A shady dwelling-place:
Most beautiful! upon that spot,
Beside that echoing wave,
A Fairy might have built her grot,
An Anchorite his grave.
The river, with its constant fall,
Came daily to the garden-wall,
As if it longed, but thought it sin,
To look upon the charms within;
Behind, majestic mountains frowned,
And dark, rich groves were all around,
And just before the gate there stood
Two trees, which were themselves a wood;
Two lovely trees, whose clasping forms
Were blended still in calms and storms-
Like sisters who have lived together
Through every change of Fortune's weather,
United in their bliss or sorrow,
Their yesterday, and their to-morrow,-
So fond, so faithful,-you would wonder
To see them smile or weep asunder.
I HAVE a tale of Love to tell;-
Lend me thy light lute, L. E. L.
Lend me thy lute! what other strings
Should speak of those delicious things,
Which constitute Love's joys and woes
In pretty duodecimos?
Thou knowest every herb and flower,
Of wondrous name, and wondrous power,
Which, gathered where white wood-doves nestle,
And beat up by poetic pestle,
Bind gallant knights in fancied fetters,
And set young ladies writing letters:
Thou singest songs of floods and fountains,
Of mounted lords and lordly mountains,
Of dazzling shields and dazzling glances,
Of piercing frowns and piercing lances,
Of leaping brands and sweeping willows,
Of dreading seas and dreaming billows,
Of sunbeams which are like red wine,
Of odorous lamps of argentine,
Of cheeks that burn, of hearts that freeze,
Of odours that send messages,
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 Mæander!
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.
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