From underneath its leafy screen,
And from the twilight shade,
You pass at once into a green,
A green and lightsome glade.
And there Lord Julian sate on steed;
Behind him, in a round,
Stood knight and squire, and menial train;
Against the leash the greyhounds strain;
The horses paw'd the ground.
When up the alley green, Sir Hugh
Spurr'd in upon the sward,
And mute, without a word, did he
Fall in behind his lord.
Lord Julian turn'd his steed half round.-
"What! doth not Alice deign
To accept your loving convoy, knight?
Or doth she fear our woodland sleight,
And joins us on the plain?"
With stifled tones the knight replied,
And look'd askance on either side,-
"Nay, let the hunt proceed!-
The Lady's message that I bear,
I guess would scantly please your ear,
And less deserves your heed.
"You sent betimes. Not yet unbarr'd
I found the middle door ;-
Two stirrers only met my eyes,
Fair Alice, and one more.
"I came unlook'd for: and, it seem'd,
In an unwelcome hour;
And found the daughter of Du Clos
Within the lattic'd bower.
"But hush the rest may wait. If lost,
No great loss, I divine;
And idle words will better suit
A fair maid's lips than mine."
"God's wrath! speak out, man," Julian cried, O'ermaster'd by the sudden smart ;
And feigning wrath, sharp, blunt, and rude,
The knight his subtle shift pursued.—
"Scowl not at me; command my skill,
To lure your hawk back, if you will,
But not a woman's heart.
"'Go! (said she) tell him,-slow is sure,
Fair speed his shafts to-day!
I follow here a stronger lure,
And chase a gentler prey.'
"The game, pardie, was full in sight,
That then did, if I saw aright,
The fair dame's eyes engage;
For turning, as I took my ways,
I saw them fix'd with steadfast gaze
Full on her wanton page."
The last word of the traitor knight
It had but entered Julian's ear,-
From two o'erarching oaks between,
With glist'ning helm-like cap is seen,
Borne on in giddy cheer,
A youth, that ill his steed can guide ;
Yet with reverted face doth ride,
As answering to a voice,
That seems at once to laugh and chide"Not mine, dear mistress," still he cried, "Tis this mad filly's choice."
With sudden bound, beyond the boy,
See! see! that face of hope and joy,
That regal front! those cheeks aglow!
Thou needed'st but the crescent sheen,
A quiver'd Dian to have been,
Thou lovely child of old Du Clos !
Dark as a dream Lord Julian stood,
Swift as a dream, from forth the wood,
Sprang on the plighted Maid!
With fatal aim, and frantic force,
The shaft was hurl'd!-a lifeless corse,
Fair Alice from her vaulting horse,
Lies bleeding on the glade.
A BIRD, who for his other sins
Had liv'd amongst the Jacobins;
Tho' like a kitten amid rats,
Or callow tit in nest of bats,
He much abhorr'd all democrats ;
Yet nathless stood in ill report
Of wishing ill to Church and Court,
Tho' he'd nor claw, nor tooth, nor sting,
And learnt to pipe God save the King;
Tho' each day did new feathers bring,
All swore he had a leathern wing;
Nor polish'd wing, nor feather'd tail,
Nor down-clad thigh would aught avail;
And tho'-his tongue devoid of gall—
He civilly assur'd them all :-
"A bird am I of Phoebus' breed,
And on the sunflower cling and feed ;
My name, good Sirs, is Thomas Tit!"
The bats would hail him brother cit,
Or, at the furthest, cousin-german.
At length the matter to determine,
He publicly denounced the vermin;
He spared the mouse, he prais'd the owl;
But bats were neither flesh nor fowl.
Blood-sucker, vampire, harpy, goul,
Came in full clatter from his throat,
Till his old nest-mates chang'd their note
To hireling, traitor, and turncoat,-
A base apostate who had sold
His very teeth and claws for gold;—
And then his feathers !-sharp the jest-
No doubt he feather'd well his nest !
A Tit indeed! aye, tit for tat—
With place and title, brother Bat,
We soon shall see how well he'll play
Count Goldfinch, or Sir Joseph Jay!
Alas, poor Bird! and ill-bestarred-
Or rather let us say, poor Bard!
And henceforth quit the allegoric
With metaphor and simile,
For simple facts and style historic :-
Alas, poor Bard! no gold had he;
Behind another's team he stept,
And plough'd and sow'd, while others reapt;
The work was his, but theirs the glory,
Sic vos non vobis, his whole story.
Besides, whate'er he wrote or said
Came from his heart as well as head;
And tho' he never left in lurch
His king, his country, or his church,
'Twas but to humour his own cynical
Contempt of doctrines Jacobinical ;
To his own conscience only hearty,
'Twas but by chance he serv'd the party;-
The self-same things had said and writ,
Had Pitt been Fox, and Fox been Pitt;
Content his own applause to win
Would never dash thro' thick and thin,
And he can make, so say the wise,
No claim who makes no sacrifice;-
And bard still less :—what claim had he,
Who swore it vex'd his soul to see
So grand a cause, so proud a realm
With Goose and Goody at the helm ;
Who long ago had fall'n asunder
But for their rivals' baser blunder,
The coward whine and Frenchified
Slaver and slang of the other side?—
Thus, his own whim his only bribe,
Our bard pursued his old A. B. C.
Contented if he could subscribe
In fullest sense his name "EσTNσe;
('Tis Punic Greek, for he hath stood !')
Whate'er the men, the cause was good;
And therefore with a right good will,
Poor fool, he fights their battles still.
Tush! squeak'd the Bats;—a mere bravado
To whitewash that base renegado;
'Tis plain unless you're blind or mad,
His conscience for the bays he barters ;-
And true it is-as true as sad-
These circlets of green baize he had-
But then, alas! they were his garters!
Ah! silly Bard, unfed, untended,
His lamp but glimmer'd in its socket;
He liv'd unhonour'd and unfriended
With scarce a penny in his pocket;—
Nay-tho' he hid it from the many—
With scarce a pocket for his penny!
HUMILITY THE MOTHER OF CHARITY.
FRAIL creatures are we all! To be the best,
Is but the fewest faults to have:-
Look thou then to thyself, and leave the rest
To God, thy conscience, and the grave.
Νήπιοι, οὐκ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ πάντος.—Hesiod. WHAT a spring-tide of Love to dear friends in a shoal! Half of it to one were worth double the whole!
THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO.
Of late, in one of those most weary hours,
When life seems emptied of all genial powers,
A dreary mood, which he who ne'er has known
May bless his happy lot, I sate alone;
And, from the numbing spell to win relief,
Call'd on the past for thought of glee or grief.
In vain bereft alike of grief and glee,
I sate and cow'r'd o'er my own vacancy!
And as I watch'd the dull continuous ache,
Which, all else slumb'ring, seem'd alone to wake;
O Friend! long wont to notice yet conceal,
And soothe by silence what words cannot heal,
I but half saw that quiet hand of thine
Place on my desk this exquisite design,
Boccaccio's Garden and its faery,
"The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry!
An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm,
Framed in the silent poesy of form.
Like flocks adown a newly-bathed steep
Emerging from a mist; or like a stream
Of music soft that not dispels the sleep,
But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Gazed by an idle eye with silent might
The picture stole upon my inward sight.
A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest,
As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast.
And one by one (I know not whence) were brought
All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought
In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost
Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost;
Or charm'd my youth, that, kindled from above,
Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love;
Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan
Of manhood, musing what and whence is man!
Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves
Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves
Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids,
That call'd on Hertha in deep forest glades;
Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast;
Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest,
Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array,
To high-church pacing on the great saint's day.
And many a verse which to myself I sang,
That woke the tear yet stole away the pang,
Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd.
And last, a matron now, of sober mien,
Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen,
Whom as a faery child my childhood woo'd
Even in my dawn of thought-Philosophy;
Though then unconscious of herself, pardie,
She bore no other name than Poesy;
And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee,
That had but newly left a mother's knee,
Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone
As if with elfin playfellows well known,
And life reveal'd to innocence alone.
Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry
Thy fair creation with a mastering eye,
And all awake! And now in fix'd gaze stand,
Now wander through the Eden of thy hand;
Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear
See fragment shadows of the crossing deer;
And with that serviceable nymph I stoop
The crystal from its restless pool to scoop.
I see no longer! I myself am there,
Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share.
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