POEMS BY W. M. PRAED.

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,
And deluged half the nation.

* This poem appeared originally with the following 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 endeavored to confound their sonnetteering friends, by setting unintelligible and inexplicable subjects for the exer

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,

Like a Duke's at the coronation.

His mouth had lost one ivory tooth,
Or the dragon had been, in very sooth,
No insignificant charmer;

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—
Sir Lob, in his brazen armor.

Swift and light were his steps on the ground,
Strong and smooth was his hide around,
For the weapons which the peasants flung
Ever unfelt or unheeded rung,

cise 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 was an attempt to explain the riddle. The partiality. with which it had been honored 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."

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 armor brittle,
Locked in the coil of the dragon's grasp.

He came on Sir Florice of Sesseny Land,
Pretty Sir Florice from over the sea,
And smashed him all as he stepped on the sand,
Cracking his head like a nut from the tree.
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;
And the Sheriff he spoke but this brief word:
"St. Francis, be good to a corpulent sinner!"
Fat was he, as a Sheriff might be,

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; But the dragon he shuddered, and turned his tail About, "with a short uneasy motion."

Iron and steel, for an early meal,

He stomached with ease, or the Muse is a liar;
But out of all question, he failed in digestion,
If ever he ventured to swallow a friar!

Monstrous brute!-his dread renown

Made whispers and terrors in country and town;
Nothing was babbled by boor or knight,

But tales of his civic appetite.

At last, as after dinner he lay,

Hid from the heat of the solar ray,

By boughs that had woven an arbor shady,

He chanced to fall in with the Headless Lady.
Headless! alas! 't was a piteous gibe;

I'll drink Aganippe, and then describe.

Her father had been a stout yeoman,

Fond of his jest and fond of his can,

But never over-wise;

And once, when his cups had been many and deep,

He met with a dragon fast asleep,

'T was a faery in disguise:

In a dragon's form she had riden the storm,
The realm of the sky invading;

Sir Grahame's ship was stout and fast,
But the faery came on the rushing blast,

And shivered the sails, and shivered the mast,
And down went the gallant ship at last,

With all the crew and lading."

And the fay laughed out to see the rout,
As the last dim hope was fading;
And this she had done in a love of fun,
And a love of masquerading.

She lay that night in a sunny vale,
And the yeoman found her sleeping;
Fiercely he smote her glittering tail,
But oh! his courage began to fail,

When the faery rose all weeping.

"Thou hast lopped," she said, "beshrew thine hand!— The fairest foot in faery land!

"Thou hast an infant in thine home!

Never to her shall reason come,

For weeping or for wail,

Till she shall ride with a fearless face

On a living dragon's scale,

And fondly clasp to her heart's embrace

A living dragon's tail."

The faery's form from his shuddering sight
Flowed away in a stream of light.

Disconsolate that youth departed,
Disconsolate and poor;

And wended, chill and broken-hearted,

To his cottage on the moor;