L'ENVOI 1.

You shake your head. A random string
Your finer female sense offends.
Well-were it not a pleasant thing

To fall asleep with all one's friends;
To pass with all our social ties

To silence from the paths of men; And every hundred years to rise

And learn the world, and sleep again; To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars,

As wild as aught of fairy lore;
And all that else the years will show,
The Poet-forms of stronger hours,
The vast Republics that may grow,

The Federations and the Powers;
Titanic forces taking birth
In divers seasons, divers climes;
For we are Ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.

2.

So sleeping, so aroused from sleep
Thro' sunny decades new and strange,
Or gay quinquenniads would we reap
The flower and quintessence of change.

3.

Ah, yet would I-and would I might!
So much your eyes my fancy take-
Be still the first to leap to light

That I might kiss those eyes awake!
For, am I right or am I wrong,

To choose your own you did not care; You'd have my moral from the song, And I will take my pleasure there: And, am I right or am I wrong,

My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', To search a meaning for the song, Perforce will still revert to you; Nor finds a closer truth than this All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, And evermore a costly kiss

The prelude to some brighter world.

Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise,
That float thro' Heaven, and cannot lignt ?
Or old-world trains, upheld at court
By Cupid-boys of blooming hue-
But take it-earnest wed with sport,
And either sacred unto you.

AMPHION.

My father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree
And waster than a warren:
Yet say the neighbors when they call,
It is not bad but good land,
And in it is the germ of all

That grows within the woodland.

O had I lived when song was grea
In days of old Amphion,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
Nor cared for seed or scion !
And had I lived when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber!

"T is said he had a tuneful tongue,
Such happy intonation,
Wherever he sat down and sung
He left a small plantation;
Wherever in a lonely grove

He set up his forlorn pipes,
The gouty oak began to move,
And flounder into hornpipes.

The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown,
And, as tradition teaches,
Young ashes pirouetted down

Coquetting with young beeches:
And briony-vine and ivy-wreath
Ran forward to his rhyming,
And from the valleys underneath
Came little copses climbing.

The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair,
The bramble cast her berry,

The gin within the juniper

Began to make him merry,
The poplars, in long order due,
With cypress promenaded,

The shock-head willows two and two
By rivers gallopaded.

Came wet-shot alder from the wave,
Came yews, a dismal coterie;
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,
Poussetting with a sloe-tree:

Old elms came breaking from the vine,
The vine stream'd out to follow,
And, sweating resin, plump'd the pine
From many a cloudy hollow.

And was n't it a sight to see,

When, ere his song was ended,
Like some great landslip, tree by tree,
The country-side descended;
And shepherds from the mountain-eaves
Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frighten &
As dash'd about the drunken leaves
The random sunshine lighten'd!

O, nature first was fresh to men, And wanton without measure; So youthful and so flexile then, You moved her at your pleasure.

Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs! And make her dance attendance; Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs, And scirrhous roots and tendons.

"Tis vain! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle :
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle;
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
With strumming and with scraping,
A jackass heehaws from the rick,
The passive oxen gaping.

But what is that I hear? a sound

Like sleepy counsel pleading:

O Lord! 't is in my neighbor's ground,
The modern Muses reading.

They read Botanic Treatises,

And Works on Gardening through there,

And Methods of transplanting trees,

To look as if they grew there.

The wither'd Misses! how they prose
O'er books of travell'd seamen,
And show you slips of all that grows
From England to Van Diemen.
They read in arbors clipt and cut,
And alleys, faded places,
By squares of tropic summer shut
And warm'd in crystal cases.

But these, tho' fed with careful dirt,
Are neither green nor sappy;
Half-conscious of the garden-squirt,
The spindlings look unhappy.
Better to me the meanest weed
That blows upon its mountain,
The vilest herb that runs to seed
Beside its native fountain.

And I must work thro' months of toil, And years of cultivation,

Upon my proper patch of soil

To grow my own plantation.
I'll take the showers as they fall,
I will not vex my bosom:
Enough if at the end of all
A little garden blossom.

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MON

OLOGUE.

MADE AT THE COCK.

O PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock,
To which I most resort,

How goes the time? "T is five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:

But let it not be such as that

You set before chance-comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat On Lusitanian summers.

No vain libation to the Muse,
But may she still be kind,
And whisper lovely words, and use
Her influence on the mind,

To make me write my random rhymes,
Ere they be half-forgotten:
Nor add and alter, many times,
Till all be ripe and rotten.

I pledge her, and she comes and dips
Her laurel in the wine,
And lays it thrice upon my lips,
These favor'd lips of mine;

Until the charm have power to make
New lifeblood warm the bosom,
And barren commonplaces break
In full and kindly blossom.

I pledge her silent at the board;
Her gradual fingers steal
And touch upon the master-chord
Of all I felt and feel.

Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,

And phantom hopes assemble;

And that child's heart within the man's
Begins to move and tremble.

Thro' many an hour of summer suns
By many pleasant ways,
Against its fountain upward runs

The current of my days.

I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd;
The gas-light wavers dimmer;
And softly, thro' a vinous mist,
My college friendships glimmer.

I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,
Unboding critic-pen,

Or that eternal want of pence,
Which vexes public men,

Who hold their hands to all, and cry
For that which all deny them,-
Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry,
And all the world go by them.

Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake,
Tho' fortune clip my wings,

I will not cramp my heart, nor take
Half-views of men and things.
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;
There must be stormy weather:
But for some true result of good
All parties work together.

Let there be thistles, there are grapes;
If old things, there are new;
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,
Yet glimpses of the true.

Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme.
We lack not rhymes and reasons,

As on this whirligig of Time

We circle with the seasons.

This earth is rich in man and maid;

With fair horizons bound!

This whole wide earth of light and shade Comes out, a perfect round.

High over roaring Temple-bar,

And, set in Heaven's third story,

I look at all things as they are,
But thro' a kind of glory.

Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest
Half-mused, or reeling-ripe,

The pint, you brought me, was the best
That ever came from pipe.

But tho' the port surpasses praise,
My nerves have dealt with stiffer.
Is there some magic in the place?
Or do my peptics differ?

For since I came to live and learn,
No pint of white or red
Had ever half the power to turn
This wheel within my head,
Which bears a season'd brain about.

Unsubject to confusion,

Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out, Thro' every convolution.

For I am of a numerous house,

With many kinsmen gay,

Where long and largely we carouse,
As who shall say me nay:
Each month, a birthday coming on,
We drink defying trouble,

Or sometimes two would meet in one,
And then we drank it double,

Whether the vintage, yet unkept,
Had relish flery-new,

Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept,
As old as Waterloo;

Or stow'd (when classic Canning died)
In musty bins and chambers,
Had cast upon its crusty side

The gloom of ten Decembers.

The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is!
She answer'd to my call,

She changes with that mood or this,
Is all-in-all to all:

She lit the spark within my throat, To make my blood run quicker, Used all her fiery will, and smote Her life into the liquor.

And hence this halo lives about
The waiter's hands, that reach
To each his perfect pint of stout,
His proper chop to each.

He looks not like the common breed
That with the napkin dally;

I think he came like Ganymede,
From some delightful valley.

The Cock was of a larger egg
Than modern poultry drop,
Stept forward on a firmer leg,

And cramm'd a plumper crop;
Upon an ampler dunghill trod,
Crow'd justier late and early,
Sipt wine from silver, praising God,
And raked in golden barley.

A private life was all his joy,
Till in a court he saw

A something-pottle-bodied boy

That knuckled at the taw:

He stoop'd and clutch'd him, fair and good,
Flew over roof and casement:
His brothers of the weather stood

Stock-still for sheer amazement.

But he, by farmstead, thorpe, and spire,
And follow'd with acclaims,

A sign to many a staring shire,
Came crowing over Thames.

Right down by smoky Paul's they bore,
Till, where the street grows straiter,
One fix'd forever at the door,

And one became head-waiter.

But whither would my fancy go?
How out of place she makes
The violet of a legend blow
Among the chops and steaks!
'Tis but a steward of the can,

One shade more plump than common;
As just and mere a serving-man
As any, born of woman.

I ranged too high: what draws me down
Into the common day?

Is it the weight of that half-crown,
Which I shall have to pay?

For, something duller than at first,
Nor wholly comfortable,

I sit (my empty glass reversed),

And thrumming on the table:

Half fearful that, with self at strife,
I take myself to task;

Lest of the fulness of my life

I leave an empty flask:

For I had hope, by something rare,
To prove myself a poet;

But, while I plan and plan, my hair
Is gray before I know it.

So fares it since the years began,
Till they be gather'd up;

The truth, that flies the flowing can,
Will haunt the vacant cup:

And others' follies teach us not,

Nor much their wisdom teaches;
And most, of sterling worth, is what
Our own experience preaches.

Ah, let the rusty theme alone!
We know not what we know.

But for my pleasant hour, 'tis gone,
'Tis gone, and let it go.

"Tis gone: a thousand such have slipt
Away from my embraces,

And fall'n into the dusty crypt

Of darken'd forms and faces.

Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went
Long since, and came no more:
With peals of genial clamor sent
From many a tavern-door,
With twisted quirks and happy hits,
From misty men of letters;

The tavern-hours of mighty wits,-
Thine elders and thy betters.

Hours, when the Poet's words and looks
Had yet their native glow:

Not yet the fear of little books

Had made him talk for show:
But, all his vast heart sherris-warm'd
He flash'd his random speeches;
Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm'd
His literary leeches.

So mix forever with the past,

Like all good things on earth!

For should I prize thee, could'st thon last,
At half thy real worth?

I hold it good, good things should pass:
With time I will not quarrel:

It is but yonder empty glass
That makes me maudlin-moral.

Head-waiter of the chop-house here,
To which I most resort,

I too must part: I hold thee dear
For this good pint of port.

For this, thou shalt from all things suck
Marrow of mirth and laughter:
And, wheresoe'er thou move, good luck
Shall fling her old shoe after.

But thou wilt never move from hence,
The sphere thy fate allots:
Thy latter days increased with pence
Go down among the pots:
Thou battenest by the greasy gleam
In haunts of hungry sinners,
Old boxes, larded with the steam

Of thirty thousand dinners.

We fret, we fume, would shift our skins,
Would quarrel with our lot:

Thy care is, under polish'd tins,
To serve the hot-and-hot;

To come and go, and come again,
Returning like the pewit,

And watch'd by silent gentlemen,
That trifle with the cruet.

Live long, ere from thy topmost head
The thick-set hazel dies;

Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread
The corners of thine eyes:

Live long, nor feel in head or chest
Our changeful equinoxes,

Till mellow Death, like some late guest,
Shall call thee from the boxes.

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease
To pace the gritted floor,
And, laying down an unctuous lease

Of life, shalt earn no more:

No carved cross-bones, the types of Death,
Shall show thee past to Heaven:
But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,
A pint-pot, neatly graven.

TO

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS.
"Cursed be he that moves my bones."
Shakespeare's Epitaph.

You might have won the Poet's name,
If such be worth the winning now,
And gain'd a laurel for your brow
Of sounder leaf than I can claim;

But you have made the wiser choice,

A life that moves to gracious ends
Thro' troops of unrecording friends,
A deedful life, a silent voice:

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom
Of those that wear the Poet's crown:
Hereafter, neither knave nor clown
Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.

For now the Poet cannot die

Nor leave his music as of old,

But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry:

"Proclaim the faults he would not show:
Break lock and seal: betray the trust:
Keep nothing sacred: 't is but just
The many-headed beast should know."
Ah shameless! for he did but sing

A song that pleased us from its worth;
No public life was his on earth,
No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.

He gave the people of his best:

His worst he kept, his best he gave.
My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave
Who will not let his ashes rest!

Who make it seem more sweet to be
The little life of bank and brier,
The bird that pipes his lone desire
And dies unheard within his tree,
Than he that warbles long and loud
And drops at Glory's temple-gates,
For whom the carrion vulture waits
To tear his heart before the crowd!

LADY CLARE.

IT was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.

I trow they did not part in scorn:
Lovers long-betroth'd were they:

They two will wed the morrow morn: God's blessing on the day!

"He does not love me for my birth, Nor for my lands so broad and fair: He loves me for my own true worth, And that is well," said Lady Clare.

In there came old Alice the nurse,

Said, "Who was this that went from thee?" "It was my cousin," said Lady Clare "To-morrow he weds with me."

"O God be thank'd!" said Alice the nurse, "That all comes round so just and fair: Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, And you are not the Lady Clare."

"Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?"
Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild ?"
"As God's above," said Alice the nurse,
"I speak the truth: you are my child.

"The old Earl's daughter died at my breast;
I speak the truth, as I live by bread!
I buried her like my own sweet child.
And put my child in her stead."

"Falsely, falsely have ye done,

O mother," she said, "if this be true,
To keep the best man under the suu
So many years from his due."

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
"But keep the secret for your life,
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's,
When you are man and wife."

"If I'm a beggar born," she said,

"I will speak out, for I dare not lie. Pull off, pull off, the broach of gold, And fling the diamond necklace by." "Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, "But keep the secret all ye can."

She said "Not so: but I will know
If there be any faith in man."

"Nay now, what faith ?" said Alice the nurse, "The man will cleave unto his right." "And he shall have it," the lady replied, "Tho' I should die to-night."

"Yet give one kiss to your mother dear! Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee."

"O mother, mother, mother," she said,
"So strange it seems to me.

"Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear,
My mother dear, if this be so,
And lay your hand upon my head,

And bless me, mother, ere I go."

She clad herself in a russet gown,
She was no longer Lady Clare:.
She went by dale, and she went by down.
With a single rose in her hair.

The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought
Leapt up from where she lay,

Dropt her head in the maiden's hand,
And followed her all the way.

Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:

"O Lady Clare, you shame your worth! Why come you drest like a village maid, That are the flower of the earth?"

"If I come drest like a village maid, I am but as my fortunes are:

I am a beggar born," she said, "And not the Lady Clare."