I.
Oh, saw ye my own true love, I praye,
My own true love so sweete?
For the flowers have lightly toss’d awaye
The prynte of her faery feete.
Now, how can we telle if she passed us bye?
Is she darke or fayre to see?
Like sloes are her eyes, or blue as the skies?
Is’t braided her haire or free?
II.
Oh, never by outward looke or signe,
My true love shall ye knowe;
There be many as fayre, and many as fyne,
And many as brighte to showe.
But if ye coude looke with angel’s eyes,
Which into the soule can see,
She then would be seene as the matchless Queene
Of Love and of Puritie.
Sleep, little baby, sleep, love, sleep!
Evening is coming, and night is nigh;
Under the lattice the little birds cheep,
All will be sleeping by and by.
Sleep, little baby, sleep.
Sleep, little baby, sleep, love, sleep!
Darkness is creeping along the sky;
Stars at the casement glimmer and peep,
Slowly the moon comes sailing by.
Sleep, little baby, sleep.
Sleep, little baby, sleep, love, sleep!
Sleep till the dawning has dappled the sky;
Under the lattice the little birds cheep,
All will be waking by and by.
Sleep, little baby, sleep.
I know not what the cause may be,
Or whether there be one or many;
But this year’s Spring has seemed to me
More exquisite than any.
What happy days we spent together
In that fair Isle of primrose flowers!
How brilliant was
the April weather!
What glorious sunshine and what showers!
I think the leaves peeped out and in
At every change from cold to heat;
The grass threw off a livelier sheen
From dewdrops sparkling at our feet.
What wealth of early bloom was there—
The wind flow’r and the primrose pale,
On bank or copse, and orchis rare,
And cowslip covering Wroxhall dale.
And, oh, the splendour of the sea,—
The blue belt glimmering soft and far,
Through many a tumbled rock and tree
Strewn ’neath the overhanging scar!
’Tis twenty years and more, since here,
As man and wife we sought this Isle,
Dear to us both, O wife most dear,
And we can greet it with a smile.
Not now alone we come once more,
But bringing young ones of our brood—
One boy (Salopian), and four
Girls, blooming into maidenhood.
And I had late begun to fret
And sicken at the sordid town—
The crime, the guilt, and, loathlier yet,
The helpless, hopeless sinking down;
The want, the
misery, the woe,
The stubborn heart which will not turn;
The tears which will or will not flow;
The shame which does or does not burn.
And Winter’s frosts had proved unkind,
With darkest gloom and deadliest cold;
A time which will be brought to mind,
And talked of, when our boys are old.
And thus the contrast seemed to wake
New vigour in the heart and brain;
Sea, land, and sky conspired to make
The jaded spirit young again;
Or hopes for growing girl or boy,
Or thankfulness for things that be,
Or sweet content in wedded joy,
Set all the world to harmony.
And so I know not if it be
That there are causes one or many,
But this year’s Spring still seems to me
More exquisite than any.
The linnet had flown from its cage away,
And flitted and sang in the light of day—
Had flown from the lady who loved it well,
In Liberty’s freer air to dwell.
Alas! poor bird, it was soon to prove,
Sweeter than Liberty is Love.
When night came on it had ceased to sing,
And had hidden its head beneath its wing.
It thought of the warm room left behind,
The shelter from cold and rain and wind;
It could not sleep, when to sleep it strove—
Liberty needeth the help of Love.
The night owls shrieked as they wheeled along,
Bent upon slaughter, and rapine, and wrong:
There was devilish mirth in their wild halloo,
And the linnet trembled when near they drew;
’Twas fearful to watch them madly rove,
Drunken with Liberty, left of Love.
When morning broke, a grey old crow
Was pecking some carrion down below;
A poor little lamb, half alive, half-dead,
And the crow at each peck turned up its head
With a cunning glance at the linnet above—
What a demon is Liberty left of Love!
Then an eagle
hovered far up in the sky,
And the linnet trembled, but could not fly;
With a swoop to the earth the eagle fell,
And rose up anon with a savage yell.
The birds in the woodlands dared not move.
What a despot is Liberty left of Love!
By and bye there arrived, with chattering loud,
Chaffinch and sparrow and finch, in a cloud;
Round and around in their fierce attack,
They plucked the feathers from breast and back;
And the poor little linnet all vainly strove,
Fighting with Liberty left of Love.
“Alas!” it said, with a cry of pain,
“Carry me back to my cage again;
There let me dwell in peaceful ease,
Piping whatever songs I please;
Here, if I stay, my death shall prove,
Liberty dieth left of Love.”
(After Heine.)
Thou little village curate,
Come quick, and do not wait;
We’ll sit and talk together,
So sweetly tête-a-tête.
Oh do not fear
the railway
Because it seems so big—
Dost thou not daily trust thee
Unto thy little gig.
This house is full of painters,
And half shut up and black;
But rooms the very snuggest
Lie hidden at the back.
Come! come! come!
Take, oh take those boots away,
That so nearly are outworn;
And those shoes remove, I pray—
Pumps that but induce the corn!
But my slippers bring again,
Bring again;
Works of love, but worked in vain,
Worked in vain!
(With Many Apologies to the Laureate.)
And Willie, my eldest born, is gone, you say, little Anne,
Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man;
He was only fourscore
years, quite young, when he died;
I ought to have gone before, but must wait for time and tide.
So Harry’s wife has written; she was always an awful fool,
And Charlie was always drunk, which made our families cool;
For Willie was walking with Jenny when the moon came up the dale,
And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale.
Jenny I know had tripped, and she knew that I knew of it well.
She began to slander me. I knew, but I wouldn’t tell!
And she to be slandering me, the impertinent, base little liar;
But the tongue is a fire, as you know, my dear, the tongue is a fire.
And the parson made it his text last week; and he said likewise,
That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies;
That a downright hearty good falsehood doesn’t so very much matter,
But a lie which is half a truth is worse than one that is flatter.
Then Willie and
Jenny turned in the sweet moonshine,
And he said to me through his tears, “Let your good name be mine,”
“And what do I care for Jane.” She was never over-wise,
Never the wife for Willie: thank God that I keep my eyes.
“Marry you, Willie!” said I, and I thought my heart would
break,
“But a man cannot marry his grandmother, so there must be some
mistake.”
But he turned and clasped me in his arms, and answered, “No, love,
no!
Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago!”
So Willie and I were wedded, though clearly against the law,
And the ringers rang with a will, and Willie’s gloves were straw;
But the first that ever I bear was dead before it was born—
For Willie I cannot weep, life is flower and thorn.
Pattering over the boards, my Annie, an Annie like you,
Pattering over the boards, and Charlie and Harry too;
Pattering over the boards of our beautiful little cot,
And I’m not exactly certain whether they died or not.
And yet I know
of a truth, there is none of them left alive,
For Willie went at eighty, and Harry at ninety-five;
And Charlie at threescore years, aye! or more than that I’ll be
sworn,
And that very remarkable infant that died before it was born.
So Willie has gone, my beauty, the eldest that bears the name,
It’s a soothing thought—“In a hundred years it’ll
be all the same.”
“Here’s a leg for a babe of a week,” says doctor,
in some surprise,
But fetch me my glasses, Annie, I’m thankful I keep my eyes.
Three attorneys came sailing down Chancery Lane,
Down Chancery Lane e’er the courts had sat;
They thought of the leaders they ought to retain,
But the Junior Bar, oh, they thought not of that;
For serjeants get work and Q.C.’s
too,
And solicitors’ sons-in-law frequently
do,
While the Junior Bar
is moaning.
Three juniors sat up in Crown Office Row,
In Crown Office Row e’er the courts had sat,
They saw the solicitors passing below,
And the briefs that were rolled up so tidy and fat,
For serjeants get work, etc.
Three briefs were
delivered to Jones, Q.C,
To Jones, Q.C., e’er the courts had sat;
And the juniors weeping, and wringing their paws,
Remarked that their business seemed uncommon flat;
For Serjeants get work and Q.C.’s
too,
But as for the rest it’s a regular
“do,”
And the Junior Bar
is moaning.
(“Farewell, Manchester”).
I.
Give that brief to me,
Without so much bother;
Never let it be
Given to another.
Why this coy resistance?
Wherefore keep such distance?
Why hesitate so long to give that brief to me?
II.
Should’st thou ever find
Any counsel willing
To conduct thy case
For one pound one shilling;
Scorn such vulgar tricks, love;
One pound three and six, love,
Is the proper thing,—then give that brief to me.
III.
Should thy case turn out
Hopeless and delusive,
Still I’d rave and shout,
Using terms abusive.
Truth and sense might perish,
Still thy cause I’d cherish,
Hallow’d by thy gold,—then give that brief to me.
IV.
Should the learned judge
Sit on me like fury,
Still I’d never budge—
There’s the British Jury!
Should that stay prove rotten,
Bowen, Brett, and Cotton {143}
Would upset them all,—then give that brief to me.
Two neighbours, fighting for a yard of land;
Two witnesses, who lie on either hand;
Two lawyers, issuing many writs and pleas;
Two clerks, in a dark passage counting fees;
Two counsel, calling one another names;
Two courts, where lawyers play their little games;
Two weeks at Leeds,
which wear the soul away;
Two judges getting limper every day;
Two bailiffs of the court with aspect sour—
So runs the round of life from hour to hour.
Champagne doth not a luncheon make,
Nor caviare a meal;
Men gluttonous and rich may take
These till they make them ill.
If I’ve potatoes to my chop,
And after that have cheese,
Angels in Pond & Spiers’s shop
Serve no such luxuries.
On seeing Bret Harte come upon the Bench.
Thanks for an hour of laughing
In a world that is growing old;
Thanks for an hour of weeping
In a world that is growing cold;
For we who have wept with Dickens,
And we who have laughed with Boz,
Have renewed the days of our childhood
With his American Coz.
Sir W. Bovill was specially retained in an action for damages caused by the overflowing of the banks of the Witham. With great spirit he contended that the river had for three days flowed from the sea.
The moon in the valley of Ajalon
Stood still at the word of the prophet;
But since certain “Essays” were written
We don’t think so very much of it.
Now, a prophet is raised up among us,
Whose miracles none can gainsay;
For he spoke, and the great river Witham
Flowed three days, uphill, the wrong way.
In olden time—in great Eliza’s age,
When rare Ben Jonson ruled the humorous stage,
No play without its Prologue might appear
To earn applause or ward the critic’s sneer;
And surely now old customs should not sleep
When merry Christmas revelries we keep.
He loves old ways, old faces, and old friends,
Nor to new-fangled fancies condescends;
Besides, we need
your kindly hearts to move
Our faults to pardon and our freaks approve,
For this our sport has been in haste begun,
Unpractised actors and impromptu fun;
So on our own deserts we dare not stand,
But beg the favour that we can’t command.
Most flat would fall our “cranks and wanton wiles,”
Reft of your favouring “nods and wreathed smiles,”
As some tame landscape desolately bare
Is charmed by sunshine into seeming fair;
So, gentle friends, if you your smiles bestow,
That which is tame in us will not seem so.
Our play is a charade. We split the word,
Each syllable an act, the whole a third;
My first we show you by a comic play,
Old, but not less the welcome, I dare say.
My second will be brought upon the stage
From lisping childhood down to palsied age.
Last, but not least, our country’s joy and pride,
A British Jury will my whole decide;
But what’s the word you’ll ask me, what’s the word?
That you must guess, or ask some little bird;
Guess as you will you’ll fail; for ’tis no doubt
One of those things “no fellow can find out.”
You say ’tis plain that poets feign,
And from the truth depart;
They write with ease what fibs they please,
With artifice, not art;
Dearer to you the simply true—
The fact without the fancy—
Than this false play of colours gay,
So very vague and chancy.
No doubt ’tis well the truth to tell
In scientific coteries;
But I’ll be bold to say she’s cold,
Excepting to her votaries.
The false disguise of tawdry lies
May hide sweet Nature’s face;
But in her form the blood runs warm,
As in the human race;
And in the rose the dew-drop glows,
And, o’er the seas serene,
The sunshine white still breaks in light
Of yellow, blue, and green.
In thousand rays the fancy plays;
The feelings rise and bubble;
The mind receives, the heart believes,
And makes each pleasure double.
Then spare to draw without a flaw,
Nor all too perfect make her,
Lest Nature wear
the dull, cold air
Of some demurest Quaker—
Whose mien austere is void of cheer,
Or sense of sins forgiven,
And her sweet face has lost all grace
Of either earth or heaven.
glasgow: printed at the university press by robert maclehose.
{5} Milton only received £10 for Paradise Lost, and there is a good story told that some one copied it out in manuscript and sent it successively to three great London publishers, who all declined it as unsuitable to the public taste.
{143} Three of the Justices of Appeal.