The summer crept from May to June,
When flow’rs yield most their perfumes sweet,
And add their charms to the saloon,
To make the banquet-room complete.
See: there they are, of every hue,
Of every cast, in aspect rare;
All greeting all who deign to view,
And smiling on the happy pair.
Their meet companions all attend—
Those crownèd giants of the pine,—
And in their place, beneath them, bend
The goodly tenants of the vine.
Those purple cisterns,[66] fill’d to brim,
(And those green beauties by their side,)
Enrich the little seas that swim
In goblets, through the eventide.
’Round golden pedestals they cling,
Among th’ elect of every fruit:
Hear they, as ’twere, the glasses ting;
Burst they with joy, yet they are mute.
Their turn is come—O, happy fate!—
A kindly hand assists them down;
They garnish well the polish’d plate,
Until their fairy-life is flown.
Now listen to the harmony—
Those compliments of courteous love:
Observe how wondrous loyally
And royally the things do move!
The banquet-board bore on its face
Profusion’s burden of choice store:
The hostess loan’d her wonted grace—
Enhanc’d by the gay garb she wore:
And by her side, on her right hand,
The son of England’s cherish’d Queen,—
Prince Edward, of all Britain’s land:
None fairer of his sex are seen.
Glance o’er the board—behold the host,
(Whom this fair Prince doth honour well,)
Though years he numbereth the most,
In wit and wisdom none excel:
On his right hand, eyes sparkling bright,
Sat Alexandra, England’s own.—
She saw, was seen, and spell’d the night:
Yet there were other stars that shone,
Whose smiling countenances glowed
With love, and hope, and charity;
Within whose bosoms freely flowed
The stream which mark’d their ancestry,—
Of ancestors who scared the foe
With swords and bucklers, armour bent,
Swift arrows from well-bended bow,
Or matchlock leaden bullets sent;
Whose loyalty unto the crown,
When dangers frown’d at home, abroad,
Brought kingly gratulations down,
And blessings from Almighty God.
Have ceased those feudal wars of yore,—
When heritages were purloin’d,
Or purchas’d with death’s clotted gore,
To satisfy th’ insatiate mind.
Now peace, triumphant, fill’d each heart;
The rosy wine-cup teem’d with pride;
The banquetees[67] had met to part:—
Gone, gone is this blithe eventide!
[65] This poem was composed on the occasion of the Banquet given by Lord
and Lady Palmerston, June 22nd, 1864, in honour of their Royal Highnesses
the Prince and Princess of Wales.
[66] Grapes.
[67] The guests.
[Illustration]
Thought.
O silent tickler of the human brain!—
The infant’s, boyhood’s, manhood’s, and old age’—
In some thou ’bidest with consoling strain;
In others, burning with revengeful rage.
The babe is prompted to its mother’s breast,
While with sweet lullabys she heeds her child,
And dandles it, or rocks it on to rest;
Herself perchance a widow, or beguil’d:—
A widow! and within her village cot,
She sees the fence encircling the green sward,
And eyes the porchway, leading to the spot
Where he lies mould’ring, once the village bard.
“Boys will be boys,” and so they go a playing;
Methinks I see nigh twenty of them there
Who drop their marbling while the donkey’s braying,
And laugh most heartily at what they hear.
There, ten years hence, not one of them is seen,
The field of industry absorbs them all,
Yet there are others playing on that green,
Knuckling at marbles, or at batting ball.
One well-known lad has gone across the sea,
Another’s crippled, and another’s dead:
Out of those twenty there remains but three,
And they have cares, for each of them have wed.
The man—a merchant, or a city-scribe,
Has round him rang’d his family-group at night;
His gains are great, and therefore doth subscribe
Towards the evening’s leisure of delight.
God’s holy day comes round, they take in turn
To fill the pew, for which he pays the rent:
They’ve not yet had occasion for to mourn,
And so the intervals are cheerly spent.
He banks his cash day after day, perchance;
His sundry books are regularly pent;
He speculates at home, in Belgium, or in France,
For all goes well upon the Continent.
Speeds forth at morning in his usual health;
The family-group repeat their kind adieu;
Once more he’s on the path to gain and wealth,
And meets a friend, who startles him anew!
The news of some disastrous incident
Now smites him like a demon’s evil dart—
The bank, in which he felt most confident,
Is “broken,” and will soon have broke his heart!
He then to Heaven uplifts his tearful eyes
(Adversity had check’d the worldly spark);
Despairingly he ponders, then he sighs,
Like as a seaman in a sinking barque.
Time, swiftly rolling, ’printeth on his cheek
A hallow’d countenance, imbued with care;
Once mighty,—humble, thankful now, and meek,
And regular at morn’ and evening pray’r.
Obedient to God’s laws of life and death,
Old Age prepares to meet Eternity!—
Deep furrows on his brow, and shorten’d breath,
Are tokenings of his infirmity.
Recurs to him (when at his social board)—
Some little element of jealousy,
Occasion’d through an inadvertent word
Escaping, when in his prosperity.
He now repenteth of the injury done,
And makes amends by words of lovingness;
Calls to his side his dear and only son,
Whose mind, refresh’d, at once forgiving is.
A thousand little things flit to his mind,
With wondrous force of perspicuity;
As in his old arm-chair he is reclined,
Believes what once was incongruity.
The lessons of a life-time now hath taught
The old man to put faith in holy things;
He strikes his bosom, for a happy thought
Revives some former truthful ponderings.
Alas! he fails, bed-ridden; (hence he dies.)—
Some goodly creature reads the Book of fate.[68]
His family ’round him, sees him close his eyes;
And thus is finish’d the four-fold estate.
[68] The Bible.
Sheep.
How welcome ’tis to human eye
To see the mead-lands gay with sheep:
How homely is the lambkin’s cry,
How sweet to see them run and leap.
Look, whilst unheeded falls the show’r,
How nimbly each one nips the blade;
And, as the rain-drops trickle o’er
Them, how intent they mind their trade.
Their life-time’s short, but sweet content
Ne’er fails them: on and on they pass,
And as they wander innocent-
Ly yield, and aid the growing grass.
When Dame Aurora steeps the main
With her resistless flood of light,
They’re up, and at their trade again,
And nibble, nibbling till ’tis night.
But when a storm is gathering fast,
See how they’ll seek some shelter’d cove;
How cunningly they’ll shun the blast,
Beneath a hazel-hedge, or grove.
When down at night they gently lie,
Unconscious where the light hath flown,
It may be plann’d for all to die
Before the morrow’s afternoon.
’Tis so!—a sound doth ’lectrify
The timid throng: they congregate;
And, as th’ intruder they espy,
Seem apprehensive of their fate.
Away unto some nook they run,
Or to the angle of the field;
The shepherd marks them one by one,
And one by one they have to yield.
(Perchance it is the month of May):
Their shornèd quarters fat and fleet
Are needed in some other way,—
Are soon, alas! transform’d to meat.
O! little faithfuls,—eat and drink,
For on to-morrow you must fall:
’Tis good thou hast no thought to think;
Were ’t so thy life-time would be gall.
Suppose it’s March: the fields[69] are bare;
The hunter’s horn rides on the gale;
And suddenly a fox, or hare,
Comes bounding over hedge or pale,
Then see them how they’ll gather round,
As though some dreadful foe was near;
And mark, when forth the foremost hound
Comes yelping onward, how they fear;
And stand aghast-like—stark and still—
Until the yelpers have flown past,
Until the hunters cross the hill,
And then again seek their repast.
(Now when the distant sportsmen see
The nervous flock haste to the fence,
’Tis known to them with accuracy
The prey hath cross’d, or crossing thence.)
Ah! little think they (but ’tis true)
That, as they heed the fleeting throng,
Those hunters’ coats, red, green, or blue,
Have from such backs as theirs been flung.
Turn, reader, from the blithesome chase
To where the staggering thrust is dealt;
Behold the death-stains on the face,
And see what gory blood is spilt:
Conceive, what thousands in a day
Reel at the shock which lays them low;
That as they hang, as cold as clay,
Ten thousand more receive the blow!
All pity’s fled, when (at the fire,)
Leg, loin, or shoulder’s on the spit,
To grace the table of the squire—
Surrounded by things amply fit.
Where they were born, or how they live,
On what they feed, or how they die,
Or how the little creatures grieve
When on the butcher’s block they lie.
Ne’er strikes th’ attention of the guest,
Host, hostess, scull’ry-maid, nor cook;
It’s—whether it be rightly drest,
And whether “paid,” or on the book.
O! little faithfuls,—eat and drink,
For on to-morrow you must fall:
’Tis good thou hast no thought to think;
Were ’t so, thy lifetime would be gall.
Trip on, lie down and go to sleep,
Run skipfully, or stand ye still;
Feed on, as should ye—pretty sheep,
Until thou deem’st thou’st had thy fill;—
No-one will grudge thee what thou’st ta’en,
For in return thou ’videst us food:
Ah! through the field and narrow lane
Thou’rt hurried to the field of blood.
Thy jackets, shorn, are piled in store,
Or carted to the mart for sale;
Thy wool, O! meek ones (woven o’er),
Adorns the hearth, flaunts in the gale.
In every land, on every sea,
Where commerce traverses the globe,—
’Tis knit in garb’s simplicity;
Knit in the monarch’s choicest robe;
Knit in the infant’s swaddling clothes;
Knit in the mother’s “jaconet;”—[70]
In colours various as the rose,
As various as the violet,
Promiscuous ’sturchion, and (methinks)
Still further—the chrysanthemum,
Punctilious dahlia, hornèd pinks,
The rose-like poppy in full bloom.
Nay, more—geraniums, beauteous things,
The ear-drop fuchsias—every kind,
And that sweet flow’r[71] which gently clings
To where contentment fills the mind[72].—
Not that contentment reigns alone
In the most humble cottages,
But that it is more rarely known
To dwell in gorgeous palaces.
[69] Cornfields.
[70] A kind of knitted jacket for the body.
[71] The woodbine.
[72] The peasant’s cot.