Poor fool! to resent the caprices of Luck.
Still, a long thirty years (it was rather degrading)
He’d been writing despatches,—which means he had stuck
Some heads and some tails to much rhodomontading.
This sounds rather weary and dreary; but, no!
Though strictly inglorious, his days were quiescent,
And his red-tape was tied in a true-lover’s bow
Each night when returning to Rosemary Crescent.
There Joan meets him smiling, the young ones are there,
His coming is bliss to the half-dozen wee things;
Of his advent the dog and the cat are aware,
And Phyllis, neat handed, is laying the tea-things.
This greeting the silent old Clerk understands.
Now his friends he can love, had he foes, he could mock them;
So met, so surrounded, his bosom expands,—
Some tongues have more need of such scenes to unlock them.
And Darby, at least, is resign’d to his lot,
And Joan (rather proud of the sphere he’s adorning)
Has well-nigh forgotten that Gunpowder Plot,
And he won’t recall it till ten the next morning.
A time must arrive when, in pitiful case,
He will drop from his Branch like a fruit more than mellow:
Is he still to be found in his usual place?
Or is he already forgotten, poor fellow?
If still at his duty, he soon will arrive,—
He passes this turning, because it is shorter,—
If not within sight as the clock’s striking five,
We shall see him before it is chiming the quarter.
THE GARTER
The healthy-wealthy-wise, affirm,
That early birds secure the worm,
And doubtless so they do;
Who scorns his couch should earn, by rights,
A world of pleasant sounds and sights
That vanish with the dew.
Bright Phosphor, from his watch released,
Now fading from the purple East—
The morning waxing stronger;
The comely cock that vainly strives
To crow from sleep his drowsy wives,
Who would be dosing longer.