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 Έστησε;
('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,
TRANSLATED FROM SCHILLER.
His lamp but glimmer'd in its socket;
He liv'd unhonor'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!
TRANSLATED FROM SCHILLER.*
THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED.
STRONGLY it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows,
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the Ocean.
THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE DESCRIBED AND EXEM
IN the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
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
Half of it to one were worth double the whole !
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
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,
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