THE LAUREATE'S LAST LYRIC; OR, NORTHAMPTON' FREEMEN.
Come! pledge Northampton, friends, and then
A health to Freemen's every guest;
He best will serve the race of men
Who loves his country's freedom best!
May Freedom's reign for ever last,
With wider bounds from day to day;
He loves the present, not the past,
Who breaks the tyrant's chain away!
CHORUS—Hands all round! All despotic laws confound!
Northampton's Freemen, cheer, my friends,
The hope of Britain round and sound!
To all the British hearts, who long
Will keep their heart of freedom whole—
To all our noble sons, the strong
Of British birth—the men of soul
Who rise against coercive wrong,
That drags "suspects" untried to gaol,
While starving thousands in the realm.
Oh! burst the prison of the "Pale."
Whatever statesman holds the helm.
CHORUS—Hands all round! All despotic laws confound!
Northampton's Freemen, cheer, my friends,
The hope of Britain round and sound!
To all our statesmen who for Right,
Are leaders at the land's desire;
Nor bend nor aid the force of Might,
That gags free speech to quench the fire
That burns to make the people great,
In thought and deed on every hand.
We freedom gave the mighty State,
But lack it in our native land!
CHORUS—Hands all round! All despotic laws confound!
Northampton's Freemen, cheer, my friends,
The hope of Britain round and sound!
June 1882. E. T. CRAIG.
Tennyson's blank verse has seldom been more successfully imitated than in The Very Last Idyll, written by Shirley Brooks for "Punch's Pocket Book," it concludes thus:—
"And the blameless king,
Rising again (to Lancelot's discontent,
Who held all speeches a tremendous bore),
Said, "If one duty to be done remains,
And 'tis neglected, all the rest is nought
But Dead Sea apples and the acts of apes."
Smiled Guinevere, and begged him not to preach;
She knew that duty, and it should be done:
So what of pudding on that festal night
Was not consumed by Arthur and his guests,
The queen upon the following morning, fried."
In a similar strain, but more ponderous in treatment is Sir Tray: an Arthurian Idyll, which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1873. A few of the opening lines betray the whole of the jest:—
"The widow'd dame of Hubbard's ancient line
Turned to her cupboard, cornered anglewise
Betwixt this wall and that, in quest of aught
To satisfy the craving of Sir Tray,
Prick-eared companion of her solitude,
Red-spotted, dirty white, and bare of rib,
Who followed at her high and pattering heels,
Prayer in his eye, prayer in his slinking gait,
Prayer in his pendulous pulsating tail.
Wide on its creaking jaws revolved the door,
The cupboard yawned, deep throated, thinly set
For teeth, with bottles, ancient cannisters,
And plates of various pattern, blue or white;
Deep in the void she thrust her hookèd nose
Peering near sighted for the wished-for bone,
Whiles her short robe of samite, tilted high,
The thrifty darnings of her hose revealed;—
The pointed feature travelled o'er the delf,
Greasing its tip, but bone or bread found none.
Wherefore Sir Tray abode still dinnerless,
Licking his paws beneath the spinning-wheel,
And meditating much on savoury meats."
The hypercritical might object that, inasmuch as the dame greased the tip of her nose whilst peering into the recesses of her store-chamber, that some small rest of edibles was there, but the poem hurries on to its tragical climax, and carries the reader breathless past such trivial objections as these.
The dame passes out, and swiftly down the streets of Camelot, where she seeks, and finds, the needed bread, and hastens back—but all too late, alas! for Sir Tray lay prone upon the hearth, and neither breathed nor stirred:—
"Dead?" said the Dame, while louder wailed Elaine;
"I see," she said, "thy fasts were all too long,
Thy commons all too short, which shortened thus
Thy days, tho' thou mightst still have cheered mine age
Had I but timelier to the city wonned.
Thither I must again, and that right soon,
For now 'tis meet we lap thee in a shroud,
And lay thee in the vault by Astolat,
Where faithful Tray shall by Sir Hubbard lie."
Up a by-lane the undertaker dwelt;
There day by day he plied his merry trade,
And all his undertakings undertook:
Erst knight of Arthur's Court, Sir Waldgrave hight,
A gruesome carle who hid his jests in gloom,
And schooled his lid to counterfeit a tear.
With cheerful hammer he a coffin tapt,
While hollow, hollow, hollow rang the wood,
And, as he sawed and hammered, thus he sang—
Wood, hammer, nails, ye build a house for him,
Nails, hammer, wood, ye build a house for me,
Paying the rent, the taxes, and the rates.
I plant a human acorn in the ground,
And therefrom straightway springs a goodly tree,
Budding for me in bread and beer and beef.
O Life, dost thou bring Death or Death bring thee?
Which of the twain is bringer, which the brought?
Since men must die that other men may live.
O Death, for me thou plump'st thine hollow cheeks,
Mak'st of thine antic grin a pleasant smile,
And prank'st full gaily in thy winding sheet.
Yet am I but the henwife's favourite chick,
Pampered but doomed; and, in the sequel sure,
Death will the Undertaker overtake."
Thus to Sir Waldgrade the Dame recounts her loss:—
"Sir Tray that with me dwelt,
Lies on my lonely hearthstone stark and stiff;
Wagless the tail that waved to welcome me."
Here Waldgrave interposed in sepulchral tones—
"Oft have I noted, when the jest went round,
Sad 'twas to see the wag forget his tale—
Sadder to see the tail forget its wag."
The description of the coffin follows, and, lastly, after sundry vicissitudes (including a visit to the hatter's), the dame returned—
"Home through the darksome wold, and raised the latch,
And marked, full lighted by the ingle-glow,
Sir Tray, with spoon in hand, and cat on knee,
Spattering the mess about the chaps of Puss."