AT THE GRAVE OF CHARLES LAMB, IN EDMONTON
Not here, O teeming City, was it meet
Thy lover, thy most faithful, should repose,
But where the multitudinous life-tide flows
Whose ocean-murmur was to him more sweet
Than melody of birds at morn, or bleat
Of flocks in Spring-time, there should Earth enclose
His earth, amid thy thronging joys and woes,
There, 'neath the music of thy million feet.
In love of thee this lover knew no peer.
Thine eastern or thy western fane had made
Fit habitation for his noble shade.
Mother of mightier, nurse of none more dear,
Not here, in rustic exile, O not here,
Thy Elia like an alien should be laid!
LINES IN A FLYLEAF OF "CHRISTABEL"
Inhospitably hast thou entertained,
O Poet, us the bidden to thy board,
Whom in mid-feast, and while our thousand mouths
Are one laudation of the festal cheer,
Thou from thy table dost dismiss, unfilled.
Yet loudlier thee than many a lavish host
We praise, and oftener thy repast half-served
Than many a stintless banquet, prodigally
Through satiate hours prolonged; nor praise less well
Because with tongues thou hast not cloyed, and lips
That mourn the parsimony of affluent souls,
And mix the lamentation with the laud.
LINES TO OUR NEW CENSOR
[Mr. Oscar Wilde, having discovered that England is unworthy of him, has announced his resolve to become a naturalised Frenchman.]
And wilt thou, Oscar, from us flee,
And must we, henceforth, wholly sever?
Shall thy laborious jeux-d'esprit
Sadden our lives no more for ever?
And all thy future wilt thou link
With that brave land to which thou goest?
Unhappy France! we used to think
She touched, at Sedan, fortune's lowest.
And you're made French as easily
As you might change the clothes you're wearing?
Fancy!—and 'tis so hard to be
A man of sense and modest bearing.
May fortitude beneath this blow
Fail not the gallant Gallic nation!
By past experience, well we know
Her genius for recuperation.