CHIVALRY AT A DISCOUNT.
“Des traditions étrangeres,
En parlant sans obscurité
Mais dans ces sources mensongères,
Necherchons point la vérité.”—Gresset.
“Nous avons changé tout cela.”—Moliere.
Lily, I’ve made a sketch, to show
How all the world will alter
The tournament in Ivanhoe,
As painted by Sir Walter;
Those jousting days have all gone by,
And heaven be praised they’re over!
“When brains were out, the man would die,”
A swain may now recover!
Yet, Lily! Love has still his darts,
And Beauty still her glances;
Her trophies now are wounded hearts,
Instead of broken lances!
Soft tales are told, though not with flowers,
But in a simple letter,
And on the whole, this world of ours
Is altered for the better!
Your stalwart chiefs, and men of might,
Though fine poetic sketches,
Contrasted with a modern knight,
Were sad, unpolished wretches;
They learned, indeed, to poise a dart,
Or breathe a bold defiance,
But “reading” was a mystic art,
And “writing” quite a science!
Our heroes still wear spur on heel,
And falchion, cap, and feather;
But for your surcoats made of steel,
And doublets made of leather,—
Good heavens! just fancy, at a ball,
How very incommodious!
And then, they never shaved at all—
’Twas positively odious!
A warrior wasted half his life
In wild crusades to Mecca,
In previous penance for a wife,
Like Jacob for Rebecca!
Or captive, held some twenty years
At Tunis or Aleppo,
Came back, perchance, without his ears,
A yellow fright, like Beppo!
Then heads were made to carry weight,
And not to carry knowledge;
Boys were not “brought up for the state,”
Girls were not sent to college;
Now (oh! how this round world improves!)
We’ve “Essays” by mechanics,
“Courses” of wisdom with removes,
And ladies’ calisthenics!
In the olden time, when youth had fled,
A lady’s life was over;
For might she not as well be dead
As live without a lover?
But now, no foolish date we fix,
So brisk our Hymen’s trade is,
Ladies are now at fifty-six
But “elderly young ladies.”