Loud laughed the Knight of Netherby, and scornfully he cried,
“Or art thou mad with wine, Lord Earl, or art thyself beside?
Eight hundred Bedlam bards have claimed the Laureate’s vacant crown,
And now like frantic Bacchanals run wild through London town!”
“Now glory to our gracious Queen!” a voice was heard to cry,
And dark Macaulay stood before them all with frenzied eye;
“Now glory to our gracious Queen, and all her glorious race,
A boon, a boon, my sovran liege! Give me the Laureate’s place!
“’Twas I that sang the might of Rome, the glories of Navarre;
And who could swell the fame so well of Britain’s Isles afar?
The hero of a hundred fights—” Then Wellington up sprung,
“Ho, silence in the ranks, I say! Sit down and hold your tongue!
“By heaven, thou shalt not twist my name into a jingling lay,
Or mimic in thy puny song the thunders of Assaye!
’Tis hard that for thy lust of place in peace we cannot dine.
Nurse, take her Royal Highness, here! Sir Robert, pass the wine!”
“No Laureate need we at our board!” then spoke the Lord of Vaux;
“Here’s many a voice to charm the ear with minstrel song, I know.
Even I myself—” Then rose the cry—“A song, a song from Brougham!”
He sang,—and straightway found himself alone within the room.
The Bard of Erin’s Lament.
by t--- m---re, esq.
Oh, weep for the hours, when the little blind boy
Wove round me the spells of his Paphian bower;
When I dipped my light wings in the nectar of joy,
And soared in the sunshine, the moth of the hour!
From beauty to beauty I passed, like the wind;
Now fondled the lily, now toyed with the Rose;
And the fair, that at morn had enchanted my mind,
Was forsook for another ere evening’s close.
I sighed not for honour, I cared not for fame,
While Pleasure sat by me, and Love was my guest;
They twined a fresh wreath for each day as it came,
And the bosom of Beauty still pillowed my rest: