And liberal applications lie In Art like Nature, dearest friend; So 't were to cramp its use, if I Should hook it to some useful end. L'ENVOI 1. You shake your head. A random string 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 Aud 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; The Federations and the Powers; 2. So sleeping, so aroused from sleep Ah, yet would I-and would I might! 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. 4. For since the time when Adam first Embraced his Eve in happy hour, And every bird of Eden burst In carol, every bud to flower, What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes? That lets thee neither hear nor see: EPILOGUE. So, Lady Flora, take my lay, And, if you find a meaning there, O whisper to your glass, and say, "What wonder, if he thinks me fair?" What wonder I was all unwise, To shape the song for your delight, 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 hueBut take it-earnest wed with sport, And either sacred unto you. AMPHION. My father left a park to me, That grows within the woodland. O had I lived when song was grea "T is said he had a tuneful tongue, He set up his forlorn pipes, The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown, 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; Old elms came breaking from the vine, 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 But what is that I hear? a sound Like sleepy counsel pleading: O Lord!'t is in my neighbor's ground, They read Botanic Treatises, And Works on Gardening through there, And Methods of transplanting trees, The wither'd Misses! how they prose But these, tho' fed with careful dirt, And I must work thro' months of toil, And years of cultivation, Upon my proper patch of soil To grow my own plantation. WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MON OLOGUE. MADE AT THE COCK. O PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock, How goes the time? "T is five o'clock. 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, To make me write my random rhymes, I pledge her, and she comes and dips Until the charm have power to make I pledge her silent at the board; Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans, And that child's heart within the man's Thro' many an hour of summer suns Against its fountain upward runs I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd; And softly, thro' a vinous mist, I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men, Who hold their hands to all, and cry Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake, I will not cramp my heart, nor take Let Whig and Tory stir their blood; Let there be thistles, there are grapes; Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme. 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 And, set in Heaven's third story, I look at all things as they are, Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest The pint, you brought me, was the best But tho' the port surpasses praise, For since I came to live and learn, 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, Or sometimes two would meet in one, Whether the vintage, yet unkept, Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept, Or stow'd (when classic Canning died) The Musc, the jolly Muse, it is! She changes with that mood or this, 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 He looks not like the common breed I think he came like Ganymede, The Cock was of a larger egg And cramm'd a plumper crop; A private life was all his joy, A something-pottle-bodied boy That knuckled at the taw: He stoop'd and clutch'd him, fair and good, His brothers of the weather stood But he, by farmstead, thorpe, and spire, A sign to many a staring shire, Right down by smoky Paul's they bore, And one became head-waiter. But whither would my fancy go? One shade more plump than common; I ranged too high: what draws me down Is it the weight of that half-crown, For, something duller than at first, I sit (my empty glass reversed), And thrumming on the table: Half fearful that, with self at strife, 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 So fares it since the years began, The truth, that flies the flowing can, And others' follies teach us not, Nor much their wisdom teaches; Ah, let the rusty theme alone! But for my pleasant hour, 'tis gone, "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 The tavern-hours of mighty wits,- Hours, when the Poet's words and looks Not yet the fear of little books Had made him talk for show: 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: It is but yonder empty glass Head-waiter of the chop-house here, I too must part: I hold thee dear For this, thou shalt from all things suck But thou wilt never move from hence, 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, And watch'd by silent gentlemen, Live long, ere from thy topmost head Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread Live long, nor feel in head or chest Till mellow Death, like some late guest, But when he calls, and thou shalt cease Of life, shalt earn no more: No carved cross-bones, the types of Death, ΤΟ AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS. You might have won the Poet's name, But you have made the wiser choice, And you have miss'd the irreverent doom Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold "Proclaim the faults he would not show: A song that pleased us from its worth; He gave the people of his best: His worst he kept, his best he gave. Who make it seem more sweet to be Than he that warbles long and loud LADY CLARE. IT was the time when lilies blow, I trow they did not part in scorn: They two will wed the morrow morn: "He does not love me for my birth, 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?" "The old Earl's daughter died at my breast; "Falsely, falsely have ye donc, O mother," she said, "if this be true, "Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, "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 "Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse, "Yet give one kiss to your mother dear! "Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, And bless me, mother, ere I go." She clad herself in a russet gown, The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought Dropt her head in the maiden's hand, Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower: "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." |