And home is silent, and love is clay.
This little ballad, which is taken from Mopsa the Fairy, by Jean Ingelow (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1869) is supposed to have been the original which C. S. Calverley had in his mind when he composed the amusing parody commencing:—
The auld wife sat at her ivied door,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her apron’d knees.
This ballad has already been alluded to, and some imitations of it given on [p. 71] of this volume.
It will be found in Fly Leaves, by C. S. Calverley (London: George Bell & Sons, 1878), in which there is another burlesque imitation of Miss Jean Ingelow’s poetry, entitled—
Lovers, and a Reflection.
In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter