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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."

(1826.)

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.

(JANUARY 1, 1829.)

SONG FOR THE FOURTEENTH OF FEB

RUARY.

BY A GENERAL LOVER.

"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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