"The Ivy Green," by Dickens, lends grace to the "Pickwick Papers," while Thackeray's "The Church Porch" plays an interesting part in the novel "Pendennis."
THE IVY GREEN.
[Recited by the Old Clergyman at Manor Farm.]
Oh! a dainty plant is the ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stones decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim;
And the moldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a stanch old heart has he;
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings,
To his friend the huge oak-tree!
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,
As he joyously hugs and crawleth round,
The rich mold of dead men's graves.
Creeping where grim death has been,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old ivy shall never fade
From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant in its lonely days
Shall fatten upon the past:
For the stateliest building man can raise
Is the ivy's food at last.
Creeping on where time has been,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
THE CHURCH PORCH.
[Arthur Pendennis made his entry into literature by writing these verses for Mr. Bacon's "Spring Annual." The Hon. Percy Popjoy, a regular contributor to that fashionable publication, had sent in a poem which Mr. Bacon's reader condemned as too execrable to inflict upon the public. To take its place, at George Warrington's suggestion, Pendennis was invited to turn off a copy of verses to accompany an engraving which showed a damsel entering a church porch, with a young man watching her from a near-by niche. The poem printed below was the result.]
Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Ofttimes I hover:
And near the sacred gate
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.
The minster bell tolls out
Above the city's rout
And noise and humming:
They've stopped the chiming bell;
I hear the organ's swell:
She's coming, she's coming!