His mother a matron of Enfield-wash,
And laundress to the Queen!
And long could he trace his ancestry,
Too long for my weak minstrelsy.”
* * * * *
——:o:——
Valentines,
A Fragment.
… “It was then proposed that we should each of us compose a poem for the next St. Valentine’s Day. The idea was readily adopted, and the Minstrel, who has a knack of pouring the unpremeditated lay, after a very short prelude on the bagpipes, sang the following irregular lines, accompanying his voice with great taste on that expressive instrument:—
I who, of Norham’s castled steep,