Wherein the zephyr wons!

Alas! Moor Fields are fields no more.
See Hatton's Garden bricked all o'er;
And that bare wood-St. John's.

No pastoral scenes procure me peace;
I hold no Leasowes in my lease,

No cot set round with trees:

No sheep-white hill my dwelling flanks;
And omnium furnishes my banks

Who brokers not with bees.

O! well may poets make a fuss
In summer time, and sigh "O rus!”

Of city pleasures sick:

My heart is all at pant to rest

In greenwood shades-my eyes detest

That endless meal of brick!

LAMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF CHIVALRY.

WELL hast thou cried, departed Burke,
All chivalrous romantic work

Is ended now and past!

That iron age — which some have thought
Of mettle rather overwrought-

Is now all overcast !

Ay! where are those heroic knights
those armadillo wights

Of old

Who wore the plated vest?

Great Charlemagne and all his peers

Are cold

enjoying with their spears

An everlasting rest!

The bold King Arthur sleepeth sound;
So sleep his knights who gave that Round
Old Table such eclat!

O, Time has plucked the plumy brow!
And none engage at Turney's now
But those that go to law!

Grim John o’Gaunt is quite gone by,
And Guy is nothing but a Guy,

Orlando lies forlorn!

Bold Sidney, and his kidney-nay,
Those "early champions "what are they
But knights without a morn.

No Percy branch now perseveres
Like those of old in breaking spears-
The name is now a lie!

Surgeons, alone, by any chance,
Are all that ever couch a lance
To couch a body's eye!

Alas for Lion-Hearted Dick,

That cut the Moslems to the quick,
His weapon lies in peace:

O, it would warm them in a trice,

If they could only have a spice

Of his old mace in Greece!

The famed Rinaldo lies a-cold,

And Tancred too, and Godfrey bold,
That scaled the holy wall!

No Saracen meets Paladin,

We hear of no great Saladin,

But only grow the small!

Our Cressys, too, have dwindled since
To penny things — at our Black Prince

Historic pens would scoff:

The only one we moderns had
Was nothing but a Sandwich lad,

And measles took him off!

Where are those old and feudal clans, Their pikes, and bills, and partisans, Their hauberks, jerkins, buffs?

A battle was a battle then,

A breathing piece of work; but men

with powder puffs.

Fight now

The curtal-axe is out of date;

to Fate;

The good old cross-bow bends

'Tis gone, the archer's craft!

No tough arm bends the springing yew, And jolly draymen ride, in lieu

Of Death, upon the shaft!

The spear, the gallant tilter's pride,
The rusty spear, is laid aside,
O, spits now domineer !

The coat of mail is left alone,

And where is all chain armor gone?
Go ask a Brighton Pier.

We fight in ropes, and not in lists,
Bestowing handcuffs with our fists,
A low and vulgar art!

No mounted man is overthrown:
A tilt! it is a thing unknown-
Except upon a cart!

Methinks I see the tounding barb,
Clad like his chief in steely garb,

For warding steel's appliance! Methinks I hear the trumpet stir!

'Tis but the guard to Exeter,

That bugles the "Defiance."

In cavils when will cavaliers

Set ringing helmets by the ears,

And scatter plumes about?

Or blood-if they are in the vein ?
That tap will never run again

Alas! the Casque is out!

No iron-crackling now is scored
By dint of battle-axe or sword,
To find a vital place-

Though certain doctors still pretend,
A while, before they kill a friend,
To labor through his case!

Farewell, then, ancient men of might!
Crusader, errant-squire, and knight!
Our coats and custom soften;
To rise would only make you weep-
Sleep on, in rusty-iron sleep,

As in a safety coffin!

THE GREEN MAN.

TOM SIMPSON was as nice a kind of man
As ever lived at least at Number Four,
In Austin Friars, in Mrs. Brown's first floor,
At fifty pounds or thereabouts per ann.
The lady reckoned him her best of lodgers,
His rent so punctually paid each quarter!
He did not smoke like nasty foreign codgers,

Or play French horns like Mr. Rogers, Or talk his flirting nonsense to her daughter :

Not that the girl was light behaved or courtable
Still, on one failing tenderly to touch,

The gentleman did like a drop too much

(Though there are many such),

And took more Port than was exactly portable.
In fact, to put the cap upon the nipple,
And try the charge, — Tom certainly did tipple.

Once in the company of merry mates,
In spite of Temperance's ifs and buts,
So sure as Eating is set off with plates,
His drinking always was bound up with cuts!
Howbeit, such bacchanalian revels

Bring very sad catastrophes about.

Poor Simpson! what a thing occurred to him!

'Twas Christmas he had drunk the night before, -
Like Baxter, who so "went beyond his last"-
One bottle more, and then one bottle more,
Till, O! the red-wine Ruby-con was passed!
And homeward, by the short, small chimes of day,
With many a circumbendibus to spare,

For instance, twice round Finsbury Square,
To use a fitting phrase, he wound his way.

Then comes the rising, with repentance bitter,
And all the nerves (and sparrows)

Till settled by the sober Chinese cup:

in a twitter,

The hands, o'er all are members that make motions,

A sort of wavering, just like the ocean's,

Which has its swell, too, when its getting up

An awkward circumstance enough for elves
Who shave themselves,

And Simpson just was ready to go through it,
When, lo! the first short glimpse within the glass-
He jumped — and who alive would fail to do it?