He wore her scarf in many a fray,

He trained her hawks and ponies,

And filled her kitchen every day

With leverets and conies;

He loved, and he was loved again :-
I won't waste time in proving,

There is no pleasure like the pain
Of being loved, and loving.

Dame Fortune is a fickle gipsy,

And always blind, and often tipsy;
Sometimes, for years and years together,
She'll bless you with the sunniest weather,
Bestowing honour, pudding, pence,
You can't imagine why or whence ;-
Then in a moment-Presto, Pass!—
Your joys are withered like the grass;
You find your constitution vanish,
Almost as quickly as the Spanish ;

The murrain spoils your flocks and fleeces;
The dry-rot pulls your house to pieces;

Your garden raises only weeds;

Your agent steals your title-deeds;

Your banker's failure stuns the city;
Your father's will makes Sugden witty;
Your daughter, in her beauty's bloom,
Goes off to Gretna with the groom;

And

you, good man, are left alone,

To battle with the gout and stone.

Ere long, Sir Isumbras began
To be a sad and thoughtful man:
They said the glance of an evil eye
Had been on the knight's prosperity :

Less swift on the quarry his falcon went,

Less true was his hound on the wild deer's scent,

And thrice in the list he came to the earth,
By the luckless chance of a broken girth.

And Poverty soon in her rags was seen

At the board where Plenty erst had been;

And the guests smiled not as they smiled before,

And the song of the minstrel was heard no more; And a base ingrate, who was his foe,

Because, a little month ago,

He had cut him down, with friendly ardour,
From a rusty hook in an Ogre's larder,

Invented an atrocious fable,

And libelled his fame at the Royal Table:
And she at last, the worshipped one,

For whom his valorous deeds were done,
Who had heard his vows, and worn his jewels,

And made him fight so many duels—

She, too, when Fate's relentless wheel

Deprived him of the Privy Seal,
Bestowed her smiles upon another,

And gave his letters to her mother.

Fortune and Fame-he had seen them depart,
With a silent pride of a valiant heart :
Traitorous friends-he had passed them by,
With a haughty brow and a stifled sigh.
Boundless and black might roll the sea,
O'er which the course of his bark must be;
But he saw,
thro' the storms that frowned above,

One guiding star, and its light was Love.

Now all was dark; the doom was spoken!

His wealth all spent, and his heart half-broken; Poor youth! he had no earthly hope,

Except in laudanum, or a rope.

He ordered out his horse, and tried,

As the Leech advised, a gentle ride.

A pleasant path he took,

Where the turf, all bright with the April showers,

Was spangled with a hundred flowers,

Beside a murmuring brook.

Never before had he roved that way;

And now, on a sunny first of May,
He chose the turning, you may guess,
Not for the laughing loveliness

Of turf, or flower, or stream; but only
Because it looked extremely lonely.

He had wandered, musing, scarce a mile,
In his melancholy mood,
When, peeping o'er a rustic stile,

He saw a little village smile,

Embowered in thick wood.

There were small cottages, arrayed
In the delicate jasmine's fragrant shade;
And gardens, whence the rose's bloom
Loaded the gale with rich perfume;
And there were happy hearts; for all
In that bright nook kept festival,

And welcomed in the merry May,
With banquet and with roundelay.
Sir Isumbras sate gazing there,

With folded arms, and mournful air;

He fancied-'twas an idle whim

That the village looked like a home to him.

And now a gentle maiden came,

Leaving her sisters and their game,
And wandered up the vale;

Sir Isumbras had never seen

A thing so fair-except the Queen ;—
But out on Passion's doubts and fears!
Her beautiful eyes were full of tears,

And her cheeks were wan and pale.
None courted her stay of the joyous throng,
As she passed from the group alone;
And he listened, which was very wrong,
And heard her singing a lively song,

In a very dismal tone :

"Deep is the bliss of the belted knight,

When he kisses at dawn the silken glove,

And goes, in his glittering armour dight,

To shiver a lance for his Lady-love !"