She hated all that the country yields--
And barely knew turnips from clover;
She hated walking in any shape,
And a country stile was an awkward scrape,
Without the bribe of a mob to gape
At the Leg in clambering over!
O blessed nature, “O rus! O rus!”
Who cannot sigh for the country thus,
Absorb’d in a worldly torpor--
Who does not yearn for its meadow-sweet breath,
Untainted by care, and crime, and death,
And to stand sometimes upon grass or heath--
That soul, spite of gold, is a pauper!
But to hail the pearly advent of morn,
And relish the odour fresh from the thorn,
She was far too pamper’d a madam,
Or to joy in the daylight waxing strong,
While, after ages of sorrow and wrong,
The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong,
And all the woes that to man belong,
The Lark still carols the self-same song
That he did to the uncurst Adam!
The Lark! she had given all Leipsic’s flocks
For a Vauxhall tune in a musical box;
And as for the birds in the thicket,
Thrush or ousel in leafy niche,
The linnet or finch, she was far too rich
To care for a Morning Concert, to which
She was welcome without any ticket.
Gold, still gold, her standard of old,
All pastoral joys were tried by gold,
Or by fancies golden and crural--
Till ere she had pass’d one week unblest,
As her agricultural Uncle’s guest,
Her mind was made up, and fully imprest,
That felicity could not be rural!
And the Count?--to the snow-white lambs at play
And all the scents and the sights of May,
And the birds that warbled their passion,
His ears and dark eyes, and decided nose,
Were as deaf and as blind and as dull as those
That overlooked the Bouquet de Rose,
The Huille Antique,
And Parfum Unique,
In a Barber’s Temple of Fashion.
To tell, indeed, the true extent
Of his rural bias so far it went
As to covet estates in ring fences--
And for rural lore he had learn’d in town
That the country was green, turn’d up with brown,
And garnish’d with trees that a man might cut down
Instead of his own expenses.
And yet had that fault been his only one,
The Pair might have had few quarrels or none,
For their tastes thus far were in common;
But faults he had that a haughty bride
With a Golden Leg could hardly abide--
Faults that would even have roused the pride
Of a far less metalsome woman!
It was early days indeed for a wife,
In the very spring of her married life,
To be chill’d by its wintry weather--
But instead of sitting as Love-Birds do,
On Hymen’s turtles that bill and coo--
Enjoying their “moon and honey for two”
They were scarcely seen together!
In vain she sat with her Precious Leg
A little exposed, _à la_ Kilmansegg,
And roll’d her eyes in their sockets!
He left her in spite of her tender regards,
And those loving murmurs described by bards,
For the rattling of dice and the shuffling of cards,
And the poking of balls into pockets!
Moreover he loved the deepest stake
And the heaviest bets the players would make;
And he drank--the reverse of sparely,--
And he used strange curses that made her fret;
And when he played with herself at piquet,
She found, to her cost,
For she always lost,
That the Count did not count quite fairly.
And then came dark mistrust and doubt,
Gather’d by worming his secrets out,
And slips in his conversations--
Fears, which all her peace destroy’d,
That his title was null--his coffers were void--
And his French Château was in Spain, or enjoy’d
The most airy of situations.
But still his heart--if he had such a part--
She--only she--might possess his heart,
And hold his affections in fetters--
Alas! that hope, like a crazy ship,
Was forced its anchor and cable to slip
When, seduced by her fears, she took a dip
In his private papers and letters.
Letters that told of dangerous leagues;
And notes that hinted as many intrigues
As the Count’s in the “Barber of Seville”--
In short such mysteries came to light,
That the Countess-Bride, on the thirtieth night,
Woke and started up in affright,
And kick’d and scream’d with all her might,
And finally fainted away outright,
For she dreamt she had married the Devil!
HER MISERY.
Who hath not met with home-made bread,
A heavy compound of putty and lead--
And home-made wines that rack the head,
And home-made liqueurs and waters?
Home-made pop that will not foam,
And home-made dishes that drive one from home,
Not to name each mess,
For the face or dress,
Home-made by the homely daughters?
Home-made physic that sickens the sick;
Thick for thin and thin for thick;
In short each homogeneous trick
For poisoning domesticity?
And since our Parents, call’d the First,
A little family squabble nurst,
Of all our evils the worst of the worst
Is home-made infelicity.
There’s a Golden Bird that claps its wings,
And dances for joy on its perch, and sings
With a Persian exultation:
For the Sun is shining into the room,
And brightens up the carpet-bloom,
As if it were new, bran new, from the loom,
Or the lone Nun’s fabrication.
And thence the glorious radiance flames
On pictures in massy gilded frames--
Enshrining, however, no painted Dames,
But portraits of colts and fillies--
Pictures hanging on walls, which shine,
In spite of the bard’s familiar line,
With clusters of “Gilded lilies.”
And still the flooding sunlight shares
Its lustre with gilded sofas and chairs,
That shine as if freshly burnish’d--
And gilded tables, with glittering stocks
Of gilded china, and golden clocks,
Toy, and trinket, and musical box,
That Peace and Paris have furnish’d.
And lo! with the brightest gleam of all
The glowing sunbeam is seen to fall
On an object as rare as splendid--
The golden foot of the Golden Leg
Of the Countess--once Miss Kilmansegg--
But there all sunshine is ended.
Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dim,
And downward cast, yet not at the limb,
Once the centre of all speculation;
But downward drooping in comfort’s dearth,
As gloomy thoughts are drawn to the earth--
Whence human sorrows derive their birth--
By a moral gravitation.
Her golden hair is out of its braids,
And her sighs betray the gloomy shades
That her evil planet revolves in--
And tears are falling that catch a gleam
So bright as they drop in the sunny beam,
That tears of _aqua regia_ they seem,
The water that gold dissolves in;
Yet, not filial grief were shed
Those tears for a mother’s insanity;
Nor yet because her father was dead,
For the bowing Sir Jacob had bow’d his head
To Death--with his usual urbanity;
The waters that down her visage rill’d
Were drops of unrectified spirit distill’d
From the limbeck of Pride and Vanity.
Tears that fell alone and uncheckt,
Without relief, and without respect,
Like the fabled pearls that the pigs neglect,
When pigs have that opportunity--
And of all the griefs that mortals share,
The one that seems the hardest to bear
Is the grief without community.
How bless’d the heart that has a friend
A sympathising ear to lend
To troubles too great to smother!
For as ale and porter, when flat, are restored
Till a sparkling bubbling head they afford,
So sorrow is cheer’d by being pour’d
From one vessel into another.
But friend or gossip she had not one
To hear the vile deeds that the Count had done,
How night after night he rambled;
And how she had learnt by sad degrees
That he drank, and smoked, and worse than these,
That he “swindled, intrigued, and gambled.”
How he kiss’d the maids, and sparr’d with John!
And came to bed with his garments on;
With other offences as heinous--
And brought _strange_ gentlemen home to dine,
That he said were in the Fancy Line,
And they fancied spirits instead of wine,
And call’d her lap-dog “Wenus.”
Of “making a book” how he made a stir
But never had written a line to her,
Once his idol and Cara Sposa;
And how he had storm’d, and treated her ill,
Because she refused to go down to a mill,
She didn’t know where, but remember’d still
That the Miller’s name was Mendoza.
How often he waked her up at night,
And oftener still by the morning light,
Reeling home from his haunts unlawful;
Singing songs that shouldn’t be sung,
Except by beggars and thieves unhung--
Or volleying oaths that a foreign tongue
Made still more horrid and awful!
How oft, instead of otto of rose,
With vulgar smells he offended her nose,
From gin, tobacco, and onion!
And then how wildly he used to stare!
And shake his fist at nothing, and swear,--
And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair,
Till he look’d like a study of Giant Despair
For a new Edition of Bunyan!
For dice will run the contrary way,
As well is known to all who play,
And cards will conspire as in treason;
And what with keeping a hunting-box,
Following fox--
Friends in flocks,
Burgundies, Hocks,
From London Docks;
Stultz’s frocks,
Manton and Nock’s
Barrels and locks,
Shooting blue rocks,
Trainers and jocks,
Buskins and socks,
Pugilistical knocks,
And fighting cocks,
If he found himself short in funds and stocks
These rhymes will furnish the reason!
His friends, indeed, were falling away--
Friends who insist on play or pay--
And he fear’d at no very distant day
To be cut by Lord and by cadger,
As one, who has gone, or is going, to smash,
For his checks no longer drew the cash,
Because, as his comrades explain’d in flash,
“He had overdrawn his badger.”
Gold, gold--alas! for the gold
Spent where souls are bought and sold,
In Vice’s Walpurgis revel!
Alas! for muffles, and bulldogs, and guns,
The leg that walks, and the leg that runs,--
All real evils, though Fancy ones,
When they lead to debt, dishonour, and duns,
Nay, to death, and perchance the devil!
Alas! for the last of a Golden race!
Had she cried her wrongs in the market-place,
She had warrant for all her clamour--
For the worst of rogues, and brutes, and rakes,
Was breaking her heart by constant aches,
With as little remorse as the Pauper, who breaks
A flint with a parish hammer!
HER LAST WILL.
Now the Precious Leg while cash was flush,
Or the Count’s acceptance worth a rush,
Had never excited dissension;
But no sooner the stocks began to fall,
Than, without any ossification at all,
The limb became what people call
A perfect bone of contention.
For alter’d days brought alter’d ways,
And instead of the complimentary phrase,
So current before her bridal--
The Countess heard, in language low,
That her Precious Leg was precious slow,
A good ‘un to look at but bad to go,
And kept quite a sum lying idle.
That instead of playing musical airs,
Like Colin’s foot in going up-stairs--
As the wife in the Scottish ballad declares--
It made an infernal stumping.
Whereas a member of cork, or wood,
Would be lighter and cheaper and quite as good,
Without the unbearable thumping.
P’rhaps she thought it a decent thing
To show her calf to cobbler and king,
But nothing could be absurder--
While none but the crazy would advertise
Their gold before their servants’ eyes,
Who of course some night would make it a prize,
By a Shocking and Barbarous Murder.
But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff,
The Leg kept its situation.
For legs are not to be taken off,
By a verbal amputation.
And mortals when they take a whim,
The greater the folly the stiffer the limb
That stand upon it or by it--
So the Countess, then Miss Kilmansegg,
At her marriage refused to stir a peg,
Till the Lawyers had fasten’d on her Leg
As fast as the Law could tie it.
Firmly then--and more firmly yet--
With scorn for scorn, and with threat for threat,
The Proud One confronted the Cruel:
And loud and bitter the quarrel arose
Fierce and merciless--one of those,
With spoken daggers, and looks like blows,
In all but the bloodshed a duel!
Rash, and wild, and wretched, and wrong,
Were the works that came from Weak and Strong,
Till madden’d for desperate matters,
Fierce as tigress escaped from her den,
She flew to her desk--’twas open’d--and then,
In the time it takes to try a pen,
Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen,
Her Will was in fifty tatters!
But the Count, instead of curses wild,
Only nodded his head and smiled,
As if at the spleen of an angry child;
But the calm was deceitful and sinister!
A lull like the lull of the treacherous sea--
For Hate in that moment had sworn to be
The Golden Leg’s sole Legatee,
And that very night to administer!
HER DEATH.
’Tis a stern and startling thing to think
How often mortality stands on the brink
Of its grave without any misgiving;
And yet in this slippery world of strife,
In the stir of human bustle so rife,
There are daily sounds to tell us that Life
Is dying, and Death is living!
Ay, Beauty the Girl, and Love the Boy,
Bright as they are with hope and joy,
How their souls would sadden instanter,
To remember that one of those wedding bells,
Which ring so merrily through the dells,
Is the same that knells
Our last farewells,
Only broken into a canter!
But breath and blood set doom at nought--
How little the wretched Countess thought,
When at night she unloosed her sandal,
That the Fates had woven her burial-cloth,
And that Death, in the shape of a Death’s Head Moth,
Was fluttering round her candle!
As she look’d at her clock of or-molu,
For the hours she had gone so wearily through,
At the end of a day of trial--
How little she saw in her pride of prime
The dart of Death in the Hand of Time--
That hand which moved on the dial!
As she went with her taper up the stair,
How little her swollen eye was aware
That the Shadow which follow’d was double!
Or when she closed her chamber door,
It was shutting out, and for evermore,
The world--and its worldly trouble.
Little she dreamt, as she laid aside
Her jewels--after one glance of pride--
They were solemn bequests to Vanity--
Or when her robes she began to doff,
That she stood so near to the putting off
Of the flesh that clothes humanity.
And when she quench’d the taper’s light,
How little she thought as the smoke took flight,
That her day was done--and merged in a night
Of dreams and duration uncertain--
Or along with her own,
That a Hand of Bone
Was closing mortality’s curtain!
But life is sweet, and mortality blind,
And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind
In concealing the day of sorrow;
And enough is the present tense of toil--
For this world is, to all, a stiffish soil--
And the mind flies back with a glad recoil
From the debts not due till to-morrow.
Wherefore else does the Spirit fly
And bid its daily cares good-bye,
Along with its daily clothing?
Just as the felon condemn’d to die--
With a very natural loathing--
Leaving the Sheriff to dream of ropes,
From his gloomy cell in a vision elopes
To a caper on sunny gleams and slopes,
Instead of the dance upon nothing.
Thus, even thus, the Countess slept,
While Death still nearer and nearer crept,
Like the Thane who smote the sleeping--
But her mind was busy with early joys,
Her golden treasures and golden toys:
That flash’d a bright
And golden light
Under lids still red with weeping.
The golden doll that she used to hug!
Her coral of gold, and the golden mug!
Her godfather’s golden presents!
The golden service she had at her meals,
The golden watch, and chain, and seals,
Her golden scissors, and thread, and reels,
And her golden fishes and pheasants!
The golden guineas in silken purse--
And the Golden Legends she heard from her nurse
Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage--
And London streets that were paved with gold--
And the Golden Eggs that were laid of old--
With each golden thing
To the golden ring
At her own auriferous Marriage?
And still the golden light of the sun
Through her golden dreams appear’d to run,
Though the night, that roared without, was one
To terrify seamen or gipsies--
While the moon, as if in malicious mirth,
Kept peeping down at the ruffled earth,
As though she enjoy’d the tempest’s birth,
In revenge of her old eclipses.
But vainly, vainly, the thunder fell,
For the soul of the Sleeper was under a spell
That time had lately embitter’d--
The Count, as once at her foot he knelt--
That foot, which now he wanted to melt!
But--hush!--’twas a stir at her pillow she felt--
And some object before her glitter’d.
’Twas the Golden Leg!--she knew its gleam!
And up she started and tried to scream,--
But ev’n in the moment she started--
Down came the limb with a frightful smash,
And lost, in the universal flash
That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash,
The Spark, call’d Vital, departed!
* * * * *
Gold, still gold! hard, hard yellow, and cold,
For gold she had lived, and she died for gold--
By a golden weapon--not oaken;
In the morning they found her all alone--
Stiff, and bloody, and cold as stone--
But her Leg, the Golden Leg, was gone,
And the “Golden Bowl was broken!”
Gold--still gold! it haunted her yet--
At the Golden Lion the Inquest met--
Its foreman a carver and gilder--
And the Jury debated from twelve till three
What the Verdict ought to be,
And they brought it in as Felo de Se,
“Because her own Leg had kill’d her!”
HER MORAL.
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammer’d and roll’d;
Heavy to get, and light to hold;
Hoarded, barter’d, bought, and sold,
Stolen, borrow’d, squander’d, doled:
Spurn’d by the young, but hugg’d by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mould;
Price of many a crime untold;
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Good or bad a thousand-fold!
How widely its agencies vary--
To save--to ruin--to curse--to bless--
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamp’d by the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary.
JOHN TROT.
A BALLAD.
I.
John Trot he was as tall a lad
As York did ever rear--
As his dear Granny used to say,
He’d make a grenadier.
II.
A serjeant soon came down to York,
With ribbons and a frill;
My lads, said he, let broadcast be,
And come away to drill.
[Illustration: HIGH AND LOW BORN.]
[Illustration: THE WIDOW’S MITE.]
III.
But when he wanted John to ‘list,
In war he saw no fun,
Where what is call’d a raw recruit,
Gets often over-done.
IV.
Let others carry guns, said he,
And go to war’s alarms,
But I have got a shoulder-knot
Impos’d upon my arms.
V.
For John he had a footman’s place
To wait on Lady Wye--
She was a dumpy woman, tho’
Her family was high.
VI.
Now when two years had past away,
Her Lord took very ill,
And left her to her widowhood,
Of course more dumpy still.
VII.
Said John, I am a proper man,
And very tall to see;
Who knows, but now her Lord is low,
She may look up to me?
VIII.
A cunning woman told me once,
Such fortune would turn up;
She was a kind of sorceress,
But studied in a cup!
IX.
So he walk’d up to Lady Wye,
And took her quite amazed,--
She thought, tho’ John was tall enough,
He wanted to be raised.
X.
But John--for why? she was a dame
Of such a dwarfish sort--
Had only come to bid her make
Her mourning very short.
XI.
Said he, your Lord is dead and cold,
You only cry in vain;
Not all the Cries of London now,
Could call him back again!
XII.
You’ll soon have many a noble beau,
To dry your noble tears--
But just consider this, that I
Have follow’d you for years.
XIII.
And tho’ you are above me far,
What matters high degree,
When you are only four feet nine
And I am six foot three.
XIV.
For tho’ you are of lofty race,
And I’m a low-born elf;
Yet none among your friends could say
You matched beneath yourself.
XV.
Said she, such insolence as this
Can be no common case;
Though you are in my service, sir,
Your love is out of place.
XVI.
O Lady Wye! O Lady Wye!
Consider what you do;
How can you be so short with me,
I am not so with you?
XVII.
Then ringing for her serving men,
They show’d him to the door:
Said they, you turn out better now,
Why didn’t you before?
XVIII.
They stripp’d his coat, and gave him kicks
For all his wages due;
And off, instead of green and gold,
He went in black and blue.
XIX.
No family would take him in,
Because of this discharge;
So he made up his mind to serve
The country all at large.
XX.
Huzza! the Serjeant cried, and put
The money in his hand,
And with a shilling cut him off
From his paternal land.
XXI.
For when his regiment went to fight
At Saragossa town,
A Frenchman thought he look’d too tall
And so he cut him down!
THE WIDOW.
One widow at a grave will sob
A little while, and weep, and sigh!
If two should meet on such a job,
They’ll have a gossip by and by.
If three should come together--why,
Three widows are good company!
If four should meet by any chance,
Four is a number very nice,
To have a rubber in a trice--
But five will up and have a dance!
Poor Mrs. C---- (why should I not
Declare her name!--her name was Cross)
Was one of those the “common lot”
Had left to weep “no common loss;”--
For she had lately buried then
A man, the “very best of men,”
A lingering truth, discover’d first
Whenever men “are at the worst.”
To take the measure of her woe,
It was some dozen inches deep--
I mean in crape, and hung so low,
It hid the drops she did _not_ weep:
In fact, what human life appears,
It was a perfect “veil of tears.”
Though ever since she lost “her prop
And stay,”--alas! he wouldn’t stay--
She never had a tear to mop,
Except one little angry drop,
From Passion’s eye, as Moore would say;
Because, when Mister Cross took flight,
It looked so very like a spite--
He died upon a washing-day!
Still Widow Cross went twice a week,
As if “to wet a widow’s cheek,”
And soothe his grave with sorrow’s gravy,--
’Twas nothing but a make-believe,
She might as well have hoped to grieve
Enough of brine to float a navy;
And yet she often seem’d to raise
A cambric kerchief to her eye--
A _duster_ ought to be the phrase,
Its work was all so very dry.
The springs were lock’d that ought to flow--
In England or in widow-woman--
As those that watch the weather know,
Such “backward Springs” are not uncommon.
But why did Widow Cross take pains,
To call upon the “dear remains,”--
Remains that could not tell a jot,
Whether she ever wept or not,
Or how his relict took her losses?
Oh! my black ink turns red for shame--
But still the naughty world must learn,
There was a little German came
To shed a tear in “Anna’s Urn,”
At the next grave to Mr. Cross’s!
For there an angel’s virtues slept,
“Too soon did Heaven assert its claim!”
But still her painted face he kept,
“Encompass’d in an angel’s frame.”
He look’d quite sad and quite deprived,
His head was nothing but a hat-band;
He look’d so lone, and so _un_wived,
That soon the Widow Cross contrived
To fall in love with even _that_ band;
And all at once the brackish juices
Came gushing out thro’ sorrow’s sluices--
Tear after tear too fast to wipe,
Tho’ sopp’d, and sopp’d, and sopp’d again--
No leak in sorrow’s private pipe,
But like a bursting on the main!
Whoe’er has watch’d the window-pane--
I mean to say in showery weather--
Has seen two little drops of rain,
Like lovers very fond and fain,
At one another creeping, creeping,
Till both, at last, embrace together:
So far’d it with that couple’s weeping!
The principle was quite as active--
Tear unto tear,
Kept drawing near,
Their very blacks became attractive.
To cut a shortish story shorter,
Conceive them sitting tête à tête--
Two cups,--hot muffins on a plate,--
With “Anna’s Urn” to hold hot water!
The brazen vessel for a while,
Had lectured in an easy song,
Like Abernethy--on the bile--
The scalded herb was getting strong;
All seem’d as smooth as smooth could be,
To have a cosey cup of tea;
Alas! how often human sippers
With unexpected bitters meet,
And buds, the sweetest of the sweet,
Like sugar, only meet the nippers!
The Widow Cross, I should have told,
Had seen three husbands to the mould;
She never sought an Indian pyre,
Like Hindoo wives that lose their loves,
But with a proper sense of fire,
Put up, instead, with “three removes:”
Thus, when with any tender words
Or tears she spoke about her loss,
The dear departed, Mr. Cross,
Came in for nothing but his thirds;
For, as all widows love too well,
She liked upon the list to dwell,
And oft ripp’d up the old disasters--
She might, indeed, have been supposed
A great _ship_ owner, for she prosed
Eternally of her Three Masters!
Thus, foolish woman! while she nursed
Her mild souchong, she talk’d and reckon’d
What had been left her by her first,
And by her last, and by her second.
Alas! not all her annual rents
Could then entice the little German,--
Not Mr. Cross’s Three Per Cents,
Or Consols, ever make him _her_ man;
He liked her cash, he liked her houses,
But not that dismal bit of land
She always settled on her spouses.
So taking up his hat and band,
Said he “You’ll think my conduct odd--
But here my hopes no more may linger;
I thought you had a wedding-finger,
But oh!--it is a curtain-rod!”
“DON’T YOU SMELL FIRE?”
I.