Of kingfishers and silver pheasants,
Of gems to which the Sun makes presents,
Of miniver and timeworn walls,
Of clairschachs and of atabals.
Within thy passion-haunted pages
Throng forward girls-and distant ages,
The lifeless learns at once to live,
The dumb grows strangely talkative,
Resemblances begin to strike
In things exceedingly unlike,
All nouns, like statesmen, suit all places, And verbs, turned lawyers, hunt for cases.
Oh! if it be a crime to languish
Over thy scenes of bliss or anguish,
To float with Raymond o'er the sea,
To sigh with dark-eyed Rosalie,
And sit in revery luxurious
Till tea grows cold, and aunts grow furious,
I own the soft impeachment true,
And burn the Westminster Review.
Lend me thy lute; I'll be a poet;
All Paternoster Row shall know it!
I'll rail in rhyme at cruel Fate
From Temple Bar to Tyburn Gate;
Old Premium's daughter in the City
Shall feel that love is kin to pity,
Hot ensigns shall be glad to borrow
My notes of rapture and of sorrow,
And I shall hear sweet voices sighing,
"So young!--and I am told he's dying!" Yes! I shall wear a wreath eternal,
For full twelve months, in Post and Journal,
Admired by all the Misses Brown
Who go to school at Kentish Town,
And worshipped by the fair Arachne
Who makes my handkerchiefs at Hackney!
Vain, vain!-take back the lute! I see
Its chords were never meant for me.
For thine own song, for thine own hand,
That lute was strung in Fairy-land;
And, if a stranger's thumb should fling
Its rude touch o'er one golden string,—
Good-night to all the music in it!
The string would crack in half a minute.
Take back the lute! I make no claim
To inspiration or to fame;
The hopes and fears that bards should cherish,
I care not when they fade and perish;
I read political economy,
Voltaire and Cobbett, and gastronomy,
And, when I would indite a story
Of woman's faith or warrior's glory,
I always wear a night-cap sable,
And put my elbows on the table,
And hammer out the tedious toil
By dint of Walker, and lamp-oil.
I never feel poetic mania,
I gnaw no laurel with Urania,
I court no critic's tender mercies,
I count the feet in all my verses,
And own myself a screaming gander
Among the shrill swans of Meander!
WHEN Some mad bard sits down to muse
About the lilies and the dews,
The grassy vales and sloping lawns,
Fairies and Satyrs, Nymphs and Fauns,
He's apt to think, he's apt to swear,
That Cupid reigns not anywhere
Except in some sequestered village
Where peasants live on truth and tillage,
That none are fair enough for witches
But maids who frisk through dells and ditches,
That dreams are twice as sweet as dances,
That cities never breed romances,
That Beauty always keeps a cottage,
And Purity grows pale on pottage.
Yes! those dear dreams are all divine;
And those dear dreams have all been mine.
I like the stream, the rock, the bay,
I like the smell of new-mown hay,
I like the babbling of the brooks,
I like the creaking of the crooks,
I like the peaches, and the posies,-
But chiefly, when the season closes,
And often, in the month of fun,
When every poacher cleans his gun,
And cockneys tell enormous lies,
And stocks are pretty sure to rise,
And e'en the Chancellor, they say,
Goes to a point the nearest way→
I hurry from my drowsy desk
To revel in the picturesque;
To hear beneath those ancient trees
The far-off murmur of the bees,
Or trace yon river's mazy channels
With Petrarch, and a brace of spaniels,
Combining foolish rhymes together,
And killing sorrow, and shoe-leather.
Then, as I see some rural maid
Come dancing up the sunny glade,
Coquetting with her fond adorer
Just as her mother did before her,
"Give me," I cry, "the quiet bliss
Of souls like these, of scenes like this;
Where ladies eat and sleep in peace,
Where gallants never heard of Greece,
Where day is day, and night is night,
Where frocks—and morals—both are white;
Blue eyes below-blue skies above-
These are the homes, the hearts, for Love!"
But this is idle; I have been
A sojourner in many a scene,
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