Chapter I: LEARNT a simple bit of rhyme

An easy air to sing;--

I thought the ditty at the time

A rather funny thing.

Of course, as I was green and young,

My judgment might be wrong;

Still, folks applauded when I sung

My only comic song.

Twas all about a Cavalier

Who finds a pair of gloves,

Which implicate, it's very clear,

The lady whom he loves.

That knight incontinently sends

That lady to Hong-Kong--

And thereupon abruptly ends

My only comic song.

'Twas most successful in its way,

For I could understand

Enough of harmony to play

Upon a Collard's grand.

My voice (though never very sweet,

And never very strong)

Possess'd sufficient force to treat

My only comic song.

One evening, anxious to impress

The lady of my choice,

I took some pains about my dress

And more about my voice.

But lo! a miserable man

(My rival all along)

Stept in before me, and began

My only comic song.

BOW BELLS.

T the brink of a murmuring brook

A contemplative Cockney reclined;

And his face wore a sad sort of look,

As if care were at work on his mind.

He sigh'd now and then as we sigh

When the heart with soft sentiment

swells;

And a tear came and moisten'd each eye

As he mournfully thought of Bow Bells.

I am monarch of all I survey!

(Thus he vented his feelings in words)--

But my kingdom, it grieves me to say,

Is inhabited chiefly by birds.

In this brook that flows lazily by

I believe that _one_ tittlebat dwells,

For I saw something jump at a fly

As I lay here and long'd for Bow Bells.

Yonder cattle are grazing--it's clear

From the bob of their heads up and down;--

But I cannot love cattle down here

As I should if I met them in town.

Poets say that each pastoral breeze

Bears a melody laden with spells;

But I don't find the music in these

That I find in the tone of Bow Bells.

I am partial to trees, as a rule;

And the rose is a beautiful flower.

(Yes, I once read a ballad at school

Of a rose that was wash'd in a shower.)

But, although I may doat on the rose,

I can scarcely believe that it smells

Quite so sweet in the bed where it grows

As when sold within sound of Bow Bells.

No; I've tried it in vain once or twice,

And I've thoroughly made up my mind

That the country is all very nice--

But I'd much rather mix with my kind.

Yes; to-day--if I meet with a train--

I will fly from these hills and these dells;

And to-night I will sleep once again

(Happy thought!) within sound of Bow Bells.

THE PLOT OF A ROMANCE.

Ay there they stood on the self-same spot,

And, it might be, the self-same day;

But one was thinking and one was not,

In exactly the old, old way.

Let the proud Earl feast in his gilded halls,

But the sound of a maniac's curse

Rings ever and aye round the castle-walls

That shelter the grim Fitz-Urse.

For the gory head of a patriot sire

Shall smile on a long-lost son,

Ere an island home shall be girt with fire,

And a victory lost and won.

There's an empty chair in the ingle-nook,

And a trivet against the wall;

There's a ghastly stain in the Domesday book,

And a mystery shroudeth all.

Old Peter the Beadsman breathes a sigh

As he passes the churchyard lone,

Where the bones of the best and the bravest lie,

All under a milk-white stone.

But winter and summer there lies a blot

On the scutcheon of grim Fitz-Urse;

And the two stood there, on the self-same spot,

As I said in the opening verse.

THE SUBJECTS OF SONG.

MULETEER! my Muleteer!

you haunt me in my slumber!

Through ballads (oh, so many!)

and through songs (oh, such

a number!):

You scale the Guadarrama--

you infest the Pyrenees,

And trot through comic operas

in four and twenty keys.

I hum of you, and whistle too;

I vainly try to banish

The million airs that you pervade in English, French, and

Spanish.

I hold your dark Pepitas and your mules immensely dear,

But _you_ begin to bore me, O eternal Muleteer!

O Gondolier! my Gondolier! pray quit the Adriatic;

That cold lagoon will make me soon incurably asthmatic.

Enough of barcarolling when the moon is in the skies;

I'm sick of the Rialto and I hate the Bridge of Sighs.

Your craft may suit, on summer nights, the songster or the

dreamer;

But, both for speed and elegance, give _me_ the penny steamer.

Your city is romantic, but your songs begin, I fear,

To pall upon me sadly, O eternal Gondolier!

O Cavalier! my Cavalier! for ages and for ages

You 've glared upon me darkly out of scores of title-pages:

I've join'd in all your battles, in your banquets, and your loves

(Including one occasion when you found a pair of gloves:)

I've seen you kiss and ride away--most cowardly behaviour!

But then, to damsels in distress I've seen you act the saviour.

You 're vastly entertaining; but I fancy that I hear

A deal too much about you, O eternal Cavalier!

AN OLD CYNIC

IS Cupid quite the rosy god

That poets try to make him out?

I've known him two-score years and odd,

And, frankly, I begin to doubt.

He has his prizes, I have heard;

I _know_ he has his blanks as well:

In fact, I think, upon my word,

_Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!_

Is PLUTUS quite the hero-king

That money-worms would have us think?

And is there, truly, anything

Of music in the metal's clink?

Perhaps you have a heart and brain,

And have a heart and brain _to sell!_

If not--I think 'tis pretty plain

_Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!_

Is Bacchus quite the handsome rake--

The gay and fascinating youth--

That poets paint him when they take

Poetic licences with truth?

When fever'd pulses come with day,

And headaches at your breakfast-bell,

I rather fancy that you 'll say,

_Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!_

And is Apollo quite so kind

As people say, to all his sons?

I think that now and then you 'll find

He rather starves his younger ones.

To play the lyre is pretty hard;

It's harder still to play it well.

Depend upon it, brother bard,

_Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!_

Of course you can afford to burn

A rushlight, if the stakes be large;

(And when you look for some return

In money for your rushlight's charge.)

But will you lose or will you gain?

That's somewhat difficult to tell;

And, if you lose, it's very plain

_Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!_

THE NIGHTINGALE.

T was the love-lorn PHILOMEL--

The sweetest bird that sings;

And o'er my spirit came the spell

That all sad music flings.

Then--fashioning to tender words

That wordless fairy-tale--

"Sing on," I cried, "oh, bird of

birds,

Melodious Nightingale!"

Her sorrow pierced me through

and through;

And, though the village-chime

A while ago had stricken two,

I took no note of time.

But somehow, ere the clock told three,

I felt my ardour fail;

For sleep came fighting hard in me

Against the Nightingale.

An hour I lay and listen'd still

To that ecstatic voice,

(Net working out my own sweet will,

But Mr Hobson's choice.)

"This melancholy strain," said I,

"Is very like a wail!"

Eftsoons I raised a bitter cry

Of "Hang the Nightingale!"

The village-clock had sped its round,

The village-clock struck five,

And still I found my sense of sound

Remorselessly alive.

I knew my efforts at repose

Would be of small avail,

Unless I rose and donn'd my hose,

And slew the Nightingale.

No way but one. I had a gun

With which, in former years,

Great execution I had done

Amongst the Volunteers;

And, while a friendly moonbeam

And lighted hill and dale,

I loaded--took a deadly aim--

And--exit Nightingale!

TO MY BRAIN.

(A LAST APPEAL.)

I.

REFRACTORY again,

My little--not exactly busy--B?

Well, you're a beauty, any one can see,

To call yourself a brain!

II.

I've tried repeated raps,

As Mr Home and other media do;

But there's no getting spirits out of you;--

You 're out of them, perhaps?

III.

It's not an easy thing

To grow poetic on a winter night,

So come along and let us take a flight

For the Pierian Spring.

WANTED, A SINGER.

Nay, fashion the verse to a knightly

strain,

And sing of some warlike band;

Of chivalry seeking a battle-plain

And perishing sword in hand.

I feel--whenever I hear you sing--

So decided a taste for that kind of thing.

H! sing me a song of the wild, wide sea,

Of the peril of rocks and storms--

How mariners bold as bold can be

Face Death in a hundred forms

Methinks--whenever I hear you sing--

That I rather should relish that kind

of thing.

But can you not carol a heart-felt lay,

On the pleasures and pains of love--

A melody soft as a breeze in May,

And pure as the skies above?

I think--whenever I hear you sing--

That there may be a charm in that kind of thing.

Come, chirrup me gaily a drinking-stave,

Of the bowl and its deep delights--

A hymn to old Bacchus, the god that gave

Such mirth to our festive nights.

But stop--why trouble yourself to sing,

As I know I am good at that kind of thing?

ANTICIPATIONS.