But tired of always looking at the coaches,
The same to come,—when they had seen them one day!
And, used to brisker life, both man and wife
Began to suffer N U E’s approaches,
And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday:—
So, having had some quarters of school breeding,
They turn’d themselves, like other folks, to reading;
But setting out where others nigh have done,
And being ripen’d in the seventh stage,
The childhood of old age,
Began, as other children have begun,—
Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope,
Or Bard of Hope,
Or Paley ethical, or learned Porson,—
But spelt, on Sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John,
And then relax’d themselves with Whittington,
Or Valentine and Orson—
But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con,
And being easily melted in their dotage,
Slobber’d,—and kept
Reading,—and wept
Over the white Cat, in their wooden cottage.
Thus reading on—the longer
They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger
In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and Giants grim,—
If talking Trees and Birds reveal’d to him,
She saw the flight of Fairyland’s fly-waggons,
And magic-fishes swim
In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons.—
Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flagons;
When, as it fell upon a summer’s day,
As the old man sat a feeding
On the old babe-reading,
Beside his open street-and-parlour door,
A hideous roar
Proclaim’d a drove of beasts was coming by the way.
Long-horn’d, and short, of many a different breed,
Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels
Or Durham feed;
With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils
From neither side of Tweed,
Or Firth of Forth;
Looking half wild with joy to leave the North,—
With dusty hides, all mobbing on together,—
When,—whether from a fly’s malicious comment
Upon his tender flank, from which he shrank;
Or whether
Only in some enthusiastic moment,—
However, one brown monster, in a frisk,
Giving his tail a perpendicular whisk,
Kick’d out a passage thro’ the beastly rabble;
And after a pas seul,—or, if you will, a
Hornpipe before the Basket-maker’s villa,
Leapt o’er the tiny pale,—
Back’d his beef-steaks against the wooden gable,
And thrust his brawny bell-rope of a tail
Right o’er the page,
Wherein the sage
Just then was spelling some romantic fable.
The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce,
Could not peruse,—who could?—two tales at once;
And being huff’d
At what he knew was none of Riquet’s Tuft,
Bang’d-to the door,
But most unluckily enclosed a morsel
Of the intruding tail, and all the tassel:—
The monster gave a roar,
And bolting off with speed, increased by pain,
The little house became a coach once more,
And, like Macheath, “took to the road” again!
Just then, by fortune’s whimsical decree,
The ancient woman stooping with her crupper
Towards sweet home, or where sweet home should be,
Was getting up some household herbs for supper;
Thoughtful of Cinderella, in the tale,
And quaintly wondering if magic shifts
Could o’er a common pumpkin so prevail,
To turn it to a coach;—what pretty gifts
Might come of cabbages, and curly kale;
Meanwhile she never heard her old man’s wail,
Nor turn’d, till home had turn’d a corner, quite
Gone out of sight!
At last, conceive her, rising from the ground,
Weary of sitting on her russet clothing;
And looking round
Where rest was to be found,
There was no house—no villa there—no nothing!
No house!
The change was quite amazing;
It made her senses stagger for a minute,
The riddle’s explication seem’d to harden;
But soon her superannuated nous
Explained the horrid mystery;—and raising
Her hand to heaven, with the cabbage in it,
On which she meant to sup,—
“Well! this is Fairy Work! I’ll bet a farden,
Little Prince Silverwings has ketch’d me up,
And set me down in some one else’s garden!”
THE FALL OF THE DEER.
[FROM AN OLD MS.]
OW the loud Crye is up, and harke!
The barkye Trees give back the Bark;
The House Wife heares the merrie rout,
And runnes,—and lets the beere run out,
Leaving her Babes to weepe,—for why?
She likes to heare the Deer Dogges crye,
And see the wild Stag how he stretches
The naturall Buck-skin of his Breeches,
Running like one of Human kind
Dogged by fleet Bailiffes close behind—
As if he had not payde his Bill
For Ven’son, or was owing still
For his two Hornes, and soe did get
Over his Head and Ears in Debt;—
Wherefore he strives to paye his Waye
With his long Legges the while he maye:—
But he is chased, like Silver Dish,
As well as anye Hart may wish
Except that one whose Heart doth beat
So faste it hasteneth his feet;—
And runninge soe, he holdeth Death
Four Feet from him,—till his Breath
Faileth, and slacking Pace at last,
From runninge slow he standeth faste,
With hornie Bayonettes at baye,
To Baying Dogges around, and they
Pushing him sore, he pusheth sore,
And goreth them that seeke his Gore,
Whatever Dogge his Horne doth rive
Is dead—as sure as he’s alive!
Soe that courageous Hart doth fight
With Fate, and calleth up his might,
And standeth stout that he maye fall
Bravelye, and be avenged of all,
Nor like a craven yeeld his Breath
Under the Jawes of Dogges and Death!