NEW POEMS IN LAMB'S POETICAL WORKS, 1836
IN THE ALBUM OF EDITH S[OUTHEY] (1833)
In Christian world MARY the garland wears!
REBECCA sweetens on a Hebrew's ear;
Quakers for pure PRISCILLA are more clear;
And the light Gaul by amorous NINON swears.
Among the lesser lights how LUCY shines!
What air of fragrance ROSAMOND throws round!
How like a hymn doth sweet CECILIA sound!
Of MARTHAS, and of ABIGAILS, few lines
Have bragg'd in verse. Of coarsest household stuff
Should homely JOAN be fashioned. But can
You BARBARA resist, or MARIAN?
And is not CLARE for love excuse enough?
Yet, by my faith in numbers, I profess,
These all, than Saxon EDITH, please me less.
TO DORA W[ORDSWORTH],
On Being Asked by Her Father to Write in Her Album
An Album is a Banquet: from the store,
In his intelligential Orchard growing,
Your Sire might heap your board to overflowing;
One shaking of the Tree—'twould ask no more
To set a Salad forth, more rich than that
Which Evelyn[12] in his princely cookery fancied:
Or that more rare, by Eve's neat hands enhanced,
Where, a pleased guest, the angelic Virtue sat.
But like the all-grasping Founder of the Feast,
Whom Nathan to the sinning king did tax,
From his less wealthy neighbours he exacts;
Spares his own flocks, and takes the poor man's beast.
Obedient to his bidding, lo, I am,
A zealous, meek, contributory
LAMB.
[Footnote 12: Acetaria, a Discourse of Sallets, by J.E., 1706.]
IN THE ALBUM OF ROTHA Q[UILLINAN]
A passing glance was all I caught of thee,
In my own Enfield haunts at random roving.
Old friends of ours were with thee, faces loving;
Time short: and salutations cursory,
Though deep, and hearty. The familiar Name
Of you, yet unfamiliar, raised in me
Thoughts—what the daughter of that Man should be,
Who call'd our Wordsworth friend. My thoughts did frame
A growing Maiden, who, from day to day
Advancing still in stature, and in grace,
Would all her lonely Father's griefs efface,
And his paternal cares with usury pay.
I still retain the phantom, as I can;
And call the gentle image—Quillinan.
IN THE ALBUM OF CATHERINE ORKNEY
Canadia! boast no more the toils
Of hunters for the furry spoils;
Your whitest ermines are but foils
To brighter Catherine Orkney.
That such a flower should ever burst
From climes with rigorous winter curst!—
We bless you, that so kindly nurst
This flower, this Catherine Orkney.
We envy not your proud display
Of lake—wood—vast Niagara:
Your greatest pride we've borne away.
How spared you Catherine Orkney?
That Wolfe on Heights of Abraham fell,
To your reproach no more we tell:
Canadia, you repaid us well
With rearing Catherine Orkney.
O Britain, guard with tenderest care
The charge allotted to your share:
You've scarce a native maid so fair,
So good, as Catherine Orkney.
TO T. STOTHARD, ESQ.
On His Illustrations of the Poems of Mr. Rogers
(1833)
Consummate Artist, whose undying name
With classic Rogers shall go down to fame,
Be this thy crowning work! In my young days
How often have I with a child's fond gaze
Pored on the pictured wonders[13] thou hadst done:
Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison!
All Fielding's, Smollett's heroes, rose to view;
I saw, and I believed the phantoms true.
But, above all, that most romantic tale[14]
Did o'er my raw credulity prevail,
Where Glums and Gawries wear mysterious things,
That serve at once for jackets and for wings.
Age, that enfeebles other men's designs,
But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines.
In several ways distinct you make us feel—
Graceful as Raphael, as Watteau genteel.
Your lights and shades, as Titianesque, we praise;
And warmly wish you Titian's length of days.
[Footnote 13: Illustrations of the British Novelists.]
[Footnote 14: Peter Wilkins.]
TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE
(1833)
What makes a happy wedlock? What has fate
Not given to thee in thy well-chosen mate?
Good sense—good humour;—these are trivial things,
Dear M——, that each trite encomiast sings.
But she hath these, and more. A mind exempt
From every low-bred passion, where contempt,
Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found
A harbour yet; an understanding sound;
Just views of right and wrong; perception full
Of the deformed, and of the beautiful,
In life and manners; wit above her sex,
Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks;
Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth,
To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth;
A noble nature, conqueror in the strife
Of conflict with a hard discouraging life,
Strengthening the veins of virtue, past the power
Of those whose days have been one silken hour,
Spoil'd fortune's pamper'd offspring; a keen sense
Alike of benefit, and of offence,
With reconcilement quick, that instant springs
From the charged heart with nimble angel wings;
While grateful feelings, like a signet sign'd
By a strong hand, seem burnt into her mind.
If these, dear friend, a dowry can confer
Richer than land, thou hast them all in her;
And beauty, which some hold the chiefest boon,
Is in thy bargain for a make-weight thrown.
THE SELF-ENCHANTED
(1833)
I had a sense in dreams of a beauty rare,
Whom Fate had spell-bound, and rooted there,
Stooping, like some enchanted theme,
Over the marge of that crystal stream,
Where the blooming Greek, to Echo blind,
With Self-love fond, had to waters pined.
Ages had waked, and ages slept,
And that bending posture still she kept:
For her eyes she may not turn away,
'Till a fairer object shall pass that way—
'Till an image more beauteous this world can show,
Than her own which she sees in the mirror below.
Pore on, fair Creature! for ever pore,
Nor dream to be disenchanted more;
For vain is expectance, and wish is vain,
'Till a new Narcissus can come again.
TO LOUISA M[ARTIN], WHOM I USED TO CALL "MONKEY"
(1831)
Louisa, serious grown and mild,
I knew you once a romping child,
Obstreperous much and very wild.
Then you would clamber up my knees,
And strive with every art to tease,
When every art of yours could please.
Those things would scarce be proper now.
But they are gone, I know not how,
And woman's written on your brow.
Time draws his finger o'er the scene;
But I cannot forget between
The Thing to me you once have been
Each sportive sally, wild escape,—
The scoff, the banter, and the jape,—
And antics of my gamesome Ape.
CHEAP GIFTS: A SONNET
(1834)
[In a leaf of a quarto edition of the 'Lives of the Saints, written in Spanish by the learned and reverend father, Alfonso Villegas, Divine, of the order of St. Dominick, set forth in English by John Heigham, Anno 1630,' bought at a Catholic book-shop in Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, I found, carefully inserted, a painted flower, seemingly coeval with the book itself; and did not, for some time, discover that it opened in the middle, and was the cover to a very humble draught of a St. Anne, with the Virgin and Child; doubtless the performance of some poor but pious Catholic, whose meditations it assisted.]
O lift with reverent hand that tarnish'd flower,
That 'shrines beneath her modest canopy
Memorials dear to Romish piety;
Dim specks, rude shapes, of Saints! in fervent hour
The work perchance of some meek devotee,
Who, poor in worldly treasures to set forth
The sanctities she worshipped to their worth,
In this imperfect tracery might see
Hints, that all Heaven did to her sense reveal.
Cheap gifts best fit poor givers. We are told
Of the lone mite, the cup of water cold,
That in their way approved the offerer's zeal.
True love shows costliest, where the means are scant;
And, in her reckoning, they abound, who want.
FREE THOUGHTS ON SEVERAL EMINENT COMPOSERS
(1830)
Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites; for my part,
I do not care a farthing candle
For either of them, or for Handel.—
Cannot a man live free and easy,
Without admiring Pergolesi?
Or thro' the world with comfort go,
That never heard of Doctor Blow?
So help me heaven, I hardly have;
And yet I eat, and drink, and shave,
Like other people, if you watch it,
And know no more of stave or crotchet,
Than did the primitive Peruvians;
Or those old ante-queer-diluvians
That lived in the unwash'd world with Jubal,
Before that dirty blacksmith Tubal
By stroke on anvil, or by summ'at,
Found out, to his great surprise, the gamut.
I care no more for Cimarosa,
Than he did for Salvator Rosa,
Being no painter; and bad luck
Be mine, if I can bear that Gluck!
Old Tycho Brahe, and modern Herschel,
Had something in them; but who's Purcel?
The devil, with his foot so cloven,
For aught I care, may take Beethoven;
And, if the bargain does not suit,
I'll throw him Weber in to boot.
There's not the splitting of a splinter
To chuse 'twixt him last named, and Winter.
Of Doctor Pepusch old queen Dido
Knew just as much, God knows, as I do.
I would not go four miles to visit
Sebastian Bach (or Batch, which is it?);
No more I would for Bononcini.
As for Novello, or Rossini,
I shall not say a word to grieve 'em,
Because they're living; so I leave 'em.
* * * * *
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, NOT COLLECTED BY LAMB
DRAMATIC FRAGMENT
(1798)
Fie upon't.
All men are false, I think. The date of love
Is out, expired, its stories all grown stale,
O'er past, forgotten, like an antique tale
Of Hero and Leander.
JOHN WOODVIL.
All are not false. I knew a youth who died
For grief, because his Love proved so,
And married with another.
I saw him on the wedding-day,
For he was present in the church that day,
In festive bravery deck'd,
As one that came to grace the ceremony.
I mark'd him when the ring was given,
His countenance never changed;
And when the priest pronounced the marriage blessing,
He put a silent prayer up for the bride,
For so his moving lip interpreted.
He came invited to the marriage feast
With the bride's friends,
And was the merriest of them all that day:
But they, who knew him best, called it feign'd mirth;
And others said,
He wore a smile like death upon his face.
His presence dash'd all the beholders' mirth,
And he went away in tears.
What followed then?
Oh! then
He did not, as neglected suitors use,
Affect a life of solitude in shades,
But lived,
In free discourse and sweet society,
Among his friends who knew his gentle nature best.
Yet ever when he smiled,
There was a mystery legible in his face,
That whoso saw him said he was a man
Not long for this world.——
And true it was, for even then
The silent love was feeding at his heart
Of which he died:
Nor ever spake word of reproach,
Only, he wish'd in death that his remains
Might find a poor grave in some spot, not far
From his mistress' family vault, "being the place
Where one day Anna should herself be laid."
DICK STRYPE; OR, THE FORCE OF HABIT
A Tale—By Timothy Bramble
(1801)
Habits are stubborn things:
And by the time a man is turn'd of forty,
His ruling passion's grown so haughty
There is no clipping of its wings.
The amorous roots have taken earth, and fix
And never shall P—TT leave his juggling tricks,
Till H——Y quits his metre with his pride,
Till W——M learns to flatter regicide,
Till hypocrite-enthusiasts cease to vant
And Mister W——E leaves off to cant.
The truth will best be shewn,
By a familiar instance of our own.
Dick Strype
Was a dear friend and lover of the PIPE;
He us'd to say, one pipe of Kirkman's best
Gave life a zest.
To him 'twas meat, and drink, and physic,
To see the friendly vapour
Curl round his midnight taper,
And the black fume
Clothe all the room,
In clouds as dark as science metaphysic.
So still he smok'd, and drank, and crack'd his joke;
And, had he single tarried
He might have smok'd, and still grown old in smoke:
But RICHARD married.
His wife was one, who carried
The cleanly virtues almost to a vice,
She was so nice:
And thrice a week, above, below,
The house was scour'd from top to toe,
And all the floors were rubb'd so bright,
You dar'd not walk upright
For fear of sliding:
But that she took a pride in.
Of all things else REBECCA STRYPE
Could least endure a pipe.
She rail'd upon the filthy herb tobacco,
Protested that the noisome vapour
Had spoilt the best chintz curtains and the paper
And cost her many a pound in stucco:
And then she quoted our King James, who saith
"Tobacco is the Devil's breath."
When wives will govern, husbands must obey;
For many a day
DICK mourn'd and miss'd his favourite tobacco,
And curs'd REBECCA.
At length the day approach'd, his wife must die:
Imagine now the doleful cry
Of female friends, old aunts and cousins,
Who to the fun'ral came by dozens—
The undertaker's men and mutes
Stood at the gate in sable suits
With doleful looks,
Just like so many melancholy rooks.
Now cakes and wine are handed round,
Folks sigh, and drink, and drink, and sigh,
For Grief makes people dry:
But DICK is missing, nowhere to be found
Above, below, about
They searched the house throughout,
Each hole and secret entry,
Quite from the garret to the pantry,
In every corner, cupboard, nook and shelf,
And all concluded he had hang'd himself.
At last they found him—reader, guess you where—
'Twill make you stare—
Perch'd on REBECCA'S Coffin, at his rest,
SMOKING A PIPE OF KIRKMAN'S BEST.
TWO EPITAPHS ON A YOUNG LADY WHO LIVED NEGLECTED AND DIED OBSCURE
(1801 or 1802)
I
Under this cold marble stone
Lie the sad remains of one
Who, when alive, by few or none
Was lov'd, as lov'd she might have been,
If she prosp'rous days had seen,
Or had thriving been, I ween.
Only this cold funeral stone
Tells, she was beloved by one,
Who on the marble graves his moan.
II
A Heart which felt unkindness, yet complained not,
A Tongue which spake the simple Truth, and feigned not:
A Soul as white as the pure marble skin
(The beauteous Mansion it was lodgèd in)
Which, unrespected, could itself respect,
On Earth was all the Portion of a Maid
Who in this common Sanctuary laid,
Sleeps unoffended by the World's neglect.
THE APE
(1806)
An Ape is but a trivial beast,
Men count it light and vain;
But I would let them have their thoughts,
To have my Ape again.
To love a beast in any sort,
Is no great sign of grace;
But I have loved a flouting Ape's
'Bove any lady's face.
I have known the power of two fair eyes,
In smile, or else in glance,
And how (for I a lover was)
They make the spirits dance;
But I would give two hundred smiles,
Of them that fairest be,
For one look of my staring Ape,
That used to stare on me.
This beast, this Ape, it had a face—
If face it might be styl'd—
Sometimes it was a staring Ape,
Sometimes a beauteous child—
A Negro flat—a Pagod squat,
Cast in a Chinese mold—
And then it was a Cherub's face,
Made of the beaten gold!
But TIME, that's meddling, meddling still
And always altering things—
And, what's already at the best,
To alteration brings—
That turns the sweetest buds to flowers,
And chops and changes toys—
That breaks up dreams, and parts old friends,
And still commutes our joys—
Has changed away my Ape at last
And in its place convey'd,
Thinking therewith to cheat my sight,
A fresh and blooming maid!
And fair to sight is she—and still
Each day doth sightlier grow,
Upon the ruins of the Ape,
My ancient play-fellow!
The tale of Sphinx, and Theban jests,
I true in me perceive;
I suffer riddles; death from dark
Enigmas I receive:
Whilst a hid being I pursue,
That lurks in a new shape,
My darling in herself I miss—
And, in my Ape, THE APE.
In tabulam eximii pictoris B. HAYDONI, in quâ Solymaei, adveniente Domino, palmas in viâ, prosternentes mirâ arte depinguntur
(1820)
Quid vult iste equitans? et quid oclit ista virorum
Palmifera ingens turba, et vox tremebunda Hosanna,
Hosanna Christo semper semperque canamus.
Palma fuit Senior pictor celeberrimus olim;
Sed palmam cedat, modò si foret ille superstes,
Palma, Haydone, tibi: tu palmas omnibus aufers.
Palma negata macrum, donataque reddit opimum.
Si simul incipiat cum famâ increscere corpus,
Tu citò pinguesces, fies et, amicule, obesus.
Affectat lauros pictores atque poetae
Sin laurum invideant (sed quis tibi?) laurigerentes,
Pro lauro palmâ viridante tempora cingas.
CARLAGNULUS.
Translation of the Latin Verses on Mr. Haydon's Picture
What rider's that? and who those myriads bringing
Him on his way with palms, Hosannas singing?
Hosanna to the Christ, HEAVEN—EARTH—should still be ringing.
In days of old, old Palma won renown:
But Palma's self must yield the painter's crown,
Haydon, to thee. Thy palm put every other down.
If Flaccus' sentence with the truth agree,
That "palms awarded make men plump to be,"
Friend Horace, Haydon soon in bulk shall match with thee.
Painters with poets for the laurel vie:
But should the laureat band thy claims deny,
Wear thou thy own green palm, Haydon, triumphantly.
SONNET
To Miss Burney, on her Character of Blanch in "Country Neighbours," a Tale
(1820)
Bright spirits have arisen to grace the BURNEY name,
And some in letters, some in tasteful arts,
In learning some have borne distinguished parts;
Or sought through science of sweet sounds their fame:
And foremost she, renowned for many a tale
Of faithful love perplexed, and of that good
Old man, who, as CAMILLA'S guardian, stood
In obstinate virtue clad like coat of mail.
Nor dost thou, SARAH, with unequal pace
Her steps pursue. The pure romantic vein
No gentler creature ever knew to feign
Than thy fine Blanch, young with an elder grace,
In all respects without rebuke or blame,
Answering the antique freshness of her name.
TO MY FRIEND THE INDICATOR
(1820)
Your easy Essays indicate a flow,
Dear Friend, of brain which we may elsewhere seek;
And to their pages I, and hundreds, owe,
That Wednesday is the sweetest of the week.
Such observation, wit, and sense, are shewn,
We think the days of Bickerstaff returned;
And that a portion of that oil you own,
In his undying midnight lamp which burned.
I would not lightly bruise old Priscian's head,
Or wrong the rules of grammar understood;
But, with the leave of Priscian be it said,
The Indicative is your Potential Mood.
Wit, poet, prose-man, party-man, translator—
H[unt], your best title yet is INDICATOR.
ON SEEING MRS. K—— B——, AGED UPWARDS OF EIGHTY, NURSE AN INFANT
A sight like this might find apology
In worlds unsway'd by our Chronology;
As Tully says, (the thought's in Plato)—
"To die is but to go to Cato."
Of this world Time is of the essence,—
A kind of universal presence;
And therefore poets should have made him
Not only old, as they've pourtray'd him,
But young, mature, and old—all three
In one—a sort of mystery—
('Tis hard to paint abstraction pure.)
Here young—there old—and now mature—
Just as we see some old book-print,
Not to one scene its hero stint;
But, in the distance, take occasion
To draw him in some other station.
Here this prepost'rous union seems
A kind of meeting of extremes.
Ye may not live together. Mean ye
To pass that gulf that lies between ye
Of fourscore years, as we skip ages
In turning o'er historic pages?
Thou dost not to this age belong:
Thou art three generations wrong:
Old Time has miss'd thee: there he tarries!
Go on to thy contemporaries!
Give the child up. To see thee kiss him
Is a compleat anachronism.
Nay, keep him. It is good to see
Race link'd to race, in him and thee.
The child repelleth not at all
Her touch as uncongenial,
But loves the old Nurse like another—
Its sister—or its natural mother;
And to the nurse a pride it gives
To think (though old) that still she lives
With one, who may not hope in vain
To live her years all o'er again!
TO EMMA, LEARNING LATIN, AND DESPONDING
(By Mary Lamb. ? 1827)
Droop not, dear Emma, dry those falling tears,
And call up smiles into thy pallid face,
Pallid and care-worn with thy arduous race:
In few brief months thou hast done the work of years.
To young beginnings natural are these fears.
A right good scholar shalt thou one day be,
And that no distant one; when even she,
Who now to thee a star far off appears,
That most rare Latinist, the Northern Maid—
The language-loving Sarah[15] of the Lake—
Shall hail thee Sister Linguist. This will make
Thy friends, who now afford thee careful aid,
A recompense most rich for all their pains,
Counting thy acquisitions their best gains.
[Footnote 15: Daughter of S.T. Coleridge, Esq.; an accomplished linguist in the Greek and Latin tongues, and translatress of a History of the Abipones. [Note in Blackwood.]]
LINES
Addressed to Lieut. R.W.H. Hardy, R.N., on the Perusal of his Volume of Travels in the Interior of Mexico
'Tis pleasant, lolling in our elbow chair,
Secure at home, to read descriptions rare
Of venturous traveller in savage climes;
His hair-breadth 'scapes, toil, hunger—and sometimes
The merrier passages that, like a foil
To set off perils past, sweetened that toil,
And took the edge from danger; and I look
With such fear-mingled pleasure thro' thy book,
Adventurous Hardy! Thou a diver[16] art,
But of no common form; and for thy part
Of the adventure, hast brought home to the nation
Pearls of discovery—jewels of observation.
ENFIELD, January, 1830.
[Footnote 16: Captain Hardy practised this art with considerable success. [Note in Athenaeum.]]
LINES
[For a Monument Commemorating the Sudden Death by Drowning of a Family, of Four Sons and Two Daughters]
(1831)
Tears are for lighter griefs. Man weeps the doom,
That seals a single victim to the tomb.
But when Death riots—when, with whelming sway,
Destruction sweeps a family away;
When infancy and youth, a huddled mass,
All in an instant to oblivion pass,
And parents' hopes are crush'd; what lamentation
Can reach the depth of such a desolation?
Look upward, Feeble Ones! look up and trust,
That HE who lays their mortal frame in dust,
Still hath the immortal spirit in his keeping—
In Jesus' sight they are not dead but sleeping.
TO C. ADERS, ESQ.
On his Collection of Paintings by the old German Masters
(1831)
Friendliest of men, ADERS, I never come
Within the precincts of this sacred Room,
But I am struck with a religious fear,
Which says "Let no profane eye enter here."
With imagery from Heav'n the walls are clothed,
Making the things of Time seem vile and loathed.
Spare Saints, whose bodies seem sustain'd by Love,
With Martyrs old in meek procession move.
Here kneels a weeping Magdalen, less bright
To human sense for her blurr'd cheeks; in sight
Of eyes, new-touch'd by Heav'n, more winning fair
Than when her beauty was her only care.
A Hermit here strange mysteries doth unlock
In desart sole, his knees worn by the rock.
There Angel harps are sounding, while below
Palm-bearing Virgins in white order go.
Madonnas, varied with so chaste design,
While all are different, each seems genuine,
And hers the only Jesus: hard outline,
And rigid form, by DURER'S hand subdued
To matchless grace, and sacro-sanctitude;
DURER, who makes thy slighted Germany
Vie with the praise of paint-proud Italy.
Whoever enter'st here, no more persume
To name a Parlour, or a Drawing Room;
But, bending lowly to each holy Story,
Make this thy Chapel, and thine Oratory.
HERCULES PACIFICATUS
A Tale from Suidas
(1831)
In days of yore, ere early Greece
Had dream'd of patrols or police,
A crew of rake-hells in terrorem
Spread wide, and carried all before 'em,
Rifled the poultry, and the women,
And held that all things were in common;
Till Jove's great Son the nuisance saw,
And did abate it by Club Law.
Yet not so clean he made his work,
But here and there a rogue would lurk
In caves and rocky fastnesses,
And shunn'd the strength of Hercules.
Of these, more desperate than others,
A pair of ragamuffin brothers
In secret ambuscade join'd forces,
To carry on unlawful courses.
These Robbers' names, enough to shake us,
Where, Strymon one, the other Cacus.
And, more the neighbourhood to bother,
A wicked dam they had for mother,
Who knew their craft, but not forbid it,
And whatsoe'er they nymm'd, she hid it;
Received them with delight and wonder,
When they brought home some 'special plunder;
Call'd them her darlings, and her white boys,
Her ducks, her dildings—all was right boys—
"Only," she said, "my lads, have care
Ye fall not into BLACK BACK'S snare;
For, if he catch, he'll maul your corpus,
And clapper-claw you to some purpose."
She was in truth a kind of witch,
Had grown by fortune-telling rich;
To spells and conjurings did tackle her,
And read folks' dooms by light oracular;
In which she saw, as clear as daylight,
What mischief on her bairns would a-light;
Therefore she had a special loathing
For all that own'd that sable clothing.
Who can 'scape fate, when we're decreed to 't?
The graceless brethren paid small heed to 't.
A brace they were of sturdy fellows,
As we may say, that fear'd no colours,
And sneer'd with modern infidelity
At the old gipsy's fond credulity.
It proved all true tho', as she'd mumbled—
For on a day the varlets stumbled
On a green spot—sit linguae fides—
'Tis Suidas tells it—where Alcides
Secure, as fearing no ill neighbour,
Lay fast asleep after a "Labour."
His trusty oaken plant was near—
The prowling rogues look round, and leer,
And each his wicked wits 'gan rub,
How to bear off the famous Club;
Thinking that they sans price or hire wou'd
Carry 't strait home, and chop for fire wood.
'Twould serve their old dame half a winter—
You stare? but 'faith it was no splinter;
I would not for much money 'spy
Such beam in any neighbour's eye.
The villains, these exploits not dull in,
Incontinently fell a pulling.
They found it heavy—no slight matter—
But tugg'd, and tugg'd it, till the clatter
'Woke Hercules, who in a trice
Whipt up the knaves, and with a splice,
He kept on purpose—which before
Had served for giants many a score—
To end of Club tied each rogue's head fast;
Strapping feet too, to keep them steadfast;
And pickaback them carries townwards,
Behind his brawny back head-downwards,
(So foolish calf—for rhyme I bless X—
Comes nolens volens out of Essex);
Thinking to brain them with his dextra,
Or string them up upon the next tree.
That Club—so equal fates condemn—
They thought to catch, has now catch'd them.
Now Hercules, we may suppose,
Was no great dandy in his clothes;
Was seldom, save on Sundays, seen
In calimanco, or nankeen;
On anniversaries would try on
A jerkin spick-span new from lion;
Went bare for the most part, to be cool,
And save the time of his Groom of the Stole;
Besides, the smoke he had been in
In Stygian gulf, had dyed his skin
To a natural sable—a right hell-fit—
That seem'd to careless eyes black velvet.
The brethren from their station scurvy,
Where they hung dangling topsy turvy,
With horror view the black costume,
And each persumes his hour is come!
Then softly to themselves 'gan mutter
The warning words their dame did utter;
Yet not so softly, but with ease
Were overheard by Hercules.
Quoth Cacus—"This is he she spoke of,
Which we so often made a joke of."
"I see," said the other, "thank our sin for't,
'Tis BLACK BACK sure enough—we're in for 't."
His Godship who, for all his brag
Of roughness, was at heart a wag,
At his new name was tickled finely,
And fell a laughing most divinely.
Quoth he, "I'll tell this jest in heaven—
The musty rogues shall be forgiven."
So in a twinkling did uncase them,
On mother earth once more to place them—
The varlets, glad to be unhamper'd,
Made each a leg—then fairly scamper'd.
THE PARTING SPEECH OF THE CELESTIAL MESSENGER TO THE POET
From the Latin of Palingenius, in the Zodiacus Vitae
(1832)
But now time warns (my mission at an end)
That to Jove's starry court I re-ascend;
From whose high battlements I take delight
To scan your earth, diminish'd to the sight,
Pendant, and round, and, as an apple, small;
Self-propt, self-balanced, and secure from fall
By her own weight: and how with liquid robe
Blue ocean girdles round her tiny globe,
While lesser Nereus, gliding like a snake,
Betwixt her hands his flexile course doth take,
Shrunk to a rivulet; and how the Po,
The mighty Ganges, Tanais, Ister, show
No bigger than a ditch which rains have swell'd.
Old Nilus' seven proud mouths I late beheld,
And mock'd the watery puddles. Hosts steel-clad
Ofttimes I thence behold; and how the sad
Peoples are punish'd by the fault of kings,
Which from the purple fiend Ambition springs.
Forgetful of mortality, they live
In hot strife for possessions fugitive,
At which the angels grieve. Sometimes I trace
Of fountains, rivers, seas, the change of place;
By ever shifting course, and Time's unrest,
The vale exalted, and the mount deprest
To an inglorious valley; plough-shares going
Where tall trees rear'd their tops; and fresh trees growing
In antique pastures. Cities lose their site.
Old things wax new. O what a rare delight
To him, who from this vantage can survey
At once stern Afric, and soft Asia,
With Europe's cultured plains; and in their turns
Their scatter'd tribes: those whom the hot Crab burns,
The tawny Ethiops; Orient Indians;
Getulians; ever-wandering Scythians;
Swift Tartar hordes; Cilicians rapacious,
And Parthians with back-bended bow pugnacious;
Sabeans incense-bringing, men of Thrace,
Italian, Spaniard, Gaul, and that rough race
Of Britons, rigid as their native colds;
With all the rest the circling sun beholds!
But clouds, and elemental mists, deny
These visions blest to any fleshly eye.
EXISTENCE, CONSIDERED IN ITSELF, NO BLESSING
From the Latin of Palingenius
(1832)
The Poet, after a seeming approval of suicide, from a consideration of the cares and crimes of life, finally rejecting it, discusses the negative importance of existence, contemplated in itself, without reference to good or evil.
Of these sad truths consideration had—
Thou shalt not fear to quit this world so mad,
So wicked; but the tenet rather hold
Of wise Calanus, and his followers old,
Who with their own wills their own freedom wrought,
And by self-slaughter their dismissal sought
From this dark den of crime—this horrid lair
Of men, that savager than monsters are;
And scorning longer, in this tangled mesh
Of ills, to wait on perishable flesh,
Did with their desperate hands anticipate
The too, too slow relief of lingering fate.
And if religion did not stay thine hand,
And God, and Plato's wise behests, withstand,
I would in like case counsel thee to throw
This senseless burden off, of cares below.
Not wine, as wine, men choose, but as it came
From such or such a vintage: 'tis the same
With life, which simply must be understood
A black negation, if it be not good.
But if 'tis wretched all—as men decline
And loath the sour lees of corrupted wine—
'Tis so to be contemn'd. Merely TO BE
Is not a boon to seek, nor ill to flee,
Seeing that every vilest little Thing
Has it in common, from a gnat's small wing,
A creeping worm, down to the moveless stone,
And crumbling bark from trees. Unless TO BE,
And TO BE BLEST, be one, I do not see
In bare existence, as existence, aught
That's worthy to be loved, or to be sought.
TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.
On the New Edition of his "Pleasures of Memory"
(1833)
When thy gay book hath paid its proud devoirs,
Poetic friend, and fed with luxury
The eye of pampered aristocracy
In glittering drawing-rooms and gilt boudoirs,
O'erlaid with comments of pictorial art,
However rich and rare, yet nothing leaving
Of healthful action to the soul-conceiving
Of the true reader—yet a nobler part
Awaits thy work, already classic styled.
Cheap-clad, accessible, in homeliest show
The modest beauty through the land shall go
From year to year, and render life more mild;
Refinement to the poor man's hearth shall give,
And in the moral heart of England live.
TO CLARA N[OVELLO]
(1834)
The Gods have made me most unmusical,
With feelings that respond not to the call
Of stringed harp, or voice—obtuse and mute
To hautboy, sackbut, dulcimer, and flute;
King David's lyre, that made the madness flee
From Saul, had been but a jew's-harp to me:
Theorbos, violins, French horns, guitars,
Leave in my wounded ears inflicted scars;
I hate those trills, and shakes, and sounds that float
Upon the captive air; I know no note,
Nor ever shall, whatever folks may say,
Of the strange mysteries of Sol and Fa;
I sit at oratorios like a fish,
Incapable of sound, and only wish
The thing was over. Yet do I admire,
O tuneful daughter of a tuneful sire,
Thy painful labours in a science, which
To your deserts I pray may make you rich
As much as you are loved, and add a grace
To the most musical Novello race.
Women lead men by the nose, some cynics say;
You draw them by the ear—a delicater way.
THE SISTERS
On Emma's honest brow we read display'd
The constant virtues of the Nut Brown Maid;
Mellifluous sounds on Clara's tongue we hear,
Notes that once lured a Seraph from his sphere;
Cecilia's eyes such winning beauties crown
As without song might draw her Angel down.
LOVE WILL COME
Tune—The Tartar Drum
I
Guard thy feelings, pretty Vestal,
From the smooth Intruder free;
Cage thy heart in bars of chrystal,
Lock it with a golden key:
Thro' the bars demurely stealing,
Noiseless footstep, accent dumb,
His approach to none revealing—
Watch, or watch not, LOVE WILL COME.
His approach to none revealing—
Watch, or watch not, Love will come—Love,
Watch, or watch not, Love will come.
II
Scornful Beauty may deny him—
He hath spells to charm disdain;
Homely Features may defy him—
Both at length must wear the chain.
Haughty Youth in Courts of Princes—
Hermit poor with age o'er come—
His soft plea at last convinces;
Sooner, later, LOVE WILL COME.
His soft plea at length convinces;
Sooner, later, Love will come—Love,
Sooner, later, Love will come.
TO MARGARET W——
Margaret, in happy hour
Christen'd from that humble flower
Which we a daisy[17] call!
May thy pretty name-sake be
In all things a type of thee,
And image thee in all.
[Footnote 17: Marguerite, in French, signifies a daisy. [Note in Athenaeum.]]
To Margaret W——
Like it you show a modest face,
An unpretending native grace;—
The tulip, and the pink,
The china and the damask rose,
And every flaunting flower that blows,
In the comparing shrink.
Of lowly fields you think no scorn;
Yet gayest gardens would adorn,
And grace, wherever set.
Home-seated in your lonely bower,
Or wedded—a transplanted flower—
I bless you, Margaret!
EDMONTON, 8_th October_, 1834.
* * * * *
ADDITIONAL ALBUM VERSES AND ACROSTICS
WHAT IS AN ALBUM?
'Tis a Book kept by modern Young Ladies for show,
Of which their plain grandmothers nothing did know.
'Tis a medley of scraps, fine verse, and fine prose,
And some things not very like either, God knows.
The soft First Effusions of Beaux and of Belles,
Of future LORD BYRONS, and sweet L.E.L.'s;
Where wise folk and simple both equally shine,
And you write your nonsense, that I may write mine.
Stick in a fine landscape, to make a display,
A flower-piece, a foreground, all tinted so gay,
As NATURE herself (could she see them) would strike
With envy, to think that she ne'er did the like:
And since some LAVATERS, with head-pieces comical,
Have pronounc'd people's hands to be physiognomical,
Be sure that you stuff it with AUTOGRAPHS plenty,
All framed to a pattern, so stiff, and so dainty.
They no more resemble folks' every-day writing,
Than lines penn'd with pains do extemp'rel enditing;
Or the natural countenance (pardon the stricture)
The faces we make when we sit for our picture.
Thus you have, dearest EMMA, an ALBUM complete—
Which may you live to finish, and I live to see it;
And since you began it for innocent ends,
May it swell, and grow bigger each day with new friends,
Who shall set down kind names, as a token and test,
As I my poor autograph sign with the rest.
THE FIRST LEAF OF SPRING
Written on the First Leaf of a Lady's Album
Thou fragile, filmy, gossamery thing,
First leaf of spring!
At every lightest breath that quakest,
And with a zephyr shakest;
Scarce stout enough to hold thy slender form together,
In calmest halcyon weather;
Next sister to the web that spiders weave,
Poor flutterers to deceive
Into their treacherous silken bed:
O! how art thou sustained, how nourishèd!
All trivial as thou art,
Without dispute,
Thou play'st a mighty part;
And art the herald to a throng
Of buds, blooms, fruit,
That shall thy cracking branches sway,
While birds on every spray
Shall pay the copious fruitage with a sylvan song.
So 'tis with thee, whoe'er on thee shall look,
First leaf of this beginning modest book.
Slender thou art, God knowest,
And little grace bestowest,
But in thy train shall follow after,
Wit, wisdom, seriousness, in hand with laughter;
Provoking jests, restraining soberness,
In their appropriate dress;
And I shall joy to be outdone
By those who brighter trophies won;
Without a grief,
That I thy slender promise have begun,
First leaf.
1832.