Of those strains which have trebly undone me,--
A victim to pity, to love, and to cold,
I’ll be dead by the time thou hast won me!
Oh! think for a moment--whoever thou art,
On the woes that beset me together,--
If thou wilt not consider the state of my heart,
Oh! think of the state of the weather.
How keenly around me the night breezes blow,--
How sweetly thy parting note lingers,--
Ah! would that the glow of my heart could bestow
A share of its warmth to--my fingers!
But though she who would watch while the nightingales sing
Should scorn to let cold overcome her,--
Though, like other sweet birds, you begin in the Spring,
I can’t fall in love till the Summer.
THE CHILDE’S DESTINY.
“And none did love him--not his lemans dear.”
--BYRON.
No mistress of the hidden skill,
No wizard gaunt and grim,
Went up by night to heath or hill
To read the stars for him;
The merriest girl in all the land
Of vine-encircled France
Bestowed upon his brow and hand
Her philosophic glance:
“I bind thee with a spell,” said she,
“I sign thee with a sign;
No woman’s love shall light on thee,
No woman’s heart be thine!
“And trust me, ’tis not that thy cheek
Is colourless and cold;
Nor that thine eye is slow to speak
What only eyes have told;
And many a cheek of paler white
Hath blushed with passion’s kiss,
And many an eye of lesser light
Hath caught its fire from bliss;
Yet while the rivers seek the sea,
And while the young stars shine,
No woman’s love shall light on thee,--
No woman’s heart be thine!
“And ’tis not that thy spirit, awed
By Beauty’s numbing spell,
Shrinks from the force or from the fraud
Which Beauty loves so well;
For thou hast learned to watch, and wake,
And swear by earth and sky;
And thou art very bold to take
What we must still deny:
I cannot tell;--the charm was wrought
By other threads than mine!
The lips are lightly begged or bought,--
The heart may not be thine!
“Yet thine the brightest smiles shall be
That ever Beauty wore;
And confidence from two or three,
And compliments from more;
And one shall give--perchance hath given--
What only is not love,--
Friendship,--oh! such as saints in heaven
Rain on us from above:
If she shall meet thee in the bower,
Or name thee in the shrine,
O wear the ring and guard the flower!
Her heart may not be thine!
“Go, set thy boat before the blast,
Thy breast before the gun;
The haven shall be reached at last,
The battle shall be won:
Or muse upon thy country’s laws,
Or strike thy country’s lute;
And patriot hands shall sound applause,
And lovely lips be mute.
Go, dig the diamond from the wave,
The treasure from the mine;
Enjoy the wreath, the gold, the grave,--
No woman’s heart is thine!
“I charm thee from the agony
Which others feel or feign;
From anger, and from jealousy,
From doubt, and from disdain;
I bid thee wear the scorn of years
Upon the cheek of youth,
And curl the lip at passion’s tears,
And shake the head at truth;
While there is bliss in revelry,
Forgetfulness in wine,
Be thou from woman’s love as free
As woman is from thine!”
THE MODERN NECTAR.
One day, as Bacchus wandered out
From his own gay and glorious heaven,
To see what mortals were about
Below, ’twixt six o’clock and seven,
And laugh at all the toils and tears,
The sudden hopes, the causeless fears,
The midnight songs, the morning smarts,
The aching heads, the breaking hearts,
Which he and his fair crony Venus
Within the month had sown between us,
He lighted by chance on a fiddling fellow
Who never was known to be less than mellow,
A wandering poet, who thought it his duty
To feed upon nothing but bowls and beauty,
Who worshipped a rhyme, and detested a quarrel,
And cared not a single straw for laurel,
Holding that grief was sobriety’s daughter,
And loathing critics, and cold water.
Ere day on the Gog-Magog hills had fainted,
The god and the minstrel were quite acquainted;
Beneath a tree, in the sunny weather,
They sate them down, and drank together:
They drank of all fluids that ever were poured
By an English lout, or a German lord,
Rum and shrub, and brandy and gin,
One after another, they stowed them in,
Claret of Carbonell, porter of Meux,
Champagne which would waken a wit in dukes,
Humble Port, and proud Tokay,
Persico, and Crême de Thé,
The blundering Irishman’s Usquebaugh,
The fiery Welshman’s Cwrw da;
And after toasting various names
Of mortal and immortal flames,
And whispering more than I or you know
Of Mistress Poll, and Mistress Juno,
The god departed, scarcely knowing
A Zephyr’s from a nose’s blowing,
A frigate from a pewter flagon,
Or Thespis from his own stage waggon;
And rolling about like a barrel of grog,
He went up to heaven as drunk as a hog!
“Now may I,” he lisped, “for ever sit
In Lethe’s darkest and deepest pit,
Where dulness everlasting reigns
O’er the quiet pulse and the drowsy brains,
Where ladies jest, and lovers laugh,
And noble lords are bound in calf,
And Zoilus for his sins rehearses
Old Bentham’s prose, old Wordsworth’s verses,
If I have not found a richer draught
Than ever yet Olympus quaffed
Better and brighter and dearer far
Than the golden sands of Pactolus are!”
And then he filled in triumph up,
To the highest top sparkle, Jove’s beaming cup,
And pulling up his silver hose,
And turning in his tottering toes
(While Hebe, as usual, the mischievous gipsy,
Was laughing to see her brother tipsy),
He said--“May it please your high Divinity,
This nectar is--Milk Punch at Trinity!”
AN EPITAPH
_On the late King of the Sandwich Islands._
1825.
Beneath the marble, mud, or moss,
Which e’er his subjects shall determine,
Entombed in eulogies and dross,
The Island King is food for vermin.
Preserved by scribblers and by salt
From Lethe and sepulchral vapours,
His body fills his father’s vault,
His character, the daily papers.
Well was he framed for royal seat;
Kind, to the meanest of his creatures,
With tender heart and tender feet,
And open purse and open features;
The ladies say who laid him out,
And earned thereby the usual pensions,
They never wreathed a shroud about
A corpse of more genteel dimensions.
He warred with half-a-score of foes,
And shone, by proxy, in the quarrel;
Enjoyed hard fights and soft repose,
And deathless debt and deathless laurel.
His enemies were scalped and flayed
Whene’er his soldiers were victorious,
And widows wept and paupers paid
To make their sovereign ruler glorious;
And days were set apart for thanks,
And prayers were said by pious readers,
And laud was lavished on the ranks,
And laurel lavished on their leaders;
Events are writ by History’s pen,
Though causes are too much to care for;
Fame talks about the where and when,
While Folly asks the why and wherefore.
In peace he was intensely gay
And indefatigably busy,
Preparing gewgaws every day,
And shows to make his subjects dizzy,
And hearing the report of guns,
And signing the report of gaolers,
And making up receipts for buns,
And patterns for the army tailors,
And building carriages and boats,
And streets, and chapels, and pavilions,
And regulating all the coats,
And all the principles of millions,
And drinking homilies and gin,
And chewing pork and adulation,
And looking backwards upon sin,
And looking forward to salvation.
The people, in his happy reign,
Were blest beyond all other nations;
Unharmed by foreign axe or chain,
Unhealed by civil innovations;
They served the usual logs and stones
With all the usual rites and terrors,
And swallowed all their father’s bones,
And swallowed all their father’s errors.
When the fierce mob, with clubs and knives,
All vowed that nothing should content them,
But that their representatives
Should actually represent them,
He interposed the proper checks,
By sending troops with drums and banners
To cut their speeches short, and necks,
And break their heads to mend their manners,
And when Dissension flung her stain
Upon the light of Hymen’s altar,
And Destiny made Hymen’s chain
As galling as the hangman’s halter,
He passed a most domestic life,
By many mistresses befriended,
And did not put away his wife,
For fear the priest should be offended.
And thus at last he sank to rest
Amid the blessings of his people,
And sighs were heard from every breast,
And bells were tolled from every steeple,
And loud was every public throng
His brilliant character adorning,
And poets raised a mourning song,
And clothiers raised the price of mourning.
His funeral was very grand,
Followed by many robes and maces,
And all the great ones of the land
Struggling, as heretofore, for places;
And every loyal minister
Was there, with signs of purse-felt sorrow,
Save Pozzy, his lord chancellor,
Who promised to attend to-morrow.
Peace to his dust. His fostering care
By grateful hearts shall long be cherished;
And all his subjects shall declare
They lost a grinder when he perished.
They who shall look upon the lead
In which a people’s love hath shrined him,
Will say when all the worst is said,
Perhaps he leaves a worse behind him.
THE CHAUNT OF THE BRAZEN HEAD.
“Brazen companion of my solitary hours! do you, while I recline,
pronounce a prologue to those sentiments of Wisdom and Virtue,
which are hereafter to be the oracles of statesmen, and the guides
of philosophers. Give me to-night a proem of our essay, an opening
of our case, a division of our subject. Speak!” (_Slow music. The
Friar falls asleep. The head chaunts as follows._) --THE BRAZEN
HEAD.
I think, whatever mortals crave,
With impotent endeavour,--
A wreath, a rank, a throne, a grave,--
The world goes round for ever:
I think that life is not too long;
And therefore I determine,
That many people read a song
Who will not read a sermon.
I think you’ve looked through many hearts,
And mused on many actions,
And studied Man’s component parts,
And Nature’s compound fractions;
I think you’ve picked up truth by bits
From foreigner and neighbour;
I think the world has lost its wits,
And you have lost your labour.
I think the studies of the wise,
The hero’s noisy quarrel,
The majesty of woman’s eyes,
The poet’s cherished laurel,
And all that makes us lean or fat,
And all that charms or troubles,--
This bubble is more bright than that,
But still they all are bubbles.
I think the thing you call Renown,
The unsubstantial vapour
For which the soldier burns a town,
The sonnetteer a taper,
Is like the mist which, as he flies,
The horseman leaves behind him;
He cannot mark its wreaths arise,
Or if he does they blind him.
I think one nod of Mistress Chance
Makes creditors of debtors,
And shifts the funeral for the dance,
The sceptre for the fetters:
I think that Fortune’s favoured guest
May live to gnaw the platters,
And he that wears the purple vest
May wear the rags and tatters.
I think the Tories love to buy
“Your Lordships” and “your Graces,”
By loathing common honesty,
And lauding commonplaces:
I think that some are very wise,
And some are very funny,
And some grow rich by telling lies,
And some by telling money.
I think the Whigs are wicked knaves--
(And very like the Tories)--
Who doubt that Britain rules the waves,
And ask the price of glories:
I think that many fret and fume
At what their friends are planning,
And Mr. Hume hates Mr. Brougham,
As much as Mr. Canning.
I think that friars and their hoods,
Their doctrines and their maggots,
Have lighted up too many feuds,
And far too many faggots:
I think, while zealots fast and frown,
And fight for two or seven,
That there are fifty roads to Town,
And rather more to Heaven.
I think that, thanks to Paget’s lance,
And thanks to Chester’s learning,
The hearts that burned for fame in France
At home are safe from burning:
I think the Pope is on his back;
And, though ’tis fun to shake him,
I think the Devil not so black
As many people make him.
I think that Love is like a play,
Where tears and smiles are blended,
Or like a faithless April day,
Whose shine with shower is ended:
Like Colnbrook pavement, rather rough,
Like trade, exposed to losses,
And like a Highland plaid,--all stuff,
And very full of crosses.
I think the world, though dark it be,
Has aye one rapturous pleasure
Concealed in life’s monotony,
For those who seek the treasure:
One planet in a starless night,
One blossom on a briar,
One friend not quite a hypocrite,
One woman not a liar!
I think poor beggars court St. Giles,
Rich beggars court St. Stephen;
And death looks down with nods and smiles,
And makes the odds all even:
I think some die upon the field,
And some upon the billow,
And some are laid beneath a shield,
And some beneath a willow.
I think that very few have sighed
When Fate at last has found them,
Though bitter foes were by their side,
And barren moss around them:
I think that some have died of drought,
And some have died of drinking;
I think that nought is worth a thought,--
And I’m a fool for thinking!
MY OWN FUNERAL.
(_From Beranger._)
This morning, as in bed I lay,
Half waking and half sleeping,
A score of Loves, immensely gay,
Were round my chamber creeping;
I could not move my hand or head
To ask them what the stir meant;
And “Ah!” they cried, “our friend is dead;
Prepare for his interment!”
All whose hearts with mine were blended,
Weep for me! my days are ended!
One drinks my brightest Burgundy,
Without a blush, before me;
One brings a little rosary,
And breathes a blessing o’er me;
One finds my pretty chambermaid,
And courts her in dumb crambo;
Another sees the mutes arrayed
With fife by way of flambeau:
In your feasting and your fêting,
Weep for me! my hearse is waiting.
Was ever such a strange array?
The mourners all are singing;
From all the churches on our way
A merry peal is ringing;
The pall that clothes my cold remains,
Instead of boars and dragons,
Is blazoned o’er with darts and chains,
With lutes, and flowers, and flagons:
Passers-by their heads are shaking!--
Weep for me! my grave is making.
And now they let my coffin fall;
And one of them rehearses,
For want of holy ritual,
My own least holy verses:
The sculptor carves a laurel leaf,
And writes my name and story;
And silent nature in her grief
Seems dreaming of my glory:
Just as I am made immortal,--
Weep for me!--they bar the portal.
But Isabel, by accident,
Was wandering by that minute;
She opened that dark monument,
And found her slave within it;
The clergy said the Mass in vain,
The College could not save me;
But life, she swears, returned again
With the first kiss she gave me:
You who deem that life is sorrow,
Weep for me again to-morrow!
L’INCONNUE.
Many a beaming brow I’ve known,
And many a dazzling eye,
And I’ve listened to many a melting tone
In magic fleeting by;
And mine was never a heart of stone,
And yet my heart hath given to none
The tribute of a sigh;
For Fancy’s wild and witching mirth
Was dearer than aught I found on earth,
And the fairest forms I ever knew
Were far less fair than--L’Inconnue!
Many an eye that once was bright
Is dark to-day in gloom;
Many a voice that once was light
Is silent in the tomb;
Many a flower that once was dight
In beauty’s most entrancing might
Hath faded in its bloom;
But she is still as fair and gay
As if she had sprung to life to-day;
A ceaseless tone and a deathless hue
Wild Fancy hath given to--L’Inconnue
Many an eye of piercing jet
Hath only gleamed to grieve me;
Many a fairy form I’ve met,
But none have wept to leave me;
When all forsake, and all forget,
One pleasant dream shall haunt me yet,
One hope shall not deceive me;
For oh! when all beside is past,
Fancy is found our friend at last;
And the faith is firm and the love is true
Which are vowed by the lips of--L’Inconnue!
SONG.
(_From Lidean’s Love._)
“O Love! O beauteous Love!
Thy home is made for all sweet things,
A dwelling for thine own soft dove
And souls as spotless as her wings;
There summer ceases never:
The trees are rich with luscious fruits,
The bowers are full of joyous throngs,
And gales that come from Heaven’s own lutes
And rivulets whose streams are songs
Go murmuring on for ever!
O Love! O wretched Love!
Thy home is made for bitter care;
And sounds are in thy myrtle grove
Of late repentance, long despair,
Of feigning and forsaking:
Thy banquet is the doubt and fear
That come we know not whence or why,
The smile that hardly masks a tear,
The laughter that is half a sigh,
The heart that jests in breaking!
O Love! O faithless Love!
Thy home is like the roving star
Which seems so fair, so far above
The world where woes and sorrows are;
But could we wander thither,
There’s nothing but another earth
As dark and restless as our own,
Where misery is child of mirth,
And every heart is born to groan,
And every flower to wither!”
JOSEPHINE.
We did not meet in courtly hall,
Where birth and beauty throng,
Where Luxury holds festival,
And Wit awakes the song;
We met where darker spirits meet,
In the home of sin and shame,
Where Satan shows his cloven feet
And hides his titled name:
And she knew that she could not be, Love,
What once she might have been;
But she was kind to me, Love,
My pretty Josephine.
We did not part beneath the sky,
As warmer lovers part;
Where night conceals the glistening eye,
But not the throbbing heart;
We parted on the spot of ground
Where we first had laughed at love,
And ever the jests were loud around,
And the lamps were bright above:--
“The heaven is very dark, Love,
The blast is very keen,
But merrily rides my bark, Love,
Good night, my Josephine!”
She did not speak of ring or vow,
But filled the cup of wine,
And took the roses from her brow
To make a wreath for mine;
And bade me, when the gale should lift
My light skiff o’er the wave,
To think as little of the gift
As of the hand that gave:--
“Go gaily o’er the sea, Love,
And find your own heart’s queen;
And look not back to me, Love,
Your humble Josephine!”
That garland breathes and blooms no more;
Past are those idle hours:
I would not, could I choose, restore
The fondness, or the flowers.
Yet oft their withered witchery
Revives its wonted thrill,
Remembered, not with passion’s sigh,
But, oh! remembered still;
And even from your side, Love,
And even from this scene,
One look is o’er the tide, Love,
One thought with Josephine.
Alas! your lips are rosier,
Your eyes of softer blue,
And I have never felt for her
As I have felt for you;
Our love was like the bright snow-flakes
Which melt before you pass,
Or the bubble on the wine, which breaks
Before you lip the glass;
You saw these eyelids wet, Love,
Which she has never seen;
But bid me not forget, Love,
My poor Josephine!
SONG FOR THE FOURTEENTH OF FEBRUARY.
_By a General Lover._
“Mille gravem telis, exhaustâ pene pharetrâ.”
Apollo has peeped through the shutter,
And awakened the witty and fair;
The boarding-school belle’s in a flutter,
The twopenny post’s in despair;
The breath of the morning is flinging
A magic on blossom, on spray,
And cockneys and sparrows are singing
In chorus on Valentine’s Day.
Away with ye, dreams of disaster,
Away with ye, visions of law,
Of cases I never shall master,
Of pleadings I never shall draw!
Away with ye, parchments and papers,
Red tapes, unread volumes, away!
It gives a fond lover the vapours
To see you on Valentine’s Day.
I’ll sit in my nightcap, like Hayley,
I’ll sit with my arms crost, like Spain.
Till joys, which are vanishing daily,
Come back in their lustre again;
Oh! shall I look over the waters,
Or shall I look over the way,
For the brightest and best of earth’s daughters,
To rhyme to, on Valentine’s Day?
Shall I crown with my worship, for fame’s sake,
Some goddess whom Fashion has starred,
Make puns on Miss Love and her namesake,
Or pray for a _pas_ with Brocard?
Shall I flirt, in romantic idea,
With Chester’s adorable clay,
Or whisper in transport “_Si mea_[8]
_Cum vestris_”--on Valentine’s Day?
Shall I kneel to a Sylvia or Celia,
Who no one e’er saw, or may see,
A fancy-drawn Laura-Amelia,
An _ad libit._ Anna Marie?
Shall I court an initial with stars to it,
Go mad for a G. or a J.,
Get Bishop to put a few bars to it,
And print it on Valentine’s Day?
I think not of Laura the witty;
For, oh! she is married at York!
I sigh not for Rose of the City,
For, oh! she is buried at Cork!
Adèle has a braver and better
To say--what I never could say;
Louise cannot construe a letter
Of English, on Valentine’s Day.
So perish the leaves in the arbour!
The tree is all bare in the blast;
Like a wreck that is drifting to harbour,
I come to thee, Lady, at last:
Where art thou, so lovely and lonely?
Though idle the lute and the lay,
The lute and the lay are thine only,
My fairest, on Valentine’s Day.
For thee I have opened my Blackstone,
For thee I have shut up myself;
Exchanged my long curls for a Caxton,
And laid my short whist on the shelf;
For thee I have sold my old sherry,
For thee I have burnt my new play;
And I grow philosophical,--very!
Except upon Valentine’s Day!
[Illustration]
PALINODIA.
“Nec meus hic sermo est, sed quem præcepit.”
--HORACE.
There was a time, when I could feel
All passion’s hopes and fears;
And tell what tongues can ne’er reveal
By smiles and sighs and tears.
The days are gone! no more--no more
The cruel Fates allow;
And though I’m hardly twenty-four,--
I’m not a lover now.
Lady, the mist is on my sight,
The chill is on my brow;
My day is night, my bloom is blight;
I’m not a lover now!
I never talk about the clouds,
I laugh at girls and boys,
I’m growing rather fond of crowds,
And very fond of noise;
I never wander forth alone
Upon the mountain’s brow;
I weighed, last winter, sixteen stone;--
I’m not a lover now!
I never wish to raise a veil,
I never raise a sigh;
I never tell a tender tale,
I never tell a lie:
I cannot kneel, as once I did;
I’ve quite forgot my bow;
I never do as I am bid;--
I’m not a lover now!
I make strange blunders every day,
If I would be gallant;
Take smiles for wrinkles, black for grey,
And nieces for their aunt:
I fly from folly, though it flows
From lips of loveliest glow;
I don’t object to length of nose;--
I’m not a lover now!
I find my Ovid very dry,
My Petrarch quite a pill,
Cut Fancy for Philosophy,
Tom Moore for Mr. Mill.
And belles may read, and beaux may write,--
I care not who or how;
I burnt my Album, Sunday night;--
I’m not a lover now!
I don’t encourage idle dreams
Of poison or of ropes:
I cannot dine on airy schemes;
I cannot sup on hopes:
New milk, I own, is very fine,
Just foaming from the cow;
But yet I want my pint of wine;--
I’m not a lover now!
When Laura sings young hearts away,
I’m deafer than the deep;
When Leonora goes to play,
I sometimes go to sleep;
When Mary draws her white gloves out,
I never dance, I vow,--
“Too hot to kick one’s heel’s about!”
I’m not a lover now!
I’m busy, now, with state affairs;
I prate of Pitt and Fox;
I ask the price of rail-road shares,
I watch the turns of stocks.
And this is life! no verdure blooms
Upon the withered bough:
I save a fortune in perfumes;--
I’m not a lover now!
I may be yet, what others are,
A boudoir’s babbling fool,
The flattered star of Bench or Bar,
A party’s chief, or tool:--
Come shower or sunshine, hope or fear,
The palace or the plough,--
My heart and lute are broken here;--
I’m not a lover now!
Lady, the mist is on my sight,
The chill is on my brow;
My day is night, my bloom is blight
I’m not a lover now!
TIME’S SONG.
O’er the level plains, where mountains greet me as I go,
O’er the desert waste, where fountains at my bidding flow,
On the boundless beam by day, on the cloud by night,
I am riding hence away: who will chain my flight?
War his weary watch was keeping,--I have crushed his spear;
Grief within her bower was weeping,--I have dried her tear;
Pleasure caught a minute’s hold,--then I hurried by,
Leaving all her banquet cold, and her goblet dry.
Power had won a throne of glory: where is now his fame?
Genius said, “I live in story:” who hath heard his name?
Love beneath a myrtle bough whispered “Why so fast?”
And the roses on his brow withered as I past.
I have heard the heifer lowing o’er the wild wave’s bed;
I have seen the billow flowing where the cattle fed;
Where began my wandering? Memory will not say!
Where will rest my weary wings? Science turns away!
THE HOOPOE’S INVOCATION TO THE NIGHTINGALE.
(From the Birds of Aristophanes, 1. 209.)
Waken, dear one, from thy slumbers;
Pour again those holy numbers,
Which thou warblest there alone
In a heaven-instructed tone,
Mourning from this leafy shrine
Lost--lost Itys, mine and thine,
In the melancholy cry
Of a mother’s agony.
Echo, ere the murmurs fade,
Bear them from the yew tree’s shade
To the throne of Jove; and there,
Phœbus with his golden hair
Listens long, and loves to suit
To his ivory-mounted lute
Thy sad music; at the sound
All the gods come dancing round,
And a sympathetic song
Peals from the immortal throng.