CONGRATULATORY VERSES TO THE NEW SEATS IN THE REGENT’S-PARK, 1826 versus CHAIRS.
I covet not the funeral chair
Th’ Orlean maid was burnt in, when
Enthusiasts’ voices rent the air
To clasp their Joan of Arc again.
I, learned Busby’s chair, chuse not,[239]
Nor of a boat in stormy seas,
Nor on a bridge—the stony lot
Of travellers not afraid to freeze.
I covet not the chair of state,
Nor that St. Peter’s papal race
Exalted for Pope Joan the great,
But seek and find an easier place.
To halls and abbeys knights repaired,
And barons to their chairs retired;
The goblet, glove, and shield, were reared,
As war and love their cause inspired.
Saint Edward’s chair the minster keeps,
An antique chair the dutchess bears;[240]
The invalid—he hardly sleeps,
Though poled through Bath in easy chairs.[241]
The chairs St. James’s-park contains,
The chairs at Kew and Kensington,
Have rested weary hearts and brains
That charmed the town, now still and gone.
I covet not the chair of guilt
Macbeth upbraided for its ghost;
Nor Gay’s, on which much ink was spilt,
When he wrote fables for his host.
What of Dan Lambert’s?—Oberon’s chair?
Bunyan’s at Bedford?—Johnson’s seat?
Chaucer’s at Woodstock?—Bloomfield’s bare?
Waxed, lasting, ended, and complete.[242]
Though without back, and sides, and arms,
Thou, Regent’s Seat! art doubly dear!
Nature appears in youthful charms
For all that muse and travel here.