And some are laid beneath a shield, And some beneath a willow.
"I think that very few have sighed, When Fate at last has found them, Though bitter foes were by their side, And barren moss around them;
I think that some have died of drought, And some have died of drinking;
I think that naught is worth a thought, And I'm a fool for thinking."
TWENTY-EIGHT AND TWENTY-NINE.
"Rien n'est changé, mes amis.”—Charles X.
I HEARD a sick man's dying sigh, And an infant's idle laughter,
The Old Year went with mourning by- The New came dancing after! Let Sorrow shed her lonely tear,
Let Revelry hold her ladle;
Bring boughs of cypress for the bier,
Fling roses on the cradle;
Mutes to wait on the funeral state;
Pages to pour the wine;
A requiem for Twenty-Eight, And a health to Twenty-Nine!
Alas for human happiness!
Alas for human sorrow! Our yesterday is nothingness,
What else will be our morrow? Still Beauty must be stealing hearts, And Knavery stealing purses ; Still cooks must live by making tarts, And wits by making verses; While sages prate and courts debate,
The same stars set and shine;
And the world, as it rolled through TwentyEight,
Must roll through Twenty-Nine.
Some King will come, in Heaven's good time, To the tomb his father came to;
Some Thief will wade through blood and crime To a crown he has no claim to; Some suffering land will rend in twain
The manacles that bound her,
And gather the links of the broken chain To fasten them proudly round her;
The grand and great will love and hate, And combat and combine;
And much where we were in Twenty-Eight, We shall be in Twenty-Nine.
O'Connell will toil to raise the Rent, And Kenyon to sink the Nation; And Sheil will abuse the Parliament, And Peel the Association;
And the thought of bayonets and swords Will make ex-chancellors merry;
And jokes will be cut in the House of Lords, And throats in the County Kerry; And writers of weight will speculate On the Cabinet's design;
And just what it did in Twenty-Eight It will do in Twenty-Nine.
John Thomas Mugg, on a lonely hill, Will do a deed of mystery; The Morning Chronicle will fill Five columns with the history;
The jury will be all surprise, The prisoner quite collected, And Justice Park will wipe his eyes, And be very much affected; And folks will relate poor Corder's fate As they hurry home to dine, Comparing the hangings of Twenty-Eight With the hangings of Twenty-Nine.
And the Goddess of Love will keep her smiles, And the God of Cups his orgies;
And there'll be riots in St. Giles,
And weddings in St. George's; And mendicants will sup like Kings,
And Lords will swear like lackeys; And black eyes oft will lead to rings, And rings will lead to black eyes; And pretty Kate will scold her mate, In a dialect all divine;
Alas! they married in Twenty-Eight, They will part in Twenty-Nine.
And oh! I shall find how, day by day, All thoughts and things look older; How the laugh of Pleasure grows less gay, And the heart of Friendship colder; But still I shall be what I have been, Sworn foe to Lady Reason,
And seldom troubled with the spleen, And fond of talking treason;
I shall buckle my skate, and leap my gate, And throw and write my line;
And the woman I worshipped in Twenty-Eight I shall worship in Twenty-Nine.
SONG FOR THE FOURTEENTH OF FEB
"Mille gravem telis, exhaustâ pene pharetrâ.”
APOLLO has peeped through the shutter, And wakened the witty and fair; The boarding-school belle's in a flutter, The two-penny post's in despair; The breath of the morning is flinging A magic on blossom, on spray, And cockneys and sparrows are singing In chorus on Valentine's Day.
Away with ye, dreams of disaster, Away with ye, visions of law,
Of cases I never shall master,
Of pleadings I never shall draw! Away with ye, parchments and papers, Red tapes, unread volumes, away! It gives a fond lover the vapours To see you on Valentine's Day.
I'll sit in my night-cap, like Hayley,
I'll sit with my arms crossed like Spain,
Till joys, which are vanishing daily, Come back in their lustre again :
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