He will pass beside the stream, mother, where first my hand he
pressed,
By the meadow where, with quivering lip, his passion he confessed;
And down the hedgerows where we've strayed again and yet again;
But he will not think of me, mother, his broken-hearted Jane!
He said that I was proud, mother, that I looked for rank and gold,
He said I did not love him—he said my words were cold;
He said I kept him off and on, in hopes of higher game—
And it may be that I did, mother; but who hasn't done the same?
I did not know my heart, mother—I know it now too late;
I thought that I without a pang could wed some nobler mate;
But no nobler suitor sought me—and he has taken wing,
And my heart is gone, and I am left a lone and blighted thing.
You may lay me in my bed, mother—my head is throbbing sore;
And, mother, prithee, let the sheets be duly aired before;
And, if you'd please, my mother dear, your poor desponding child,
Draw me a pot of beer, mother, and, mother, draw it mild!
A MIDNIGHT MEDITATION. BY SIR E———- B———- L———-. WILLIAM AYTOUN
Fill me once more the foaming pewter up!
Another board of oysters, ladye mine!
To-night Lucullus with himself shall sup.
These mute inglorious Miltons are divine;
And as I here in slippered ease recline,
Quaffing of Perkins' Entire my fill,
I sigh not for the lymph of Aganippe's rill.
A nobler inspiration fires my brain,
Caught from Old England's fine time-hallowed drink,
I snatch the pot again and yet again,
And as the foaming fluids shrink and shrink,
Fill me once more, I say, up to the brink!
This makes strong hearts—strong heads attest its charm—
This nerves the might that sleeps in Britain's brawny arm!
But these remarks are neither here nor there.
Where was I? Oh, I see—old Southey's dead!
They'll want some bard to fill the vacant chair,
And drain the annual butt—and oh, what head
More fit with laurel to be garlanded
Than this, which, curled in many a fragrant coil,
Breathes of Castalia's streams, and best Macassar oil?
I know a grace is seated on my brow,
Like young Apollo's with his golden beams;
There should Apollo's bays be budding now:
And in my flashing eyes the radiance beams
That marks the poet in his waking dreams.
When as his fancies cluster thick and thicker,
He feels the trance divine of poesy and liquor.
They throng around me now, those things of air,
That from my fancy took their being's stamp:
There Pelham sits and twirls his glossy hair,
There Clifford leads his pals upon the tramp;
Their pale Zanoni, bending o'er his lamp,
Roams through the starry wilderness of thought,
Where all is every thing, and every thing is naught.
Yes, I am he, who sung how Aram won
The gentle ear of pensive Madeline!
How love and murder hand in hand may run,
Cemented by philosophy serene,
And kisses bless the spot where gore has been!
Who breathed the melting sentiment of crime,
And for the assassin waked a sympathy sublime!