ADVERTISEMENT. THE reader is requested to believe that the following statement is literally true; because the writer is well aware that the circumstances under which Lillian was composed are the only source of its merits, and the only apology for its faults. At a small party at Cambridge, some malicious belles endeavoured to confound their sonnetteering friends, by setting unintelligible and inexplicable subjects for the exercise of their poetical talents. Among many others, the Thesis was given out which is the motto of Lillian: "A dragon's tail is flayed to warm A headless maiden's heart," and the following poem was an attempt to explain the riddle. The partiality with which it had been honoured in manuscript, and the frequent applications which have been made to the author for copies, must be his excuse for having a few impressions struck off for private circulation among his friends. It was written, however, with the sole view of amusing the ladies in whose circle the idea originated; and to them, with all due humility and devotion, it is inscribed. Trinity College, Cambridge, October 26, 1822. LILLIAN. "A dragon's tail is flayed to warm A headless maiden's heart." Miss "And he's cleckit this great muckle bird out o' this wee egg! he could wile the very flounders out o' the Frith! Mr. Saddletree. CANTO I. THERE was a dragon in Arthur's time, When dragons and griffins were voted 'prime,' Of monstrous reputation: Up and down, and far and wide, He roamed about in his scaly pride; And ever, at morn and even-tide, He made such rivers of blood to run As shocked the sight of the blushing sun, It was a pretty monster, too, With a crimson head, and a body blue, And wings of a warm and delicate hue, Like the glow of a deep carnation: And the terrible tail that lay behind, Reached out so far as it twisted and twined, That a couple of dwarfs, of wondrous strength, Bore, when he travelled, the horrible length, His mouth had lost one ivory tooth, Or the dragon had been, in very sooth, And that-alas! he had ruined it, When on new-year's day, in a hungry fit, He swallowed a tough and a terrible bit— Swift and light were his steps on the ground, For the weapons which the peasants flung Arrow, and stone, and spear, As snow o'er Cynthia's window flits, Or raillery of twenty wits On a fool's unshrinking ear. In many a battle the beast had been, Many a blow he had felt and given : Sir Digore came with a menacing mien, But he sent Sir Digore straight to Heaven; Stiff and stour were the arms he wore, Huge the sword he was wont to clasp; But the sword was little, the armour brittle, Locked in the coil of the dragon's grasp. He came on Sir Florice of Sesseny Land, No one till now, had found, I trow, Any thing good in the scented youth, Who had taken much pains to be rid of his brains, Before they were sought by the dragon's tooth. He came on the Sheriff of Hereford, As he sat him down to his Sunday dinner; From the crown of his head to the tip of his toe; But the Sheriff was small, or nothing at all, When put in the jaws of the dragon foe. He came on the Abbot of Arnondale, As he kneeled him down to his morning devotion; |