in Newgate, Mrs. Fry!

VII.

Well! Heaven forbid that I should discommend

The gratis, charitable, jail-endeavor!

When all persuasions in your praises blend—

The Methodist's creed and cry are, Fry forever!

No—I will be your friend—and, like a friend,

Point out your very worst defect—Nay, never

Start at that word! But I must ask you why

You keep your school in Newgate, Mrs. Fry?

VIII.

Top well I know the price our mother Eve

Paid for her schooling: but must all her daughters

Commit a petty larceny, and thieve—

Pay down a crime for "entrance" to your "quarters"?

Your classes may increase, but I must grieve

Over your pupils at their bread and waters!

Oh, tho' it cost you rent—(and rooms run high)

Keep your school out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry!

IX.

O save the vulgar soul before it's spoil'd!

Set up your mounted sign without the gate—

And there inform the mind before 'tis soil'd!

'Tis sorry writing on a greasy slate!

Nay, if you would not have your labors foil'd,

Take it inclining tow'rds a virtuous state,

Not prostrate and laid flat—else, woman meek!

The upright pencil will but hop and shriek!

X.

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to drain

The evil spirit from the heart it preys in,—

To bring sobriety to life again,

Choked with the vile Anacreontic raisin,—

To wash Black Betty when her black's ingrain,—

To stick a moral lacquer on Moll Brazen,

Of Suky Tawdry's habits to deprive her;

To tame the wild-fowl-ways of Jenny Diver!

XI.

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to teach

Miss Nancy Dawson on her bed of straw—

To make Long Sal sew up the endless breach

She made in manners—to write heaven's own law

On hearts of granite.—Nay, how hard to preach,

In cells, that are not memory's—to draw

The moral thread, thro' the immoral eye

Of blunt Whitechapel natures, Mrs. Fry!

XII.

In vain you teach them baby-work within:

'Tis but a clumsy botchery of crime;

'Tis but a tedious darning of old sin—

Come out yourself, and stitch up souls in time—

It is too late for scouring to begin

When virtue's ravell'd out, when all the prime

Is worn away, and nothing sound remains;

You'll fret the fabric out before the stains!

XIII.

I like your chocolate, good Mistress Fry!

I like your cookery in every way;

I like your shrove-tide service and supply;

I like to hear your sweet Pandeans play;

I like the pity in your full-brimm'd eye;

I like your carriage, and your silken gray,

Your dove-like habits, and your silent preaching;

But I don't like your Newgatory teaching.

XIV.

Come out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry! Repair

Abroad, and find your pupils in the streets.

O, come abroad into the wholesome air,

And take your moral place, before Sin seats

Her wicked self in the Professor's chair.

Suppose some morals raw! the true receipt's

To dress them in the pan, but do not try

To cook them in the fire, good Mrs. Fry!

XV.

Put on your decent bonnet, and come out!

Good lack! the ancients did not set up schools

In jail—but at the Porch! hinting, no doubt,

That Vice should have a lesson in the rules

Before 'twas whipt by law.—O come about,

Good Mrs. Fry! and set up forms and stools

All down the Old Bailey, and thro' Newgate Street,

But not in Mr. Wontner's proper seat!

XVI.

Teach Lady Barrymore, if, teaching, you

That peerless Peeress can absolve from dolor;

Teach her it is not virtue to pursue

Ruin of blue, or any other color;

Teach her it is not Virtue's crown to rue,

Month after month, the unpaid drunken dollar;

Teach her that "flooring Charleys" is a game

Unworthy one that bears a Christian name.

XVII.

O come and teach our children—that ar'n't ours—

That heaven's straight pathway is a narrow way,

Not Broad St. Giles's, where fierce Sin devours

Children, like Time—or rather they both prey

On youth together—meanwhile Newgate low'rs

Ev'n like a black cloud at the close of day,

To shut them out from any more blue sky:

Think of these hopeless wretches, Mrs. Fry!

XVIII.

You are not nice—go into their retreats,

And make them Quakers, if you will.—'Twere best

They wore straight collars, and their shirts sans pleats;

That they had hats with brims,—that they were drest

In garbs without lappels—than shame the streets

With so much raggedness.—You may invest

Much cash this way—but it will cost its price,

To give a good, round, real cheque to Vice!

XIX.

In brief,—Oh teach the child its moral rote,

Not in the way from which 'twill not depart,—

But out—out—out! Oh, bid it walk remote!

And if the skies are clos'd against the smart,

Ev'n let him wear the single-breasted coat,

For that ensureth singleness of heart.—

Do what you will, his every want supply,

Keep him—but out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry!

[ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQ.,][22]

M.P. FOR GALWAY.

"Martin in this has proved himself a very good man!"

—Boxiana.

I.

How many sing of wars,

Of Greek and Trojan jars—

The butcheries of men!

The Muse hath a "Perpetual Ruby Pen!"

Dabbling with heroes and the blood they spill;

But no one sings the man

That, like a pelican,

Nourishes Pity with his tender Bill!

II.

Thou Wilberforce of hacks!

Of whites as well as blacks,

Pyebald and dapple gray,

Chestnut and bay—

No poet's eulogy thy name adorns!

But oxen, from the fens,

Sheep—in their pens,

Praise thee, and red cows with their winding horns!

Thou art sung on brutal pipes!

Drovers may curse thee,

Knackers asperse thee,

And sly M.P.'s bestow their cruel wipes;

But the old horse neighs thee,

And zebras praise thee,—

Asses, I mean—that have as many stripes!

III.

Hast thou not taught the Drover to forbear,

In Smithfield's muddy, murderous, vile environ,—

Staying his lifted bludgeon in the air!

Bullocks don't wear

Oxide of iron!

The cruel Jarvy thou hast summon'd oft,

Enforcing mercy on the coarse Yahoo,

That thought his horse the courser of the two—

Whilst Swift smiled down aloft!—

O worthy pair! for this, when ye inhabit

Bodies of birds—(if so the spirit shifts

From flesh to feather)—when the clown uplifts

His hands against the sparrow's nest, to grab it,—

He shall not harm the MARTINS and the Swifts!

IV.

Ah! when Dean Swift was quick, how he enhanc'd

The horse!—and humbled biped man like Plato!

But now he's dead, the charger is mischanc'd—

Gone backward in the world—and not advanc'd,—

Remember Cato!

Swift was the horse's champion—not the King's,

Whom Southey sings,

Mounted on Pegasus—would he were thrown!

He'll wear that ancient hackney to the bone,

Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things!

Ah well-a-day! the ancients did not use

Their steeds so cruelly!—let it debar men

From wanton rowelling and whip's abuse—

Look at the ancients' Muse!

Look at their Carmen!

V.

O, Martin I how thine eyes—

That one would think had put aside its lashes,—

That can't bear gashes

Thro' any horse's side, must ache to spy

That horrid window fronting Fetter-lane,—

For there's a nag the crows have pick'd for victual,

Or some man painted in a bloody vein—

Gods! is there no Horse-spital!

That such raw shows must sicken the humane!

Sure Mr. Whittle

Loves thee but little,

To let that poor horse linger in his pane!

VI.

O build a Brookes's Theatre for horses!

O wipe away the national reproach—

And find a decent Vulture for their corses!

And in thy funeral track

Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach!

Steeds that confess "the luxury of wo!"

True mourning steeds, in no extempore black,

And many a wretched hack

Shall sorrow for thee,—sore with kick and blow

And bloody gash—it is the Indian knack—

(Save that the savage is his own tormentor)—

Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf—

The biped woe the quadruped shall enter,

And Man and Horse go half and half,

As if their griefs met in a common Centaur!

[ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN.][23]

"O breathe not his name!"—Moore.

I.

Thou Great Unknown!

I do not mean Eternity, nor Death,

That vast incog!

For I suppose thou hast a living breath,

Howbeit we know not from whose lungs 'tis blown,

Thou man of fog!

Parent of many children—child of none!

Nobody's son!

Nobody's daughter—but a parent still!

Still but an ostrich parent of a batch

Of orphan eggs,—left to the world to hatch

Superlative Nil!

A vox and nothing more,—yet not Vauxhall;

A head in papers, yet without a curl!

Not the Invisible Girl!

No hand—but a handwriting on a wall—

A popular nonentity,

Still call'd the same,—without identity!

A lark, heard out of sight,—

A nothing shin'd upon,—invisibly bright,

"Dark with excess of light!"

Constable's literary John-a-nokes—

The real Scottish wizard—and not which,

Nobody—in a niche;

Every one's hoax!

Maybe Sir Walter Scott—

Perhaps not!

Why dost thou so conceal and puzzle curious folks?

II.

Thou,—whom the second-sighted never saw,

The Master Fiction of fictitious history!

Chief Nong-tong-paw!

No mister in the world—and yet all mystery!

The "tricksy spirit" of a Scotch Cock Lane—

A novel Junius puzzling the world's brain—

A man of Magic—yet no talisman!

A man of clair obscure—not he o' the moon!

A star—at noon.

A non-descriptus in a caravan,

A private—of no corps—a northern light

In a dark lantern,—Bogie in a crape—

A figure—but no shape;

A vizor—and no knight;

The real abstract hero of the age;

The staple Stranger of the stage;

A Some One made in every man's presumption,

Frankenstein's monster—but instinct with gumption;

Another strange state captive in the north,

Constable-guarded in an iron mask—

Still let me ask,

Hast thou no silver platter,

No door-plate, or no card—or some such matter,

To scrawl a name upon, and then cast forth?

III.

Thou Scottish Barmecide, feeding the hunger

Of Curiosity with airy gammon!

Thou mystery-monger,

Dealing it out like middle cut of salmon,

That people buy and can't make head or tail of it;

(Howbeit that puzzle never hurts the sale of it;)

Thou chief of authors mystic and abstractical,

That lay their proper bodies on the shelf—

Keeping thyself so truly to thyself,

Thou Zimmerman made practical!

Thou secret fountain of a Scottish style,

That, like the Nile,

Hideth its source wherever it is bred,

But still keeps disemboguing

(Not disembroguing)

Thro' such broad sandy mouths without a head!

Thou disembodied author—not yet dead,—

The whole world's literary Absentee!

Ah! wherefore hast thou fled,

Thou learned Nemo—wise to a degree,

Anonymous LL.D.!

IV.

Thou nameless captain of the nameless gang

That do—and inquests cannot say who did it!

Wert thou at Mrs. Donatty's death-pang?

Hast thou made gravy of Weare's watch—or hid it?

Hast thou a Blue-Beard chamber? Heaven forbid it!

I should be very loth to see thee hang!

I hope thou hast an alibi well plann'd,

An innocent, altho' an ink-black hand.

Tho' that hast newly turn'd thy private bolt on

The curiosity of all invaders—

I hope thou art merely closeted with Colton,

Who knows a little of the Holy Land,

Writing thy next new novel—The Crusaders!

V.

Perhaps thou wert even born

To be Unknown.—Perhaps hung, some foggy morn,

At Captain Coram's charitable wicket,

Pinn'd to a ticket

That Fate had made illegible, foreseeing

The future great unmentionable being.—

Perhaps thou hast ridden

A scholar poor on St. Augustine's Back,

Like Chatterton, and found a dusty pack

Of Rowley novels in an old chest hidden;

A little hoard of clever simulation,

That took the town—and Constable has bidden

Some hundred pounds for a continuation—

To keep and clothe thee in genteel starvation.

VI.

I like thy Waverley—first of thy breeding;

I like its modest "sixty years ago,"

As if it was not meant for ages' reading.

I don't like Ivanhoe,

Tho' Dymoke does—it makes him think of clattering

In iron overalls before the king

Secure from battering, to ladies flattering,

Tuning, his challenge to the gauntlet's ring—

Oh better far than all that anvil clang

It was to hear thee touch the famous string

Of Robin Hood's tough bow and make it twang,

Rousing him up, all verdant, with his clan,

Like Sagittarian Pan!

VII.

I like Guy Mannering—but not that sham son

Of Brown:—I like that literary Sampson,

Nine-tenths a Dyer, with a smack of Porson.

I like Dirk Hatteraick, that rough sea Orson

That slew the Gauger;

And Dandie Dinmont, like old Ursa Major;

And Merrilies, young Bertram's old defender,

That Scottish Witch of Endor,

That doom'd thy fame. She was the Witch, I take it,

To tell a great man's fortune—or to make it!

VIII.

I like thy Antiquary. With his fit on,

He makes me think of Mr. Britton,

I like thy Antiquary. With Ins fit on,

It makes me think

Who has—or had—within his garden wall,

A miniature Stone Henge, so very small

That sparrows find it difficult to sit on;

And Dousterwivel, like Poyais' M'Gregor;

And Edie Ochiltree, that old Blue Beggar,

Painted so cleverly,

I think thou surely knowest Mrs. Beverly!

I like thy Barber—him that fir'd the Beacon—

But that's a tender subject now to speak on!

IX.

I like long-arm'd Rob Roy.—His very charms

Fashion'd him for renown!—In sad sincerity,

The man that robs or writes must have long arms,

If he's to hand his deeds down to posterity!

Witness Miss Biffin's posthumous prosperity,

Her poor brown crumpled mummy (nothing more)

Bearing the name she bore,

A thing Time's tooth is tempted to destroy!

But Roys can never die—why else, in verity,

Is Paris echoing with "Vive le Roy"!

Aye, Rob shall live again, and deathless Di

Vernon, of course, shall often live again—

Whilst there's a stone in Newgate, or a chain,

Who can pass by

Nor feel the Thief's in prison and at hand?

There be Old Bailey Jarvies on the stand!

X.

I like thy Landlord's Tales!—I like that Idol

Of love and Lammermoor—the blue-eyed maid

That led to church the mounted cavalcade,

And then pull'd up with such a bloody bridal!

Throwing equestrian Hymen on his haunches—

like the family (not silver) branches

That hold the tapers

To light the serious legend of Montrose.—

I like M'Aulay's second-sighted vapors,

As if he could not walk or talk alone,

Without the devil—or the Great Unknown,—

Dalgetty is the dearest of Ducrows!

XI.

I like St. Leonard's Lily—drench'd with dew!

I like thy Vision of the Covenanters,

That bloody-minded Grahame shot and slew.

I like the battle lost and won;

The hurly-burlys bravely done,

The warlike gallop and the warlike canters!

I like that girded chieftain of the ranters,

Ready to preach down heathens, or to grapple,

With one eye on his sword,

And one upon the Word,—

How he would cram the Caledonian Chapel!

I like stern Claverhouse, though he cloth dapple

His raven steed with blood of many a corse—

I like dear Mrs. Headrigg, that unravels

Her texts of scripture on a trotting horse—

She is so like Rae Wilson when he travels!

XII.

I like thy Kenilworth—but I'm not going

To take a Retrospective Re-Review

Of all thy dainty novels—merely showing

The old familiar faces of a few,

The question to renew,

How thou canst leave such deeds without a name,

Forego the unclaim'd Dividends of fame,

Forego the smiles of literary houris—

Mid-Lothian's trump, and Fife's shrill note of praise,

And all the Carse of Gowrie's,

When thou might'st have thy statue in Cromarty—

Or see thy image on Italian trays,

Betwixt Queen Caroline and Buonaparté,

Be painted by the Titian of R.A's,

Or vie in signboards with the Royal Guelph!

P'rhaps have thy bust set cheek by jowl with Homer's,

P'rhaps send out plaster proxies of thyself

To other Englands with Australian roamers—

Mayhap, in Literary Owhyhee

Displace the native wooden gods, or be

The china-Lar of a Canadian shelf!

XIII.

It is not modesty that bids thee hide—

She never wastes her blushes out of sight:

It is not to invite

The world's decision, for thy fame is tried,—

And thy fair deeds are scatter'd far and wide,

Even royal heads are with thy readers reckon'd,—

From men in trencher caps to trencher scholars

In crimson collars,

And learned serjeants in the Forty-Second!

Whither by land or sea art thou not beckon'd?

Mayhap exported from the Frith of Forth,

Defying distance and its dim control;

Perhaps read about Stromness, and reckon'd worth

A brace of Miltons for capacious soul—

Perhaps studied in the whalers, further north,

And set above ten Shakspeares near the pole!

XIV.

Oh, when thou writest by Aladdin's lamp,

With such a giant genius at command,

Forever at thy stamp,

To fill thy treasury from Fairy Land,

When haply thou might'st ask the pearly hand

Of some great British Vizier's eldest daughter,

Tho' princes sought her,

And lead her in procession hymeneal,

Oh, why dost thou remain a Beau Ideal!

Why stay, a ghost, on the Lethean Wharf,

Envelop'd in Scotch mist and gloomy fogs?

Why, but because thou art some puny Dwarf,

Some hopeless Imp, like Biquet with the Tuft,

Fearing, for all thy wit, to be rebuff'd,

Or bullied by our great reviewing Gogs?

XV.

What in this masquing age

Maketh Unknowns so many and so shy?

What but the critic's page?

One hath a cast, he hides from the world's eye;

Another hath a wen,—he won't show where;

A third has sandy hair,

A hunch upon his back, or legs awry,

Things for a vile reviewer to espy!

Another hath a mangel-wurzel nose,—

Finally, this is dimpled,

Like a pale crumpet face, or that is pimpled,

Things for a monthly critic to expose—

Nay, what is thy own case—that being small,

Thou choosest to be nobody at all!

XVI.

Well, thou art prudent, with such puny bones—

E'en like Elshender, the mysterious elf,

That shadowy revelation of thyself—

To build thee a small hut of haunted stones—

For certainly the first pernicious man

That ever saw thee, would quickly draw thee

In some vile literary caravan—

Shown for a shilling

Would be thy killing,

Think of Crachami's miserable span!

No tinier frame the tiny spark could dwell in

Than there it fell in—

But when she felt herself a show, she tried

To shrink from the world's eye, poor dwarf! and died!

XVII.

O since it was thy fortune to be born

A dwarf on some Scotch Inch, and then to flinch

From all the Gog-like jostle of great men,

Still with thy small crow pen

Amuse and charm thy lonely hours forlorn—

Still Scottish story daintily adorn,

Be still a shade—and when this age is fled,

When we poor sons and daughters of reality

Are in our graves forgotten and quite dead,

And Time destroys our mottoes of morality—

The lithographic hand of Old Mortality

Shall still restore thy emblem on the stone,

A featureless death's head,

And rob Oblivion ev'n of the Unknown!

[ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI, SENIOR.]

"This fellow's wise enough to play the fool,

And to do that well craves a kind of wit."

Twelfth Night.

I.

Joseph! they say thou'st left the stage,

To toddle down the hill of life,

And taste the flannel'd ease of age,

Apart from pantomimic strife—

"Retir'd—(for Young would call it so)—

The world shut out"—in Pleasant Row!

II.

And hast thou really wash'd at last

From each white cheek the red half-moon!

And all thy public Clownship cast,

To play the private Pantaloon?

All youth—all ages—yet to be

Shall have a heavy miss of thee!

III.

Thou didst not preach to make us wise—

Thou hadst no finger in our schooling—

Thou didst not "lure us to the skies"—

Thy simple, simple trade was—Fooling!

And yet, Heav'n knows! we could—we can

Much "better spare a better man!"

IV.

Oh, had it pleased the gout to take

The reverend Croly from the stage,

Or Southey, for our quiet's sake,

Or Mr. Fletcher, Cupid's sage,

Or, damme! namby-pamby Poole,—

Or any other clown or fool!

V.

Go, Dibdin—all that bear the name,

Go, Byeway Highway man! go! go!

Go, Skeffy—man of painted fame,

But leave thy partner, painted Joe!

I could bear Kirby on the wane,

Or Signor Paulo with a sprain!

VI.

Had Joseph Wilfrid Parkins made

His gray hairs scarce in private peace—

Had Waithman sought a rural shade—

Or Cobbett ta'en a turnpike lease—

Or Lisle Bowles gone to Balaam Hill—

I think I could be cheerful still!

VII.

Had Medwin left off, to his praise,

Dead lion kicking, like—a friend!—

Had long, long Irving gone his ways,

To Muse on death at Ponder's End

Or Lady Morgan taken leave

Of Letters—still I might not grieve!

VIII.

But, Joseph—everybody's Jo!—

Is gone—and grieve I will and must!

As Hamlet did for Yorick, so

Will I for thee (though not yet dust),

And talk as he did when he miss'd

The kissing-crust that he had kiss'd!

IX.

Ah, where is now thy rolling head!

Thy winking, reeling, drunken eyes,

(As old Catullus would have said),

Thy oven-mouth, that swallow'd pies—

Enormous hunger—monstrous drowth!

Thy pockets greedy as thou mouth!

X.

Ah, where thy ears, so often cuff'd!—

Thy funny, flapping, filching hands!—

Thy partridge body, always stuff'd

With waifs, and strays, and contrabands!—

Thy foot—like Berkeley's Foote—for why?

'Twas often made to wipe an eye!

XI.

Ah, where thy legs—that witty pair!

For "great wits jump"—and so did they!

Lord! how they leap'd in lamplight air!

Caper'd—and bounc'd—and strode away!—

That years should tame the legs—alack!

I've seen spring thro' an Almanack!

XII.

But bounds will have their bound—the shocks

Of Time will cramp the nimblest toes;

And those that frisk'd in silken clocks

May look to limp in fleecy hose—

One only—(Champion of the ring)

Could ever make his Winter,—Spring!

XIII.

And gout, that owns no odds between

The toe of Czar and toe of Clown,

Will visit—but I did not mean

To moralize, though I am grown

Thus sad,—Thy going seem'd to beat

A muffled drum for Fun's retreat!

XIV.

And, may be—'tis no time to smother

A sigh, when two prime wags of London

Are gone—thou, Joseph, one,—the other

A Joe!—"sic transit gloria Munden!"

A third departure some insist on,—

Stage-apoplexy threatens Liston!—

XV.

Nay, then, let Sleeping Beauty sleep

With ancient "Dozey" to the dregs—

Let Mother Goose wear mourning deep,

And put a hatchment o'er her eggs!

Let Farley weep—for Magic's man

Is gone,—his Christmas Caliban!

XVI.

Let Kemble, Forbes, and Willet rain,

As tho' they walk'd behind thy bier,—

For since thou wilt not play again,

What matters,—if in heav'n or here!

Or in thy grave, or in thy bed!—

There's Quick might just as well be dead!

XVII.

Oh, how will thy departure cloud

The lamplight of the little breast!

The Christmas child will grieve aloud

To miss his broadest friend and best,—

Poor urchin! what avails to him

The cold New Monthly's Ghost of Grimm?

XVIII.

For who like thee could ever stride!

Some dozen paces to the mile!—

The motley, medley coach provide—

Or like Joe Frankenstein compile

The vegetable man complete!—

A proper Covent Garden feat!

XIX.

Oh, who like thee could ever drink,

Or eat,—swill, swallow—bolt—and choke!

Nod, weep, and hiccup—sneeze and wink?—

Thy very yawn was quite a joke!

Tho' Joseph, Junior, acts not ill,

"There's no Fool like the old Fool" still!

XX.

Joseph, farewell! dear funny Joe!

We met with mirth,—we part in pain!

For many a long, long year must go

Ere Fun can see thy like again—

For Nature does not keep great stores

Of perfect Clowns—that are not Boors!

[AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY.]

"Archer. How many are there, Scrub?"

"Scrub. Five-and-forty, Sir." Beaux' Stratagem.

"For shame—let the linen alone!" M. W. of Windsor.

Mr. Scrub—Mr. Slop—or whoever you be!

The Cock of Steam Laundries,—the head Patentee

Of Associate Cleansers,—Chief founder and prime

Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime—

Co-partners and dealers, in linen's propriety—

That make washing public—and wash in society—

O lend me your ear! if that ear can forego,

For a moment, the music that bubbles below,—

From your new Surrey Geisers all foaming and hot,—

That soft "simmer's sang" so endear'd to the Scot—

If your hands may stand still, or your steam without danger—

If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger,

Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub,—

O wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub,—

And lend me your ear,—Let me modestly plead

For a race that your labors may soon supersede—

For a race that, now washing no living affords—

Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards,

Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease,

Not with bread in the funds—or investments of cheese,—

But to droop like sad willows that liv'd by a stream,

Which the sun has suck'd up into vapor and steam.

Ah, look at the laundress, before you begrudge—

Her hard daily bread to that laudable drudge—

When chanticleer singeth his earliest matins,

She slips her amphibious feet in her pattens,

And beginneth her toil while the morn is still gray,

As if she was washing the night into day—

Not with sleeker or rosier fingers Aurora

Beginneth to scatter the dewdrops before her;

Not Venus that rose from the billow so early,

Look'd down on the foam with a forehead more pearly—

Her head is involv'd in an aërial mist,

And a bright-beaded bracelet encircles her wrist;

Her visage glows warm with the ardor of duty;

She's Industry's moral—she's all moral beauty!

Growing brighter and brighter at every rub—

Would any man ruin her?—No, Mr. Scrub!

No man that is manly would work her mishap—

No man that is manly would covet her cap—

Nor her apron—her hose—nor her gown made of stuff—

Nor her gin—nor her tea—nor her wet pinch of snuff!

Alas! so she thought—but that slippery hope

Has betrayed her—as tho' she had trod on her soap!

And she,—whose support,—like the fishes that fly,

Was to have her fins wet, must now drop from her sky—

She whose living it was, and a part of her fare,

To be damp'd once a day, like the great white sea bear,

With her hands like a sponge, and her head like a mop—

Quite a living absorbent that revell'd in slop—

She that paddled in water, must walk upon sand,

And sigh for her deeps like a turtle on land!

Lo, then, the poor laundress, all wretched she stands,

Instead of a counterpane wringing her hands!

All haggard and pinch'd, going down in life's vale,

With no fagot for burning, like Allan-a-dale!

No smoke from her flue—and no steam from her pane,

There once she watch'd heaven, fearing God and the rain—

Or gaz'd o'er her bleach-field so fairly engross'd,

Till the lines wander'd idle from pillar to post!

Ah, where are the playful young pinners—ah, where

The harlequin quilts that cut capers in air—

The brisk waltzing stockings—the white and the black,

That danced on the tight-rope, or swung on the slack—

The light sylph-like garments, so tenderly pinn'd,

That blew into shape, and embodied the wind!

There was white on the grass—there was white on the spray—

Her garden—it looked like a garden of May!

But now all is dark—not a shirt's on a shrub—

You've ruin'd her prospects in life, Mr. Scrub!

You've ruin'd her custom—now families drop her—

From her silver reduc'd—nay, reduc'd from her copper!

The last of her washing is done at her eye,

One poor little kerchief that never gets dry!

From mere lack of linen she can't lay a cloth,

And boils neither barley nor alkaline broth,—

But her children come round her as victuals grow scant,

And recall, with foul faces, the source of their want—

When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed,

And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead,

And even its pearlashes laid in the grave—

Whilst her tub is a dry rotting, stave after stave,

And the greatest of Coopers, ev'n he that they dub

Sir Astley, can't bind up her heart or her tub,—

Need you wonder she curses your bones, Mr. Scrub!

Need you wonder, when steam has depriv'd her of bread,

If she prays that the evil may visit your head—

Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee,—

If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the city—

In short, not to mention all plagues without number,

If she wishes you all in the Wash at the Humber!

Ah, perhaps, in some moment of drowth and despair,

When her linen got scarce, and her washing grew rare—

When the sum of her suds might be summ'd in a bowl,

And the rusty cold iron quite enter'd her soul—

When, perhaps, the last glance of her wandering eye

Had caught "the Cock Laundresses' Coach" going by,

Or her lines that hung idle, to waste the fine weather,

And she thought of her wrongs and her rights both together,

In a lather of passion that froth'd as it rose,

Too angry for grammar, too lofty for prose,

On her sheet—if a sheet were still left her—to write,

Some remonstrance like this then, perchance, saw the light—