Chapter IV (2)

I once had a Cousin who sung, Tom,
And her name may be nameless now,
But the sound of those songs is still young, Tom,
Though we are no longer so:
’Tis folly to dream of a bower of green
When there is not a leaf on the tree;--
But ’twixt walking and singing, that Cousin has been,
God forgive her! the ruin of me.

And now I care nought for society, Tom,
And lead a most anchorite life,
For I’ve loved myself into sobriety, Tom,
And out of the wish for a wife;
But oh! if I said but half what I might say,
So sad were the lesson ’twould give,
That ’twould keep you from loving for many a day,
And from Cousins--as long as you live.

BAGATELLES!

I saw one day, near Paphos’ bowers,
In a glass--sweet Fancy’s own--
A boy lie down among the flowers
That circled Beauty’s throne.
Poor youth! it moved my pity quite,
He looked so very sad;--
Apollo said “his head was light,”
But Pallas called him “mad.”
A little sylphid, hiding near,
Flew out from some blue-bells,
And whispered in the pale youth’s ear,
“Pray, try our Bagatelles!

“You’ve pondered over those musty books
Till half your locks are grey;--
You’ve dimmed your eyes, you’ve spoiled your looks,
You’ve worn yourself away!
Leave Wisdom’s leaden page awhile,
And take your lute again,
And Beauty’s eyes shall round you smile,
And Love’s repay the strain:
Leave politics to dull M.P.’s,
Philosophy to cells,--
Good youth!--you’ll ne’er succeed in these--
So try our Bagatelles!

“We’ve cures in these enchanted bowers
For every sort of ill,--
_Our_ only medicines are flowers,
Sweet flowers that never kill!
Our leeches, too, are wondrous wise
In mixing simples up,--
We’ve frozen dew-drops from the skies
For the fevered lover’s cup;
We’ve moonbeams gathered on the hills,
And star-drops in the dells;
And we never send you in our bills--
Pray, try our Bagatelles!

“And youths from every court and clime
Come here to seek advice,
And maids who have misspent their time
Are kept preserved--in ice!
Bright fountains in our gardens play,
And each has magic in it,--
We cure blue devils every day,
Blue stockings every minute:
And heartaches when they’re worst, and when
No other medicine tells,
In maids or matrons, youths or men,
Yield to our--Bagatelles!

“Last week a statesman came, whose eyes
Scarce knew what sweet repose is,
We gave one draught of Beauty’s sighs,--
Look there--how calm he dozes!
A lawyer called the week before,
Who talked of naught but Blackstone,
We took him to our sylphid store,
And a pair of wings we waxed on;
And if you’ll look in yonder grove,--
Just by that grot of shells,--
You’ll find him making shocking love,
And talking--Bagatelles!”

The sick youth raised his drooping head
As the sylphid ceased to speak,--
“Hush, hush,” she cried, “you must to bed,
And be quiet for a week!”
And soon a Muse, with rainbow wings,
And looks of laughing joy,
Came with a lute of silver strings;
And she sat beside the boy:
And when I saw them last they lay
Far up those flowery dells,
And the boy was growing glad and gay
As she sung him--Bagatelles!

THERE’S NOTHING NEW BENEATH THE SUN.

(_The Brazen Head._)

The world pursues the very track
Which it pursued at its creation;
And mortals shrink in horror back
From any hint of innovation;
From year to year the children do
Exactly what their sires have done;
Time is! time was!--there’s nothing new,--
There’s nothing new beneath the sun!

Still lovers hope to be believed,
Still clients hope to win their causes;
Still plays and farces are received
With most encouraging applauses;
Still dancers have fantastic toes,
Still dandies shudder at a dun;
Still diners have their fricandeaus,--
There’s nothing new beneath the sun!

Still cooks torment the hapless eels,
Still boys torment the dumb cockchafers;
Lord Eldon still adores the seals,
Lord Clifford still adores the wafers;
Still asses have enormous ears,
Still gambling bets are lost and won;
Still opera dancers marry peers,--
There’s nothing new beneath the sun!

Still women are absurdly weak,
Still infants dote upon a rattle;
Still Mr. Martin cannot speak
Of anything but beaten cattle;
Still brokers swear the shares will rise,
Still Cockneys boast of Manton’s gun;
Still listeners swallow monstrous lies,--
There’s nothing new beneath the sun!

Still genius is a jest to earls,
Still honesty is down to zero;
Still heroines have spontaneous curls,
Still novels have a handsome hero;
Still Madame Vestris plays a man,
Still fools adore her, I for one;
Still youths write sonnets to a fan,--
There’s nothing new beneath the sun!

Still people make a plaguey fuss,
About all things that don’t concern them,
As if it matters aught to us,
What happens to our grandsons, burn them!
Still life is nothing to the dead,
Still Folly’s toil is Wisdom’s fun;
And still, except the Brazen Head,--
There’s nothing new beneath the sun!

PEACE BE THINE.

When Sorrow moves with silent tread
Around some mortal’s buried dust,
And muses on the mouldering dead
Who sleep beneath their crumbling bust,
Though all unheard and all unknown
The name on that sepulchral stone,
She looks on its recording line,
And whispers kindly, “Peace be thine!”

O Lady! me thou knowest not,
And what I am, or am to be;
The pain and pleasure of my lot
Are nought, and must be nought, to thee;
Thou seest not my hopes and fears;
Yet thou, perhaps, in other years,
Wilt look on this recording line,
And whisper kindly, “Peace be thine!”

THE CONFESSION OF DON CARLOS.[1]

(_Imitated from the Spanish._)

O tell me not of broken vow--
I speak a firmer passion now;
O tell me not of shattered chain--
The link shall never burst again!
My soul is fixed as firmly here
As the red sun in his career,
As victory on Mina’s crest
Or tenderness in Rosa’s breast;
Then do not tell me, while we part,
Of fickle flame and roving heart;
While youth shall bow at beauty’s shrine,
That flame shall glow--that heart be thine.

Then wherefore dost thou bid me tell
The fate thy malice knows so well?
I may not disobey thee!--yes!
Thou bidst me--and I _will_ confess:
See how adoringly I kneel:
Hear how my folly I reveal:
My folly!--chide me if thou wilt,
Thou shalt not, canst not, call it guilt:--
And when my faithlessness is told,
Ere thou hast time to play the scold,
I’ll haste the fond rebuke to check,
And lean upon the snowy neck,
Play with its glossy auburn hair,
And hide the blush of falsehood there.

Inez, the innocent and young,
First shared my heart, and waked my song;
We were both harmless, and untaught
To love as fashionables ought;
With all the modesty of youth
We talked of constancy and truth,
Grew fond of music and the moon,
And wandered on the nights of June
To sit beneath the chesnut tree,
While the lonely stars shone mellowly,
Shedding a pale and dancing beam
On the wave of Guadalquivir’s stream.
And aye we talked of faith and feelings,
With no distrustings, no concealings;
And aye we joyed in stolen glances,
And sighed, and blushed, and read romances.
Our love was ardent and sincere,
And lasted, Rosa--half a-year!
And then the maid grew fickle-hearted,--
Married Don Josè--so we parted.
At twenty-one I’ve often heard
My bashfulness was quite absurd;
For, with a squeamishness uncommon,
I feared to love a married woman.

Fair Leonora’s laughing eye
Again awaked my song and sigh:
A gay intriguing dame was she,
And fifty Dons of high degree,
That came and went as they were bid,
Dubbed her the Beauty of Madrid.
Alas! what constant pains I took
To merit one approving look!
I courted valour and the muse,
Wrote challenges and billets-doux;
Paid for sherbet and serenade,
Fenced with Pegru and Alvarade;
Fought all the bull-fights like a hero,
Studied small talk and the Bolero:
Played the guitar--and played the fool,
That out of tune--this out of rule.
I oft at midnight wandered out,
Wrapt up in love and my capoté,
To muse on beauty and the skies,
Cold winds--and Leonora’s eyes.

Alas! when all my gains were told,
I’d caught a Tartar--and a cold.
And yet, perchance, that lovely brow
Had still detained my captive vow--
That clear blue eye’s enchanting roll
Had still enthralled my yielding soul,--
But suddenly a vision bright
Came o’er me in a veil of light,
And burst the bonds whose fetters bound me,
And brake the spell that hung around me,
Recalled the heart that madly roved,
And bade me love, and be beloved.
Who was it broke the chain and spell?
Dark-eyed Castilian! _thou_ canst tell!

And am I faithless!--woe the while!
What vow but melts at Rosa’s smile?
For broken vows, and faith betrayed,
The guilt is thine, Castilian maid!

The tale is told, and I am gone:
Think of me, loved and only one,
When none on earth shall care beside
How Carlos lived, or loved, or died!
Thy love on earth shall be to me
A bird upon a leafless tree,
A bark upon a hopeless wave,
A lily on a tombless grave,
A cheering hope, a living ray,
To light me on a weary way.

And thus is love’s confession done:
Give me thy parting benison;
And, ere I rise from bended knee,
To wander o’er a foreign sea
Alone and friendless,--ere I don
My pilgrim’s hat and sandal shoon,
Dark-eyed Castilian! let me win
Forgiveness sweet for venial sin;
Let lonely sighs, and dreams of thee,
Be penance for my perjury!

MARRIAGE.

What, what is Marriage? Harris, Priscian!
Assist me with a definition.--
“Oh!” cries a charming silly fool,
Emerging from her boarding-school--
“Marriage is--love without disguises,
It is a--something that arises
From raptures and from stolen glances,
To be the end of all romances;
Vows--quarrels--moonshine--babes--but hush!
I mustn’t have you see me blush.”

“Pshaw!” says a modern modish wife,
“Marriage is splendour, fashion, life;
A house in town, and villa shady,
Balls, diamond bracelets, and ‘my lady;’
Then for finale, angry words,
Some people’s--‘obstinate’s--‘absurds!’
And peevish hearts, and silly heads,
And oaths, and _bêtes_, and separate beds.”

An aged bachelor, whose life
Has just been sweetened with a wife,
Tells out the latent grievance thus:
“Marriage is--odd! for one of us
’Tis worse a mile than rope or tree,
Hemlock, or sword, or slavery;
An end at once to all our ways,
Dismission to the one-horse chaise;
Adieu to Sunday car, and pig,
Adieu to wine, and whist, and wig;
_Our_ friends turn out,--our wife’s are clapt in;
’Tis ‘Exit crony,’--‘Enter captain!’
Then hurry in a thousand thorns,--
Quarrels, and compliments,--and horns.
This is the yoke, and I must wear it;
Marriage is--hell, or something near it!”

“Why, marriage,” says an exquisite,
Sick from the supper of last night,
“Marriage is--after one by me!
I promised Tom to ride at three.--
Marriage is--’gad! I’m rather late;
_La Fleur_--my stays! and chocolate!--
Marriage is--really, though, ’twas hard
To lose a thousand on a card;
Sink the old Duchess!--three revokes!
’Gad! I must fell the abbey oaks:
Mary has lost a thousand more!--
Marriage is--’gad! a cursed bore!”

Hymen, who hears the blockheads groan,
Rises indignant from his throne,
And mocks their self-reviling tears,
And whispers thus in Folly’s ears:
“O frivolous of heart and head!
If strifes infest your nuptial bed,
Not Hymen’s hand, but guilt and sin,
Fashion and folly, force them in;
If on your couch is seated Care,
_I_ did not bring the scoffer there;
If Hymen’s torch is feebler grown,
The hand that quenched it was your own;
And what I am, unthinking elves,
Ye all have made me for yourselves!”

THE BACHELOR.[2]

T. QUINCE, ESQ., TO THE REV. MATTHEW PRINGLE.

You wonder that your ancient friend
Has come so near his journey’s end,
And borne his heavy load of ill
O’er Sorrow’s slough, and Labour’s hill,
Without a partner to beguile
The toilsome way with constant smile,
To share in happiness and pain,
To guide, to comfort, to sustain,
And cheer the last long weary stage
That leads to Death through gloomy Age!
To drop these metaphoric jokes,
And speak like reasonable folks,
It seems you wonder, Mr. Pringle,
That old Tom Quince is living single!

Since my old crony and myself
Laid crabbed Euclid on the shelf,
And made our _congé_ to the Cam,
Long years have passed; and here I am
With nerves and gout, but yet alive,
A Bachelor, and fifty-five.--
Sir, I’m a Bachelor, and mean
Until the closing of the scene,
Or be it right, or be it wrong,
To play the part I’ve played so long,
Nor be the rat that others are,
Caught by a ribbon or a star.

“As years increase,” your worship cries,
“All troubles and anxieties
Come swiftly on: you feel vexation
About your neighbours, or the nation;
The gout in fingers or in toes
Awakes you from your first repose;
You’ll want a clever nurse, when life
Begins to fail you--take a wife!
Believe me, from the mind’s disease
Her soothing voice might give you ease,
And, when the twinge comes shooting through you,
Her care might be of service to you!”
Sir, I’m not dying, though I know
You charitably think me so;--
Not dying yet, though you, and others,
In augury your learned brothers,
Take pains to prophesy events
Which lie some twenty winters hence.
Some twenty?--look! you shake your head
As if I were insane or dead,
And tell your children and your wife--
“Old men grow _very_ fond of life!”
Alas! you prescience never ends
As long as it concerns your friends;
But your own fifty-third December
Is what you never can remember!
And when I talk about my health
And future hopes of weal or wealth,
With something ’twixt a grunt and groan
You mutter in an undertone--
“Hark! how the dotard chatters still![3]
He’ll not believe he’s old or ill!
He goes on forming great designs,--
Has just laid in a stock of wines,--
And promises his niece a ball,
As if grey hairs would never fall!
I really think he’s all but mad.”
Then, with a wink and sigh, you add,
“Tom is a friend I dearly prize,
But--never thought him _over_ wise!”

You--who are clever to foretell
Where ignorance might be as well--
Would marvel how my health has stood:
My pulse is firm, digestion good,
I walk to see my turnips grow,
Manage to ride a mile or so,
Get to the village church to pray,
And drink my pint of wine a day;
And often, in an idle mood,
Emerging from my solitude,
Look at my sheep, and geese, and fowls,
And scare the sparrows and the owls,
Or talk with Dick about my crops,
And learn the price of malt and hops.

You say that when you saw me last
My appetite was going fast,
My eye was dim, my cheek was pale,
My bread--and stories--both were stale;
My wine and wit were growing worse,
And all things else,--except my purse;
In short, the very blind might see
I was not what I used to be.

My glass (which I believe before ye)
Will teach me quite another story;
My wrinkles are not many yet,
My hair is still as black as jet;
My legs are full, my cheeks are ruddy,
My eyes, though somewhat weak by study,
Retain a most vivacious ray,
And tell no stories of decay;
And then my waist, unvexed, unstayed,
By fetters of the tailor’s trade,
Tells you, as plain as waist can tell,
I’m most unfashionably well.

And yet you think I’m growing thinner!--
You’d stare to see me eat my dinner!
You know that I was held by all
The greatest epicure in Hall,
And that the voice of Granta’s sons
Styled me the Gourmand of St. John’s:--
I have not yet been found unable
To do my duty to my table,
Though at its head no lady gay
Hath driven British food away,
And made her hapless husband bear
Alike her fury and her fare.
If some kind-hearted chum calls in,
An extra dish and older bin
And John in all his finery drest
Do honour to the welcome guest;
And then we talk of other times,
Of parted friends, and distant climes,
And lengthened converse, tale, and jest,
Lull every anxious care to rest;
And when unwillingly I rise
With newly wakened sympathies
From conversation--and the bowl,
The feast of stomach--and of soul,
I lay me down, and seem to leap
O’er forty summers in my sleep;
And youth, with all its joy and pain,
Comes rushing on my soul again.
I rove where’er my boyhood roved--
I love whate’er my boyhood loved--
And rocks, and vales, and woods, and streams,
Fleet o’er my pillow in my dreams.

’Tis true, some ugly foes arise,
E’en in this earthly paradise,
Which you, good Pringle, may beguile,
By Mrs. P’s unceasing smile;
I am an independent elf,
And keep my comforts in myself.
If my best sheep have got the rot--
Or if the Parson hits a blot--
Or if young witless prates of laurel--
Or if my tithe produces quarrel--
Or if my roofing wants repairs--
Or if I’m angry with my heirs--
Or if I’ve nothing else to do--
I grumble for an hour or two;
Riots or rumours unrepressed,
My niece--or knuckle--over-drest,
The lateness of a wished-for post,
Miss Mackrell’s story of the ghost,
New wine, new fashions, or new faces,
New bills, new taxes, or new places,
Or Mr. Hume’s enumeration
Of all the troubles of the nation,
Will sometimes wear my patience out!
Then, as I said before, the gout--
Well, well, my heart was never faint!
And yet it might provoke a saint.
A rise of bread, or fall of rain,
Sometimes unite to give me pain;
And oft my lawyer’s bag of papers
Gives me a taste of spleen and vapours.
Angry or sad, alone or ill,
I have my senses with me still;
Although my eyes are somewhat weak,
Yet can I dissipate my pique,
By Poem, Paper, or Review;
And though I’m dozy in my pew
At Dr. Poundtext’s second leaf,
I am not yet so very deaf
As to require the rousing noise
Of screaming girls and roaring boys.
Thrice--thrice accursed be the day
When I shall fling my bliss away,
And, to disturb my quiet life,
Take discord in the shape of wife!
Time, in his endless muster-roll,
Shall mark the hour with blackest coal,
When old Tom Quince shall cease to see
The _Chronicle_ with toast and tea,
Confine his rambles to his park,
And never dine till after dark,
And change his comfort and his crony
For crowd and conversazione.

If every aiding thought is vain,
And momentary grief and pain
Urge the old man to frown and fret,
He has another comfort yet;
This earth has thorns, as poets sing,
But not for ever can they sting;
Our sand from out its narrow glass
Rapidly passes!--let it pass!
I seek not, I, to check or stay
The progress of a single day,
But rather cheer my hours of pain,
Because so few of them remain.
Care circles every mortal head,--
The dust will be a calmer bed!
From Life’s alloy no life is free,
But--Life is not Eternity!

When that unerring day shall come
To call me, from my wandering, home,--
The dark and still and painful day
When breath shall fleet in groans away,
When comfort shall be vainly sought,
And doubt shall be in every thought,
When words shall fail th’ unuttered vow,
And fever heat the burning brow,
When the dim eye shall gaze, and fear
To close the glance that lingers here,
Snatching the faint departing light
That seems to flicker in its flight,
When the lone heart, in that long strife,
Shall cling unconsciously to life,--
I’ll have no shrieking female by
To shed her drops of sympathy;
To listen to each smothered throe,
To feel, or feign, officious woe,
To bring me every useless cup,
And beg “dear Tom” to drink it up,
To turn my oldest servants off,
E’en as she hears my gurgling cough;
And then expectantly to stand,
And chafe my temples with her hand,
And pull a cleaner night-cap o’er ’em,
That I may die with due decorum;
And watch the while my ebbing breath,
And count the tardy steps of death;
Grudging the leech his growing bill,
And wrapt in dreams about the will.
I’ll have no Furies round my bed!--
They shall not plague me--till I’m dead.

Believe me! ill my dust would rest,
If the plain marble o’er my breast,
That tells, in letters large and clear,
“THE BONES OF THOMAS QUINCE LIE HERE!”
Should add a talisman of strife,
“ALSO THE BONES OF JOAN, HIS WIFE!”
No! while beneath this simple stone
Old Quince shall sleep, and sleep alone,
Some village Oracle, who well
Knows how to speak, and read, and spell,
Shall slowly construe, bit by bit,
My “_Natus_” and my “_Obiit_,”
And then, with sage discourse and long,
Recite my virtues to the throng:--

“The Gentleman came straight from College:
A most prodigious man for knowledge!
He used to pay all men their due,
Hated a miser--and a Jew;
But always opened wide his door
To the first knocking of the poor.
None, as the grateful parish knows,
Save the Churchwardens, were his foes;
They could not bear the virtuous pride
Which gave the sixpence they denied.
If neighbours had a mind to quarrel,
He used to treat them to a barrel;
And that, I think, was sounder law
Than any book I ever saw.
The ladies never used to flout him;
But this was rather strange about him:
That, gay or thoughtful, young or old,
He took no wife for love or gold;
Women he called ‘a pretty thing,’
But never could abide a ring!”

Good Mr. Pringle!--you must see
Your arguments are light with me;
They buzz like feeble flies around me,
But leave me firm, as first they found me.
Silence your logic! burn your pen!
The poet says, “We all are men;”
And all “condemned alike to groan”--
You with a wife, and I with none.
Well! yours may be a happier lot,
But it is one I envy not;
And you’ll allow me, Sir, to pray
That, at some near-approaching day,
You may not have to wince and whine,
And find some cause to envy mine!

HOW TO RHYME FOR LOVE.

At the last hour of Fannia’s rout,
When Dukes walked in, and lamps went out,
Fair Chloe sat; a sighing crowd
Of high adorers round her bowed,
And ever flattery’s incense rose
To lull the idol to repose.
Sudden some Gnome that stood unseen,
Or lurked disguised in mortal mien,
Whispered in Beauty’s trembling ear
The word of bondage and of fear--
“Marriage!”--her lips their silence broke,
And smiled on Vapid as they spoke,--
“I hate a drunkard or a lout,
I hate the the sullens and the gout;
If e’er I wed--let danglers know it--
I wed with no one but a poet.”

And who but feels a poet’s fire
When Chloe’s smiles, as now, inspire?
Who can the bidden verse refuse
When Chloe is his verse and Muse?
Thus Flattery whispered round;
And straight the humorous fancy grew,
That lyres are sweet when hearts are true;
And all who feel a lover’s flame
Must rhyme to-night on Chloe’s name;
And he’s unworthy of the dame
Who silent here is found.
Since head must plead the cause of heart,
Some put their trust in answer smart
Or pointed repartee;
Some joy that they have hoarded up
Those genii of the jovial cup,
Chorus, and catch, and glee;
And for one evening all prepare
To be “Apollo’s chiefest care.”

Then Vapid rose--no Stentor this,
And his no Homer’s lay;
Meek victim of antithesis,
He sighed and died away:--
“Despair my sorrowing bosom rives,
And anguish on me lies
Chloe may die, while Vapid lives,
Or live while Vapid dies!
You smile!--the horrid vision flies,
And Hope this promise gives;
I cannot live while Chloe dies,
Nor die while Chloe lives!”

Next, Snaffle, foe to tears and sadness,
Drew fire from Chloe’s eyes;
And warm with drunkenness and madness,
He started for the prize.
“Let the glad cymbals loudly clash,
Full bumpers let’s be quaffing!
No poet I!--Hip, hip!--here goes!
Blow,--blow the trumpet, blow the----”
Here he was puzzled for a rhyme,
And Lucy whispered “nose” in time,
And so they fell a-laughing.

“Gods!” cried a minister of State,
“You know not, Empress of my fate,
How long my passion would endure,
If passion were a sinecure;
But since, in Love’s despotic clime,
Fondness is taxed, and pays in rhyme,
Glad to retire, I shun disgrace,
And make my bow, and quit my place.”

And thus the jest went circling round,
And ladies smiled and sneered,
As smooth fourteen and weak fourscore
Professed they ne’er had rhymed before,
And drunkards blushed, and doctors swore,
And soldiers owned they feared;
Unwonted Muses were invoked
By pugilists and whips,
And many a belle looked half provoked,
When favoured swains stood dumb and choked;
And warblers whined, and punsters joked,
And dandies bit their lips.

At last an old Ecclesiastic,
Who looked half kind and half sarcastic,
And seemed in every transient look
At once to flatter and rebuke,
Cut off the sport with “Pshaw! enough:”
And then took breath,--and then took snuff:
“Chloe,” he said, “you’re like the moon;
You shine as bright, you change as soon;
Your wit is like the moon’s fair beam,
In borrowed light ’tis over us thrown;
Yet, like the moon’s, that sparkling stream
To careless eyes appears your own;
Your cheek by turns is pale and red,
And then to close the simile,
(From which methinks you turn your head,
As half in anger, half in glee,)
Dark would the night appear without you,
And--twenty fools have rhymed about you!”

SURLY HALL.

“Mercy o’ me, what a multitude are here!
They grow still, too; from all parts they are coming,
As if we kept a fair here.”
--_Shakespeare._

The sun hath shed a mellower beam,
Fair Thames, upon thy silver stream,
And air and water, earth and heaven,
Lie in the calm repose of even.
How silently the breeze moves on,
Flutters, and whispers, and is gone!
How calmly does the quiet sky
Sleep in its cold serenity!
Alas! how sweet a scene were here
For shepherd or for sonnetteer;
How fit the place, how fit the time,
For making love, or making rhyme!
But though the sun’s descending ray
Smiles warmly on the close of day,
’Tis not to gaze upon his light
That Eton’s sons are here to-night;
And though the river, calm and clear,
Makes music to the poet’s ear,
’Tis not to listen to the sound
That Eton’s sons are thronging round:
The sun unheeded may decline--
Blue eyes send out a brighter shine;
The wave may cease its gurgling moan--
Glad voices have a sweeter tone;
For in our calendar of bliss
We have no hour so gay as this,
When the kind hearts and brilliant eyes
Of those we know, and love, and prize,
Are come to cheer the captive’s thrall,
And smile upon his festival.

Stay, Pegasus!--and let me ask
Ere I go onward in my task,--
Pray, reader, were you ever here,
Just at this season of the year?
No!--then the end of next July
Should bring you, with admiring eye,
To hear us _row_, and see us row,
And cry, “How fast _them_ boys _does_ go!”
For Father Thames beholds to-night
A thousand visions of delight;
Tearing and swearing, jeering, cheering,
Lame steeds to right and left careering,
Displays, dismays, disputes, distresses,
Ruffling of temper and of dresses;
Wounds on the heart--and on the knuckles;
Losing of patience--and of buckles.
An interdict is laid on Latin,
And scholars smirk in silk and satin,
And dandies start their thinnest pumps,
And Michael Oakley’s in the dumps;
And there is nought beneath the sun
But dash, and splash, and falls, and fun.

Lord! what would be the Cynic’s mirth,
If fate would lift him to the earth,
And set his tub, with magic jump,
Squat down beside the Brocas Clump!
What scoffs the sage would utter there
From his unpolished elbow-chair,
To see the sempstress’ handiwork,
The Greek confounded with the Turk,
Parisian mixed with Piedmontese,
And Persian joined to Portuguese;
And mantles short, and mantles long,
And mantles right, and mantles wrong,
Mis-shaped, mis-coloured, and mis-placed
With what the tailor calls a _taste_!
And then the badges and the boats,
The flags, the drums, the paint, the coats;
But more than these, and more than all,
The puller’s intermitted call--
“Easy!”--“Hard all!”--“Now pick her up!”--
“Upon my life, how I shall sup!”
Would be a fine and merry matter
To wake the sage’s love of satire.
Kind readers, at my laughing age
I thank my stars I’m not a sage;
I, an unthinking, scribbling elf,
Love to please others--and myself;
Therefore I fly _a malo joco_,
But like _desipere in loco_.
Excuse me, that I wander so;
All modern pens digress, you know.
Now to my theme! Thou Being gay,
Houri or goddess, nymph or fay,
Whoe’er--whate’er--where’er thou art--
Who, with thy warm and kindly heart,
Hast made these blest abodes thy care,--
Being of water, earth, or air,--
Beneath the moonbeam hasten hither,
Enjoy thy blessings ere they wither,
And witness with thy gladdest face
The glories of thy dwelling-place!

The boats put off; throughout the crowd
The tumult thickens; wide and loud
The din re-echoes; man and horse
Plunge onward in their mingled course.
Look at the troop! I love to see
Our real Etonian cavalry:
They start in such a pretty trim,
And such sweet scorn of life and limb.
I must confess I never found
A horse much worse for being sound;
I wish my nag not wholly blind,
And like to have a tail behind;
And though he certainly may hear
Correctly with a single ear,
I think, to look genteel and neat,
He ought to have his two complete.
But these are trifles!--off they go
Beside the wondering river’s flow;
And if, by dint of spur and whip,
They shamble on without a trip,
Well have they done! I make no question
They’re shaken into good digestion.

I and my Muse--my Muse and I--
Will follow with the company,
And get to Surly Hall in time
To make a supper, and a rhyme.
Yes! while the animating crowd,
The gay, and fair, and kind, and proud,
With eager voice and eager glance,
Wait till the pageantry advance,
We’ll throw around a hasty view,
And try to get a sketch or two.

First in the race is William Tag,
Thalia’s most industrious fag;
Whate’er the subject he essays
To dress in never-dying lays,
A chief, a cheese, a dearth, a dinner,
A cot, a castle, cards, Corinna,
Hibernia, Baffin’s Bay, Parnassus,
Beef, Bonaparte, beer, Bonassus--
Will hath his ordered words, and rhymes
For various scenes and various times;
Which suit alike for this or that,
And come, like volunteers, quite _pat_.
He hath his elegy, or sonnet,
For Lucy’s bier, or Lucy’s bonnet;
And celebrates with equal ardour
A monarch’s sceptre, or his larder.
Poor William, when he wants a hint,
All other poet’s are his mint;
He coins his epic or his lyric,
His satire or his panegyric,
From all the gravity and wit
Of what the ancients thought and writ.
Armed with his Ovid and his Flaccus
He comes like thunder to attack us;
In pilfered mail he bursts to view,
The cleverest thief I ever knew.
Thou noble Bard! at any time
Borrow my measure and my rhyme;
Borrow (I’ll cancel all the debt)
An epigram or epithet;
Borrow my mountains, or my trees,
My paintings, or my similes;
Nay, borrow all my pretty names,
My real or my fancied flames;
Eliza, Alice, Leonora,
Mary, Melina, and Medora;
And borrow all my “mutual vows,”
My “ruby lips,” and “cruel brows,”
And all my stupors and my startings,
And all my meetings, and my partings;
Thus far, my friend, you’ll find me willing;
Borrow all things save one--a shilling!

Drunken, and loud, and mad, and rash,
Joe Tarrell wields his ceaseless lash;
The would-be sportsman; o’er the sides
Of the lank charger he bestrides
The foam lies painfully, and blood
Is trickling in a ruddier flood
Beneath the fury of the steel,
Projecting from his armed heel.
E’en from his childhood’s earliest bloom,
All studies that become a groom
Eton’s _spes gregis_, honest Joe,
Or knows, or would be thought to know;
He picks a hunter’s hoof quite finely,
And spells a horse’s teeth divinely.
Prime terror of molesting duns,
Sole judge of greyhounds and of guns,
A skilful whip, a steady shot,
Joe swears he is!--who says he’s not?
And then he has such knowing faces
For all the week of Ascot races,
And talks with such a mystic speech,
Untangible to vulgar reach,
Of Sultan, Highflyer, and Ranter,
Potatoes, Quiz, and Tam O’Shanter,
Bay colts and brown colts, sires and dams,
Bribings and bullyings, bets and bams;
And how the favourite _should_ have won,
And how the little Earl was _done_;
And how the filly failed in strength,
And how some faces grew in length;
And how some people--if they’d show--
Know something more than others know.
Such is his talk; and while we wonder
At that interminable thunder,
The undiscriminating snarler
Astounds the ladies in the parlour,
And broaches at his mother’s table
The slang of kennel and of stable.
And when he’s drunk, he roars before ye
One excellent unfailing story,
About a gun, Lord knows how long,
With a discharge, Lord knows how strong,
Which always needs an oath and frown
To make the monstrous dose go down.
O! oft and oft the Muses pray
That wondrous tube may burst some day,
And then the world will ascertain
Whether its master hath a brain!
Then, on the stone that hides his sleep,
These accents shall be graven deep,--
Or “Upton” and “C. B.”[4] between
Shine in the _Sporting Magazine_;--
“Civil to none, except his brutes;
Polished in nought, except his boots;
Here lie the relics of Joe Tarrell:
Also, Joe Tarrell’s double-barrel!”
Ho!--by the muttered sounds that slip
Unwilling from his curling lip;
By the grey glimmer of his eye,
That shines so unrelentingly;
By the stern sneer upon his snout,
I know the critic, Andrew Crout!
The boy-reviler! amply filled
With venomed virulence, and skilled
To look on what is good and fair
And find or make a blemish there.
For Fortune to his cradle sent
Self-satisfying discontent,
And he hath caught from cold Reviews
The one great talent, to abuse;
And so he sallies sternly forth,
Like the cold Genius of the North,
To check the heart’s exuberant fulness,
And chill good-humour into dulness:
Where’er he comes, his fellows shrink
Before his awful nod and wink;
And wheresoe’er these features plastic
Assume the savage or sarcastic,
Mirth stands abashed, and Laughter flies,
And Humour faints, and Quibble dies.
How sour he seems!--and hark! he spoke;
We’ll stop and listen to the croak;
’Twill charm us, if these happy lays
Are honoured by a fool’s dispraise!--
“You think the boats well manned this year!
To you they may perhaps appear!--
I who have seen those frames of steel,
Tuckfield, and Dixon, and Bulteel,
Can swear--no matter what I swear--
Only things are not as they were!
And then our cricket!--think of that!
We ha’n’t a tolerable bat;
It’s very true, that Mr. Tucker,
Who puts the field in such a pucker,
Contrives to make his fifty runs;--
What then?--we had a Hardinge once!
As for our talents, where are they?
Griffin and Grildrig had their day;
And who’s the star of modern time?
Octosyllabic Peregrine;
Who pirates, puns, and talks sedition,
Without a moment’s intermission;
And if he did not get a lift
Sometimes from _me_--and Doctor Swift,
I can’t tell what the deuce he’d do!--
But this, you know, is _entre nous_!
I’ve tried to talk him into taste,
But found my labour quite misplaced;
He nibs his pen, and twists his ear,
And says he’s deaf and cannot hear;
And if I mention right or rule,--
Egad! he takes me for a fool!”

Gazing upon this varied scene
With a new artist’s absent mien,
I see thee silent and alone,
My friend, ingenious Hamilton.
I see thee there--(nay, do not blush!)
Knight of the Pallet and the Brush,
Dreaming of straight and crooked lines,
And planning portraits and designs.
I like him hugely!--well I wis,
No despicable skill is his,
Whether his sportive canvas shows
Arabia’s sands or Zembla’s snows,
A lion, or a bed of lilies,
Fair Caroline, or fierce Achilles;
I love to see him taking down
A schoolfellow’s unconscious frown,
Describing twist, grimace, contortion,
In most becoming disproportion,
While o’er his merry paper glide
Rivers of wit; and by his side
Caricatura takes her stand,
Inspires the thought and guides the hand;
I love to see his honoured books
Adorned with rivulets and brooks;
Troy frowning with her ancient towers,
Or Ida gay with fruit and flowers;
I love to see fantastic shapes,
Dragons and griffins, birds and apes,
And pigmy forms and forms gigantic,
Forms natural, and forms romantic,
Of dwarf and ogres, dames and knights,
Scrawled by the side of Homer’s fights,
And portraits daubed on Maro’s poems,
And profiles penned to Tulley’s Proems;
In short, I view with partial eyes
Whate’er my brother painter tries.
To each belongs his own utensil;
I sketch with pen, as he with pencil;
And each, with pencil or with pen,
Hits off a likeness now and then.
He drew _me_ once--the spiteful creature!
’Twas voted--“like in every feature;”
It might have been so!--(’twas lopsided,
And squinted worse than ever I did:)
However, from that hapless day,
I owed the debt, which here I pay;
And now I’ll give my friend a hint:--
Unless you want to shine in print,
Paint lords and ladies, nymphs and fairies,
And demi-gods, and dromedaries;
But never be an author’s creditor,
Nor paint the picture of an Editor!

Who is the youth with stare confounded,
And tender arms so neatly rounded,
And moveless eyes, and glowing face,
And attitude of studied grace?
Now Venus, pour your lustre o’er us!
Your would-be servant stands before us!
Hail, Corydon! let others blame
The fury of his fictioned flame;
I love to hear the beardless youth
Talking of constancy and truth,
Swearing more darts are in his liver
Than ever gleamed in Cupid’s quiver,
And wondering at those hearts of stone
Which never melted like his own.
Ah! when I look on Fashion’s moth,
Wrapt in his visions and his cloth,
I would not, for a nation’s gold,
Disturb the dream--or spoil the fold!

And who the maid, whose gilded chain,
Hath bound the heart of such a swain?
Oh! look on those surrounding graces!
There is no lack of pretty faces;
M----l, the goddess of the night,
Looks beautiful with all her might;
And M----, in that simple dress,
Enthralls us more by studying less;
D----, in your becoming pride,
Ye march to conquest, side by side;
And A----, thou fleetest by
Bright in thine arch simplicity;
Slight are the links thy power hath wreathed;
Yet, by the tone thy voice hath breathed,
By thy glad smile and ringlets curled,
I would not break them for the world!
But this is idle! Paying court
I know was never yet my forte;
And all I say of nymph and queen,
To cut it short, can only mean
That when I throw my gaze around
I see much beauty on the ground.

Hark! hark! a mellowed note
Over the water seemed to float!
Hark! the note repeated!
A sweet, and soft, and soothing strain
Echoed, and died, and rose again,
As if the Nymphs of Fairy reign
Were holding to-night their revel rout,
And pouring their fragrant voices out,
On the blue water seated.
Hark to the tremulous tones that flow,
And the voice of the boatmen as they row,
Cheerfully to the heart they go,
And touch a thousand pleasant strings
Of triumph and pride, and hope and joy,
And thoughts that are only known to boy,
And young imaginings!
The note is near, the voice comes clear,
And we catch its echo on the ear
With a feeling of delight;
And, as the gladdening sounds we hear,
There’s many an eager listener here,
And many a straining sight.

One moment,--and ye see
Where, fluttering quick, as the breezes blow,
Backwards and forwards, to and fro,
Bright with the beam of retiring day,
Old Eton’s flag, on its watery way,
Moves on triumphantly!
But what that ancient poets have told
Of Amphitrite’s car of gold,
With the Nymphs behind, and the Nymphs before,
And the Nereid’s song, and the Triton’s roar,
Could equal half the pride
That heralds the Monarch’s plashing oar
Over the swelling tide?
And look!--they land those gallant crews,
With their jackets light, and their bellying trews;
And Ashley walks applauded by,
With a world’s talent in his eye;
And Kinglake, dear to poetry,
And dearer to his friends;
Hibernian Roberts, you are there,
With that unthinking, merry stare
Which still its influence lends
To make us drown our devils blue,
In laughing at ourselves,--and you!
Still I could lengthen out the tale,
And sing Sir Thomas with his ale
To all that like to read;
Still I could choose to linger long
Where Friendship bids the willing song
Flow out for honest Meade!

Yet e’en on this triumphant day
One thought of grief will rise;
And though I bid my fancy play,
And jest and laugh through all the lay,
Yet sadness still will have its way,
And burst the vain disguise!
Yes! when the pageant shall have passed,
I shall have looked upon my last;
I shall not e’er behold again
Our pullers’ unremitted strain;
Nor listen to the charming cry
Of contest or of victory
That speaks what those young bosoms feel,
As keel is pressing fast on keel;
Oh! bright these glories still shall be,
But they shall never dawn for me!

E’en when a realm’s congratulation
Sang Pæans for the Coronation,
Amidst the pleasure that was round me,
A melancholy spirit found me;
And while all else were singing “Io!”
I couldn’t speak a word but “Heigh-ho!”
And so, instead of laughing gaily,
I dropped a tear,--and wrote my “Vale.”

VALE!

Eton, the Monarch of thy prayers
E’en now receives his load of cares;
Throned in the consecrated choir
He takes the sceptre of his sire,
And wears the crown his father wore,
And swears the oath his father swore,
And therefore sounds of joy resound,
Fair Eton, on thy classic ground.
A gladder gale is round thee breathed;
And on thy mansions thou hast wreathed
A thousand lamps, whose various hue
Waits but the night to burst to view.
Woe to the poets that refuse
To wake and woo their idle Muse,
When those glad notes, “God save the King,”
From hill, and vale, and hamlet ring!
Hark, how the loved inspiring tune
Peals forth from every loyal loon
Who loves his country, and excels
In drinking beer or ringing bells!
It is a day of shouts and greeting;
A day of idleness and eating;
And triumph swells in every soul,
And mighty beeves are roasted whole,
And ale, unbought, is set a-running,
And pleasure’s hymn grows rather stunning,
And children roll upon the green,
And cry, “Confusion to the Queen!”
And Sorrow flies, and Labour slumbers:
And Clio pours her loudest numbers;
And hundreds of that joyous throng
With whom my life hath lingered long
Give their glad raptures to the gale,
In one united echoing “Hail!”

I took the harp, I smote the string,
I strove to soar on Fancy’s wing,
And murmur in my sovereign’s praise
The latest of my boyhood’s lays.
Alas! the theme was too divine
To suit so weak a Muse as mine:
I saw--I felt it could not be;
No song of triumph flows from me;
The harp from which those sounds ye ask
Is all unfit for such a task;
And the last echo of its tone,
Dear Eton, must be thine alone!

A few short hours, and I am borne
Far from the fetters I have worn;
A few short hours, and I am free!--
And yet I shrink from liberty,
And look, and long to give my soul
Back to thy cherishing control.
Control? Ah no! thy chain was meant
Far less for bond than ornament;
And though its links are firmly set,
I never found them gall me yet.
Oh still, through many chequered years,
’Mid anxious toils, and hopes, and fears,
Still I have doted on thy fame,
And only gloried in thy name.
How I have loved thee! Thou hast been
My Hope, my Mistress, and my Queen;
I always found thee kind, and thou
Hast never seen me weep--till now.

I knew that time was fleeting fast,
I knew thy pleasures could not last;
I knew too well that riper age
Must step upon a busier stage;
Yet when around thine ancient towers
I passed secure my tranquil hours,
Or heard beneath thine aged trees
The drowsy humming of the bees,
Or wandered by thy winding stream,
I would not check my fancy’s dream;
Glad in my transitory bliss,
I recked not of an hour like this;
And now the truth comes swiftly on,
The truth I would not think upon,
The last sad thought, so oft delayed,--
“These joys are only born to fade.”

Ye Guardians of my earliest days,
Ye Patrons of my earliest lays,
Custom reminds me, that to you
Thanks and farewell to-day are due.
Thanks and farewell I give you,--not
(As some that leave this holy spot)
In laboured phrase and polished lie
Wrought by the forge of flattery,
But with a heart that cannot tell
The half of what it feels so well.
If I am backward to express,
Believe, my love is not the less;
Be kind as you are wont, and view
A thousand thanks in one Adieu.
My future life shall strive to show
I wish to pay the debt I owe;
The labours that ye give to May
September’s fruits shall best repay.
And you, my friends, who loved to share
Whate’er was mine of sport or care,
Antagonists at fives or chess,
Friends in the play-ground or the press,
I leave ye now; and all that rests
Of mutual tastes, and loving breasts,
In the lone vision that shall come,
Where’er my studies and my home,
To cheer my labour and my pain
And make me feel a boy again.

Yes! when at last I sit me down,
A scholar, in my cap and gown,--
When learned doctrines, dark and deep,
Move me to passion or to sleep,--
When Clio yields to logic’s wrangles,
And Long and Short give place to angles,--
When stern Mathesis makes it treason
To like a rhyme, or scorn a reason--
With aching head and weary wit
Your parted friend shall often sit,
Till Fancy’s magic spell hath bound him,
And lonely musings flit around him;
Then shall ye come with all your wiles,
Of gladdening sounds and warming smiles,
And nought shall meet his eye or ear,--
Yet shall he deem your souls are near.

Others may clothe their valediction
With all the tinsel charms of fiction;
And one may sing of Father Thames,
And Naiads with a hundred names,
And find a Pindus here, and own
The College pump a Helicon,
And search for gods about the College,
Of which old Homer had no knowledge;
And one may eloquently tell
The triumphs of the Windsor belle,
And sing of Mira’s lips and eyes,
In oft-repeated ecstasies.
Oh! he hath much and wondrous skill
To paint the looks that wound and kill,
As the poor maid is doomed to brook,
Unconsciously, her lover’s look,
And smiles, and talks, until the poet
Hears the band play, and does not know it.
To speak the plain and simple truth,--
I always was a jesting youth,
A friend to merriment and fun,
No foe to quibble and to pun;
Therefore I cannot feign a tear;
And, now that I have uttered here
A few unrounded accents, bred
More from the heart than from the head,
Honestly felt, and plainly told,
My lyre is still, my fancy cold.

MY FIRST FOLLY.

(_Stanzas written at Midnight._)

Pretty Coquette, the ceaseless play
Of thine unstudied wit,
And thy dark eye’s remembered ray
By buoyant fancy lit,
And thy young forehead’s clear expanse,
Where the locks slept, as through the dance,
Dreamlike, I saw thee flit,
Are far too warm, and far too fair
To mix with aught of earthly care;
But the vision shall come when my day is done,
A frail and a fair and a fleeting one!

And if the many boldly gaze
On that bright brow of thine,
And if thine eye’s undying rays
On countless coxcombs shine,
And if thy wit flings out its mirth,
Which echoes more of air than earth,
For other ears than mine,
I heed not this; ye are fickle things,
And I like your very wanderings;
I gaze, and if thousands share the bliss,
Pretty Capricious! I heed not this.

In sooth I am a wayward youth,
As fickle as the sea,
And very apt to speak the truth,
Unpleasing though it be;
I am no lover; yet as long
As I have heart for jest or song,
An image, sweet, of thee,
Locked in my heart’s remotest treasures,
Shall ever be one of its hoarded pleasures;--
This from the scoffer thou hast won,
And more than this he gives to none.

SONGS FROM THE TROUBADOUR.[5]