From the bowels of the earth, Strange and varied sounds had birth— Cold by this was the midnight air; For he who writhed in mortal pain Was camped that night on Bosworth plain- There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, As he took forth a bait from his iron box. It was a haunch of princely size, Filling with fragrance earth and skies. The swelling form, and the steaming smell; Could better have guessed the very wood Weary and wounded, at close of day. Sounded then the noisy glee Pulling and tugging the fisherman sat; When he hauled out a gentleman, fine and fat, And a nose as red as a comet. "A capital stew," the fisherman said, And the abbot turned away his head, The mayor of St. Edmond's Bury! There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, As he took forth a bait from his iron box: It was a bundle of beautiful things A peacock's tail, and a butterfly's wings, A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl, A mantle of silk, and a bracelet of pearl, And a packet of letters, from whose sweet fold Sounds seemed dropping from the skies, "Smile, lady, smile! I will not set One jerk, and there a lady lay, A lady wondrous fair; But the rose of her lip had faded away, And her cheek was as white and as cold as clay, And torn was her raven hair. "Ah, ah!" said the fisher, in merry guise, "Her gallant was hooked before;" There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, Many he flung with a frown aside; A minstrel's harp, and a miser's chest, A hermit's cowl, and a baron's crest, And golden cups of the brightest wine That ever was pressed from the Burgundy vine; As he came at last to a bishop's mitre ! On the scaffold his country's vengeance raises, As the swaling wherry settles down, When peril has numbed the sense and will, Though the hand and the foot may struggle still: Wilder far was the abbot's glance, Deeper far was the abbot's trance: Fixed as a monument, still as air, He bent no knee, and he breathed no prayer; But he signed he knew not why or how The sign of the Cross on his clammy brow. There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, "Oh, ho! Oh, ho! The cock doth crow; It is time for the fisher to rise and go. Fair luck to the abbot, fair luck to the shrine ! He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line; Let him swim to the north, let him swim to the south, The abbot will carry my hook in his mouth!" The abbot had preached for many years, As ever was heard in the House of Peers His words had made battalions quake, He stuttered o'er blessing, he stuttered o'er ban, And none but he and the fisherman I saw her at the County ball; There when the sound of flute and fiddle Gave signal sweet in that old hall, Of hands across and down the middle, Hers was the subtlest spell by far Of all that sets young hearts romancing: She was our queen, our rose, our star; And when she danced-oh, Heaven, her dancing! Dark was her hair, her hand was white; Her voice was exquisitely tender, Her eyes were full of liquid light; Her every look, her every smile, Shot right and left a score of arrows; I thought 't was Venus from her isle, I wondered where she'd left her sparrows. She talk'd of politics or prayers; Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets; Of daggers or of dancing bears, Of battles, or the last new bonnets; If those bright lips had quoted Locke, I might have thought they murmured Little. Through sunny May, through sultry June, I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them for the Sunday Journal. My mother laughed; I soon found out That ancient ladies have no feeling; My father frown'd; but how should gout Find any happiness in kneeling? She was the daughter of a dean, Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic; And lord-lieutenant of the county. But titles and the three per cents, As Baron Rothschild for the muses. She sketch'd; the vale, the wood, the beach, Young blossom in her boudoir fading; She made the Catalina jealous; She touch'd the organ; I could stand For hours and hours and blow the bellows. |