The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4
Chapter 15
SCENE.--_A handsome Apartment well lighted, Tea, Cards, &c.--A large party of Ladies and Gentlemen; among them MELESINDA._
_1st Lady_. I wonder when the charming man will be here.
_2d Lady_. He is a delightful creature. Such a polish--
_3d Lady_. Such an air in all that he does or says--
_4th Lady_. Yet gifted with a strong understanding--
_5th Lady_. But has your ladyship the remotest idea of what his true name is?
_1st Lady_. They say, his very servants do not know it. His French valet, that has lived with him these two years--
_2d Lady_. There, Madam, I must beg leave to set you right; my coachman--
_1st Lady_. I have it from the very best authority; my footma--
_2d Lady_. Then, Madam, you have set your servants on--
_1st Lady_. No, Madam, I would scorn any such little mean ways of coming at a secret. For my part, I don't think any secret of that consequence.
_2d Lady_. That's just like me; I make a rule of troubling my head with nobody's business but my own.
_Melesinda_. But then, she takes care to make everybody's business her own, and so to justify herself that way-- (_Aside_.)
_1st Lady_. My dear Melesinda, you look thoughtful.
_Melesinda_. Nothing.
_2d Lady_. Give it a name.
_Melesinda_. Perhaps it is nameless.
_1st Lady_. As the object--Come, never blush, nor deny it, child. Bless me, what great ugly thing is that, that dangles at your bosom?
_Melesinda_. This? It is a cross: how do you like it?
_2d Lady_. A cross! Well, to me it looks for all the world like a great staring H. _(Here a general laugh.)_
_Melesinda_. Malicious creatures! Believe me it is a cross, and nothing but a cross.
_1st Lady_. A cross, I believe, you would willingly hang at.
_Melesinda_. Intolerable spite!
_(MR. H. is announced.)_
_Enter MR. H._
_1st Lady_. O, Mr. H., we are so glad--
_2d Lady_. We have been so dull--
_3rd Lady_. So perfectly lifeless--You owe it to us to be more than commonly entertaining.
_Mr. H_. Ladies, this is so obliging--
_4th Lady_. O, Mr. H., those ranunculas you said were dying, pretty things, they have got up--
_5th Lady_. I have worked that sprig you commended--I want you to come--
_Mr. H_. Ladies--
_6th Lady_. I have sent for that piece of music from London.
_Mr. H_. The Mozart _(seeing MELESINDA)_--Melesinda!
_Several Ladies at once_. Nay, positively, Melesinda, you shan't engross him all to yourself.
[_While the ladies are pressing about MR. H., the gentlemen show signs of displeasure_.
_1st Gent_. We shan't be able to edge in a word, now this coxcomb is come.
_2d Gent_. Damn him, I will affront him.
_1st Gent_. Sir, with your leave, I have a word to say to one of these ladies.
_2d Gent_. If we could be heard--
[_The Ladies pay no attention but to MR. H_.
_Mr. H_. You see, gentlemen, how the matter stands. _(Hums an air.)_ I am not my own master: positively I exist and breathe but to be agreeable to these--Did you speak?
_1st Gent_. And affects absence of mind--Puppy!
_Mr. H_. Who spoke of absence of mind; did you, Madam? How do you do, Lady Wearwell--how do? I did not see your ladyship before--what was I about to say--O--absence of mind. I am the most unhappy dog in that way, sometimes spurt out the strangest things--the most mal-à-propos--without meaning to give the least offence, upon my honor--sheer absence of mind--things I would have given the world not to have said.
_1st Gent_. Do you hear the coxcomb?
_1st Lady_. Great wits, they say--
_2d Lady_. Your fine geniuses are most given--
_3d Lady_. Men of bright parts are commonly too vivacious--
_Mr. H_. But you shall hear. I was to dine the other day at a great Nabob's that must be nameless, who, between ourselves, is strongly suspected of--being very rich, that's all. John, my valet, who knows my foible, cautioned me, while he was dressing me, as he usually does where he thinks there's a danger of my committing a _lapsus_, to take care in my conversation how I made any allusion direct or indirect to presents--you understand me? I set out double charged with my fellow's consideration and my own; and, to do myself justice, behaved with tolerable circumspection for the first half-hour or so,--till at last a gentleman in company, who was indulging a free vein of raillery at the expense of the ladies, stumbled upon that expression of the poet, which calls them "fair defects."
_1st Lady_. It is Pope, I believe, who says it.
_Mr. H_. No, Madam; Milton. Where was I? Oh, "fair defects." This gave occasion to a critic in company, to deliver his opinion on the phrase--that led to an enumeration of all the various words which might have been used instead of "defect," as want, absence, poverty, deficiency, lack. This moment I, who had not been attending to the progress of the argument (as the denouement will show) starting suddenly up out of one of my reveries, by some unfortunate connection of ideas, which the last fatal word had excited, the devil put it into my head to turn round to the Nabob, who was sitting next me, and in a very marked manner (as it seemed to the company) to put the question to him, Pray, sir, what may be the exact value of a lack of rupees? You may guess the confusion which followed.
_1st Lady_. What a distressing circumstance!
_2d Lady_. To a delicate mind----
_3d Lady_. How embarrassing----
_4th Lady_. I declare, I quite pity you.
_1st Gent_. Puppy!
_Mr. H_. A Baronet at the table, seeing my dilemma, jogged my elbow; and a good-natured Duchess, who does everything with a grace peculiar to herself, trod on my toes at that instant: this brought me to myself, and--covered with blushes, and pitied by all the ladies--I withdrew.
_1st Lady_. How charmingly he tells a story.
_2nd Lady_. But how distressing!
_Mr. H_. Lord Squandercounsel, who is my particular friend, was pleased to rally me in his inimitable way upon it next day. I shall never forget a sensible thing he said on the occasion--speaking of absence of mind, my foible--says he, my dear Hogs--
_Several Ladies_. Hogs--what--ha--
_Mr. H_. My dear Hogsflesh--my name--(_here a universal scream_)--O my cursed unfortunate tongue! H. I mean--where was I?
_1st Lady_. Filthy--abominable!
_2nd Lady_. Unutterable!
_3rd Lady_. Hogs--foh!
_4th Lady_. Disgusting!
_5th Lady_. Vile!
_6th Lady_. Shocking!
_1st Lady_. Odious!
_2nd Lady_. Hogs--pah!
_3rd Lady_. A smelling-bottle--look to Miss Melesinda. Poor thing! it is no wonder. You had better keep off from her, Mr. Hogsflesh, and not be pressing about her in her circumstances.
_1st Gent_. Good time of day to you, Mr.Hogsflesh.
_2nd Gent_. The compliments of the season to you, Mr. Hogsflesh.
_Mr.H_. This is too much--flesh and blood cannot endure it.
_1st Gent_. What flesh?--hog's-flesh?
_2nd Gent_. How he sets up his bristles!
_Mr. H_. Bristles!
1_st Gent_. He looks as fierce as a hog in armor.
_Mr. H_. A hog!--Madam!--(_here he severally accosts the Ladies, who by turns repel him_.)
1_st Lady_. Extremely obliged to you for your attentions; but don't want a partner.
2_d Lady_. Greatly flattered by your preference: but believe I shall remain single.
3_d Lady_. Shall always acknowledge your politeness; but have no thoughts of altering my condition.
4_th Lady_. Always be happy to respect you as a friend; but you must not look for anything further.
5_th Lady_. No doubt of your ability to make any woman happy; but have no thoughts of changing my name.
6_th Lady_. Must tell you, Sir, that if, by your insinuations, you think to prevail with me, you have got the wrong sow by the ear. Does he think any lady would go to pig with him?
_Old Lady_. Must beg you to be less particular in your addresses to me. Does he take me for a Jew, to long after forbidden meats?
_Mr. H_. I shall go mad!--to be refused by old Mother Damnable--she that's so old, nobody knows whether she was ever manned or no, but passes for a maid by courtesy; her juvenile exploits being beyond the farthest stretch of tradition!--Old Mother Damnable!
[_Exeunt all, either pitying or seeming to avoid him._
SCENE.--_The Street_.
BELVIL _and another Gentleman_.
_Belvil_. Poor Jack, I am really sorry for him. The account which you give me of his mortifying change of reception at the assembly, would be highly diverting if it gave me less pain to hear it. With all his amusing absurdities, and amongst them not the least, a predominant desire to be thought well of by the fair sex, he has an abundant share of good-nature, and is a man of honor. Notwithstanding all that has happened, Melesinda may do worse than take him yet. But did the women resent it so deeply as you say?
_Gent._ O intolerably--they fled him as fearfully when 'twas once blown, as a man would be avoided, who was suddenly discovered to have marks of the plague, and as fast; when before they had been ready to devour the foolishest thing he could say.
_Belvil_ Ha! ha! so frail is the tenure by which these women's favorites commonly hold their envied preëminence. Well, I must go find him out and comfort him. I suppose, I shall find him at the inn.
_Gent._ Either there or at Melesinda's--Adieu! [_Exeunt._
SCENE.--Mr. H----'s _Apartment._
_Mr. H. (solus.)_ Was ever anything so mortifying? to be refused by old Mother Damnable!--with such parts and address,--and the little squeamish devils, to dislike me for a name, a sound.--Oh my cursed name! that it was something I could be revenged on! if it were alive, that I might tread upon it, or crush it, or pummel it, or kick it, or spit it out--for it sticks in my throat, and will choke me.
My plaguy ancestors! if they had left me but a Van, or a Mac, or an Irish O', it had been something to qualify it.--Mynheer Van Hogsflesh,--or Sawney Mac Hogsflesh,--or Sir Phelim O'Hogsflesh,--but downright blunt------. If it had been any other name in the world, I could have borne it. If it had been the name of a beast, as Bull, Fox, Kid, Lamb, Wolf, Lion; or of a bird, as Sparrow, Hawk, Buzzard, Daw, Finch, Nightingale; or of a fish, as Sprat, Herring, Salmon; or the name of a thing, as Ginger, Hay, Wood; or of a color, as Black, Gray, White, Green; or of a sound, as Bray; or the name of a month, as March, May; or of a place, as Barnet, Baldock, Hitchen; or the name of a coin, as Farthing, Penny, Twopenny; or of a profession, as Butcher, Baker, Carpenter, Piper, Fisher, Fletcher, Fowler, Glover; or a Jew's name, as Solomons, Isaacs, Jacobs; or a personal name, as Foot, Leg, Crookshanks, Heaviside, Sidebottom, Longbottom, Ramsbottom, Winterbottom; or a long name, as Blanchenhagen, or Blanchenhausen; or a short name, as Crib, Crisp, Crips, Tag, Trot, Tub, Phips, Padge, Papps, or Prig, or Wig, or Pip, or Trip; Trip had been something, but Ho---. (_Walks about in great agitation--recovering his calmness a little, sits down._)
Farewell the most distant thoughts of marriage; the finger-circling ring, the purity figuring glove, the envy-pining bridemaids, the wishing parson, and the simpering clerk. Farewell the ambiguous blush-raising joke, the titter-provoking pun, the morning-stirring drum.--No son of mine shall exist, to bear my ill-fated name. No nurse come chuckling, to tell me it is a boy. No midwife, leering at me from under the lids of professional gravity. I dreamed of caudle.--(_Sings in a melancholy tone._) Lullaby, Lullaby,--hush-a-by-baby--how like its papa it is!--(_Makes motions as if he was nursing._) And then, when grown up, "Is this your son, Sir?" "Yes, Sir, a poor copy of me, a sad young dog,--just what his father was at his age,--I have four more at home." Oh! oh! oh!
_Enter_ LANDLORD.
_Mr. H._ Landlord, I must pack up tonight; you will see all my things got ready.
_Landlord._ Hope your Honor does not intend to quit the Blue Boar,--sorry anything has happened.
_Mr. H._ He has heard it all.
_Landlord._ Your Honor has had some mortification to be sure, as a man may say; you have brought your pigs to a fine market.
_Mr. H._ Pigs!
_Landlord._ What then? take old Pry's advice, and never mind it. Don't scorch your crackling for 'em, Sir.
_Mr. H._ Scorch my crackling! a queer phrase; but I suppose he don't mean to affront me.
_Landlord._ What is done can't be undone; you can't make a silken purse out of a sow's ear.
_Mr. H._ As you say, Landlord, thinking of a thing does but augment it.
_Landlord._ Does but _hogment_ it, indeed, Sir.
_Mr. H. Hogment_ it! damn it, I said augment it.
_Landlord._ Lord, Sir, 'tis not everybody has such gift of fine phrases as your Honor, that can lard his discourse--
_Mr. H._ Lard!
_Landlord._ Suppose they do smoke you--
_Mr. H._ Smoke me!
_Landlord._ One of my phrases; never mind my words, Sir, my meaning is good. We all mean the same thing, only you express yourself one way, and I another, that's all. The meaning's the same; it is all pork.
_Mr. H._ That's another of your phrases, I presume.
[_Bell rings, and the Landlord called for._
_Landlord._ Anon, anon.
_Mr. H._ Oh, I wish I were anonymous.
[_Exeunt several ways._
SCENE.--_Melesinda's Apartment._
MELESINDA _and Maid._
_Maid._ Lord, Madam! before I'd take on as you do about a foolish--what signifies a name? Hogs--Hogs--what is it--is just as good as any other, for what I see.
_Melesinda._ Ignorant creature! yet she is perhaps blest in the absence of those ideas, which, while they add a zest to the few pleasures which fall to the lot of superior natures to enjoy, doubly edge the----
_Maid._ Superior natures! a fig! If he's hog by name, he's not hog by nature, that don't follow--his name don't make him anything, does it? He don't grunt the more for it, nor squeak, that ever I hear; he likes his victuals out of a plate, as other Christians do; you never see him go to the trough----
_Melesinda._ Unfeeling wretch! yet possibly her intentions----
_Maid._ For instance, Madam, my name is Finch--Betty Finch. I don't whistle the more for that, nor long after canary-seed while I can get good wholesome mutton--no, nor you can't catch me by throwing salt on my tail. If you come to that, hadn't I a young man used to come after me, they said courted me--his name was Lion, Francis Lion, a tailor; but though he was fond enough of me, for all that he never offered to eat me.
_Melesinda._ How fortunate that the discovery has been made before it was too late! Had I listened to his deceits, and, as the perfidious man had almost persuaded me, precipitated myself into an inextricable engagement before----
_Maid._ No great harm if you had. You'd only have bought a pig in a poke--and what then? Oh, here he comes creeping----
_Enter_ MR. H. _abject._
Go to her, Mr. Hogs--Hogs--Hogsbristles, what's your name? Don't be afraid, man--don't give it up--she's not crying--only _summat_ has made her eyes red--she has got a sty in her eye, I believe---- _(going.)_
_Melesinda._ You are not going, Betty?
_Maid._ O, Madam, never mind me--I shall be back in the twinkling of a pig's whisker, as they say.
[_Exit._
_Mr. H._ Melesinda, you behold before you a wretch who would have betrayed your confidence--but it was love that prompted him; who would have trick'd you, by an unworthy concealment, into a participation of that disgrace which a superficial world has agreed to attach to a name--but with it you would have shared a fortune not contemptible, and a heart--but 'tis over now. That name he is content to bear alone--to go where the persecuted syllables shall be no more heard, or excite no meaning--some spot where his native tongue has never penetrated, nor any of his countrymen have landed, to plant their unfeeling satire, their brutal wit, and national ill manners--where no Englishmen--(Here_ MELESINDA, _who has been pouting during this speech, fetches a deep sigh.)_ Some yet undiscovered Otaheite, where witless, unapprehensive savages shall innocently pronounce the ill-fated sounds, and think them not inharmonious.
_Melesinda._ Oh!
_Mr. H._ Who knows but among the female natives might be found----
_Melesinda._ Sir! (_raising her head._)
_Mr. H._ One who would be more kind than--some Oberea--Queen Oberea.
_Melesinda._ Oh!
_Mr. H._ Or what if I were to seek for proofs of reciprocal esteem among unprejudiced African maids, in Monomotopa?
_Enter Servant._
_Servant._ Mr. Belvil. [_Exit._
_Enter_ BELVIL.
_Mr. H._ Monomotopa (_musing._)
_Belvil._ Heyday, Jack! what means this mortified face? nothing has happened, I hope, between this lady and you? I beg pardon, Madam, but understanding my friend was with you, I took the liberty of seeking him here. Some little difference possibly which a third person can adjust--not a word. Will you, Madam, as this gentleman's friend, suffer me to be the arbitrator--strange--hark'ee, Jack, nothing has come out, has there? you understand me. Oh, I guess how it is--somebody has got at your secret; you haven't blabbed it yourself, have you? ha! ha! ha! I could find in my heart--Jack, what would you give me if I should relieve you?
_Mr. H._ No power of man can relieve me (_sighs_); but it must lie at the root, gnawing at the root--here it will lie.
_Belvil._ No power of man? not a common man, I grant you: for instance, a subject--it's out of the power of any subject.
_Mr. H._ Gnawing at the root--there it will lie.
_Belvil._ Such a thing has been known as a name to be changed; but not by a subject--(_shows a Gazette_).
_Mr. H._ Gnawing at the root--(_suddenly snatches the paper out of_ BELVIL'S _hand_)--ha! pish! nonsense! give it me--what! (_reads_) promotions, bankrupts--a great many bankrupts this week--there it will lie. (_Lays it down, takes it up again, and reads._) "The King has been graciously pleased"--gnawing at the root--"graciously pleased to grant unto John Hogsflesh,"--the devil--"Hogsflesh, Esq., of Sty Hall, in the county of Hants, his royal license and authority"--O Lord! O Lord!--"that he and his issue"--me and my issue--"may take and use the surname and arms of Bacon"--Bacon, the surname and arms of Bacon--"in pursuance of an injunction contained in the last will and testament of Nicholas Bacon, Esq., his late uncle, as well as out of grateful respect to his memory:"--grateful respect! poor old soul-----here's more--"and that such arms may be first duly exemplified "--they shall, I will take care of that--"according to the laws of arms, and recorded in the Herald's Office."
_Belvil._ Come, Madam, give me leave to put my own interpretation upon your silence, and to plead for my friend, that now that only obstacle which seemed to stand in the way of your union is removed, you will suffer me to complete the happiness which my news seems to have brought him, by introducing him with a new claim to your favor, by the name of Mr. Bacon. (_Takes their hands and joins them, which_ MELESINDA _seems to give consent to with a smile._)
_Mr. H._ Generous Melesinda! my dear friend--"he and his issue," me and my issue!--O Lord!--
_Belvil._ I wish you joy, Jack, with all my heart.
_Mr. H._ Bacon, Bacon, Bacon--how odd it sounds! I could never be tired of hearing it. There was Lord Chancellor Bacon. Methinks I have some of the Verulam blood in me already.--Methinks I could look through Nature--there was Friar Bacon, a conjurer,--I feel as if I could conjure too----
_Enter a Servant._
_Servant._ Two young ladies and an old lady are at the door, inquiring if you see company, Madam.
_Mr. H._ "Surname and arms"--
_Melesinda._ Show them up.--My dear Mr. Bacon, moderate your joy.
_Enter three Ladies, being part of those who were at the Assembly._
_1st Lady._ My dear Melesinda, how do you do?
_2nd Lady._ How do you do? We have been so concerned for you----
_Old Lady._ We have been so concerned--(_seeing him_)--Mr. Hogsflesh----
_Mr. H._ There's no such person--nor there never was--nor 'tis not fit there should be--"surname and arms"--
_Belvil._ It is true what my friend would express; we have been all in a mistake, ladies. Very true, the name of this gentleman was what you call it, but it is so no longer. The succession to the long-contested Bacon estate is at length decided, and with it my friend succeeds to the name of his deceased relative.
_Mr. H._ "His Majesty has been graciously pleased"--
_1st Lady._ I am sure we all join in hearty congratulation--_(sighs)._
_2nd Lady._ And wish you joy with all our hearts--_(heigh ho!)_
_Old Lady._ And hope you will enjoy the name and estate many years--_(cries)._
_Belvil._ Ha! ha! ha! mortify them a little, Jack.
_1st Lady._ Hope you intend to stay--
_2nd Lady._ With us some time--
_Old Lady._ In these parts--
_Mr. H._ Ladies, for your congratulations I thank you; for the favors you have lavished on me, and in particular for this lady's _(turning to the old Lady)_ good opinion, I rest your debtor. As to any future favors--_(accosts them severally in the order in which he was refused by them at the assembly)_--Madam, shall always acknowledge your politeness; but at present, you see, I am engaged with a partner. Always be happy to respect you as a friend, but you must not look for anything further. Must beg of you to be less particular in your addresses to me. Ladies all, with this piece of advice, of Bath and you
Your ever grateful servant takes his leave. Lay your plans surer when you plot to grieve; See, while you kindly mean to mortify Another, the wild arrow do not fly, And gall yourself. For once you've been mistaken; Your shafts have miss'd their aim--Hogsflesh has saved his Bacon.
POEMS.
DEDICATION[1]
[Footnote 1: Prefixed to the Author's works published in 1818.]
* * * * *
TO S. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.
My Dear Coleridge,
You will smile to see the slender labors of your friend designated by the title of _Works;_ but such was the wish of the gentlemen who have kindly undertaken the trouble of collecting them, and from their judgment could be no appeal.
It would be a kind of disloyalty to offer to any one but yourself a volume containing the _early pieces,_ which were first published among your poems, and were fairly derivatives from you and them. My friend Lloyd and myself came into our first battle (authorship is a sort of warfare) under cover of the greater Ajax. How this association, which shall always be a dear and proud recollection to me, came to be broken,--who snapped the threefold cord,--whether yourself (but I know that was not the case) grew ashamed of your former companions,--or whether (which is by much the more probable) some ungracious bookseller was author of the separation,--I cannot tell;--but wanting the support of your friendly elm, (I speak for myself,) my vine has, since that time, put forth few or no fruits; the sap (if ever it had any) has become, in a manner, dried up and extinct; and you will find your old associate, in his second volume, dwindled into prose and _criticism._
Am I right in assuming this as the cause? or is it that, as years come upon us, (except with some more healthy-happy spirits,) Life itself loses much of its Poetry for us? we transcribe but what we read in the great volume of Nature; and, as the characters grow dim, we turn off, and look another way. You yourself write no Christabels, nor Ancient Mariners, now.
Some of the Sonnets, which shall be carelessly turned over by the general reader, may happily awaken in you remembrances, which I should be sorry should be ever totally extinct--the memory
"Of summer days and of delightful years--"
even so far back as to those old suppers at our old ... Inn,--when life was fresh, and topics exhaustless,--and you first kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and kindliness.--
"What words have I heard Spoke at the Mermaid!"
The world has given you many a shrewd nip and gird since that time, but either my eyes are grown dimmer, or my old friend is the _same_ who stood before me three-and-twenty years ago--his hair a little confessing the hand of Time, but still shrouding the same capacious brain,--his heart not altered, scarcely where it "alteration finds."
One piece, Coleridge, I have ventured to publish in its original form, though I have heard you complain of a certain over-imitation of the antique in the style. If I could see any way of getting rid of the objection, without rewriting it entirely, I would make some sacrifices. But when I wrote John Woodvil, I never proposed to myself any distinct deviation from common English. I had been newly initiated in the writings of our elder dramatists: Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, were then a _first love_; and from what I was so freshly conversant in, what wonder if my language imperceptibly took a tinge? The very time which I had chosen for my story, that which immediately followed the Restoration, seemed to require, in an English play, that the English should be of rather an older cast than that of the precise year in which it happened to be written. I wish it had not some faults, which I can less vindicate than the language.
I remain,
My dear Coleridge,
Yours,
With unabated esteem,
C. LAMB.
POEMS
* * * * *
HESTER.
When maidens such as Hester die, Their place ye may not well supply, Though ye among a thousand try, With vain endeavor.
A month or more hath she been dead, Yet cannot I by force be led To think upon the wormy bed, And her together.
A springy motion in her gait, A rising step, did indicate Of pride and joy no common rate, That flush'd her spirit.
I know not by what name beside I shall it call:--if 'twas not pride, It was a joy to that allied, She did inherit.
Her parents held the Quaker rule, Which doth the human feeling cool, But she was train'd in Nature's school, Nature had blest her.
A waking eye, a prying mind, A heart that stirs, is hard to bind, A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind, Ye could not Hester.
My sprightly neighbor! gone before To that unknown and silent shore, Shall we not meet, as heretofore, Some summer morning,
When from thy cheerful eyes a ray Hath struck a bliss upon the day, A bliss that would not go away, A sweet fore-warning?
* * * * *
TO CHARLES LLOYD.
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
Alone, obscure, without a friend, A cheerless, solitary thing, Why seeks, my Lloyd, the stranger out? What offering can the stranger bring
Of social scenes, home-bred delights, That him in aught compensate may For Stowey's pleasant winter nights, For loves and friendships far away?
In brief oblivion to forego Friends, such as thine, so justly dear, And be awhile with me content To stay, a kindly loiterer, here:
For this a gleam of random joy Hath flush'd my unaccustom'd cheek; And, with an o'ercharged bursting heart, I feel the thanks I cannot speak.
Oh! sweet are all the Muses' lays, And sweet the charm of matin bird; 'Twas long since these estrangèd ears The sweeter voice of friend had heard.
The voice hath spoke: the pleasant sounds In memory's ear in after-time Shall live, to sometimes rouse a tear, And sometimes prompt an honest rhyme.
For, when the transient charm is fled, And when the little week is o'er, To cheerless, friendless, solitude When I return, as heretofore;
Long, long, within my aching heart The grateful sense shall cherish'd be; I'll think less meanly of myself, That Lloyd will sometimes think on me.
* * * * *
THE THREE FRIENDS.
Three young maids in friendship met; Mary, Martha, Margaret. Margaret was tall and fair, Martha shorter by a hair; If the first excell'd in feature, Th' other's grace and ease were greater; Mary, though to rival loth, In their best gifts equall'd both. They a due proportion kept; Martha mourn'd if Margaret wept; Margaret joy'd when any good She of Martha understood; And in sympathy for either Mary was outdone by neither. Thus far, for a happy space, All three ran an equal race, A most constant friendship proving, Equally beloved and loving; All their wishes, joys, the same; Sisters only not in name.
Fortune upon each one smiled, As upon a fav'rite child; Well to do and well to see Were the parents of all three; Till on Martha's father crosses Brought a flood of worldly losses, And his fortunes rich and great Changed at once to low estate: Under which o'erwhelming blow Martha's mother was laid low; She a hapless orphan left, Of maternal care bereft, Trouble following trouble fast, Lay in a sick-bed at last.
In the depth of her affliction Martha now receiv'd conviction, That a true and faithful friend Can the surest comfort lend. Night and day, with friendship tried, Ever constant by her side Was her gentle Mary found, With a love that knew no bound; And the solace she imparted Saved her dying broken-hearted.
In this scene of earthly things Not one good unmixèd springs. That which had to Martha proved A sweet consolation, moved Different feelings of regret In the mind of Margaret. She, whose love was not less dear, Nor affection less sincere To her friend, was, by occasion Of more distant habitation, Fewer visits forced to pay her; When no other cause did stay her; And her Mary living nearer, Margaret began to fear her, Lest her visits day by day Martha's heart should steal away. That whole heart she ill could spare her, Where till now she'd been a sharer. From this cause with grief she pined, Till at length her health declined. All her cheerful spirits flew, Fast as Martha's gather'd new; And her sickness waxèd sore, Just when Martha felt no more.
Mary, who had quick suspicion Of her alter'd friend's condition, Seeing Martha's convalescence Less demanded now her presence, With a goodness, built on reason, Changed her measures with the season; Turn'd her steps from Martha's door, Went where she was wanted more; All her care and thoughts were set Now to tend on Margaret. Mary living 'twixt the two, From her home could oft'ner go, Either of her friends to see, Than they could together be.
Truth explain'd is to suspicion Evermore the best physician. Soon her visits had the effect; All that Margaret did suspect, From her fancy vanish'd clean; She was soon what she had been, And the color she did lack To her faded cheek came back. Wounds which love had made her feel, Love alone had power to heal.
Martha, who the frequent visit Now had lost, and sore did miss it, With impatience waxèd cross, Counted Margaret's gain her loss: All that Mary did confer On her friend, thought due to her. In her girlish bosom rise Little foolish jealousies, Which into such rancor wrought, She one day for Margaret sought; Finding her by chance alone, She began, with reasons shown, To insinuate a fear Whether Mary was sincere; Wish'd that Margaret would take heed Whence her actions did proceed. For herself, she'd long been minded Not with outsides to be blinded; All that pity and compassion, She believed was affectation; In her heart she doubted whether Mary cared a pin for either. She could keep whole weeks at distance, And not know of their existence, While all things remain'd the same; But, when some misfortune came, Then she made a great parade Of her sympathy and aid,-- Not that she did really grieve, It was only _make-believe_, And she cared for nothing, so She might her fine feelings show, And get credit, on her part, For a soft and tender heart.
With such speeches, smoothly made, She found methods to persuade Margaret (who being sore From the doubts she'd felt before, Was preparèd for mistrust) To believe her reasons just; Quite destroy'd that comfort glad, Which in Mary late she had; Made her, in experience' spite, Think her friend a hypocrite, And resolve, with cruel scoff, To renounce and cast her off.
See how good turns are rewarded! She of both is now discarded, Who to both had been so late Their support in low estate, All their comfort, and their stay-- Now of both is cast away. But the league her presence cherish'd, Losing its best prop, soon perish'd; She, that was a link to either, To keep them and it together, Being gone, the two (no wonder) That were left, soon fell asunder;-- Some civilities were kept, But the heart of friendship slept; Love with hollow forms was fed, But the life of love lay dead:-- A cold intercourse they held, After Mary was expell'd.
Two long years did intervene Since they'd either of them seen, Or, by letter, any word Of their old companion heard,-- When, upon a day once walking, Of indifferent matters talking, They a female figure met; Martha said to Margaret, "That young maid in face does carry A resemblance strong of Mary." Margaret, at nearer sight, Own'd her observation right; But they did not far proceed Ere they knew 'twas she indeed. She--but, ah I how changed they view her From that person which they knew her! Her fine face disease had scarr'd, And its matchless beauty marr'd:-- But enough was left to trace Mary's sweetness--Mary's grace. When her eye did first behold them, How they blush'd!--but, when she told them, How on a sick-bed she lay Months, while they had kept away, And had no inquiries made If she were alive or dead;-- How, for want of a true friend, She was brought near to her end, And was like so to have died, With no friend at her bedside;-- How the constant irritation, Caused by fruitless expectation Of their coming, had extended The illness, when she might have mended,-- Then, O then, how did reflection Come on them with recollection! All that she had done for them, How it did their fault condemn!
But sweet Mary, still the same, Kindly eased them of their shame; Spoke to them with accents bland, Took them friendly by the hand; Bound them both with promise fast. Not to speak of troubles past; Made them on the spot declare A new league of friendship there; Which, without a word of strife, Lasted thenceforth long as life. Martha now and Margaret Strove who most should pay the debt Which they owed her, nor did vary Ever after from their Mary.
* * * * *
TO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD WAS DROWNED.
Smiling river, smiling river, On thy bosom sunbeams play; Though they're fleeting, and retreating, Thou hast more deceit than they.
In thy channel, in thy channel, Choked with ooze and grav'lly stones, Deep immersed, and unhearsed, Lies young Edward's corse: his bones
Ever whitening, ever whitening, As thy waves against them dash; What thy torrent, in the current, Swallow'd, now it helps to wash.
As if senseless, as if senseless Things had feeling in this case; What so blindly, and unkindly, It destroy'd, it now does grace.
* * * * *
THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.
I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I loved a love once, fairest among women; Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her-- All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man; Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly; Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.
Ghostlike I paced round the haunts of my childhood. Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces,--
How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
* * * * *
HELEN.
High-born Helen, round your dwelling These twenty years I've paced in vain: Haughty beauty, thy lover's duty Hath been to glory in his pain.
High-born Helen, proudly telling Stories of thy cold disdain; I starve, I die, now you comply, And I no longer can complain.
These twenty years I've lived on tears, Dwelling forever on a frown; On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread; I perish now you kind are grown.
Can I, who loved my beloved But for the scorn "was in her eye," Can I be moved for my beloved, When she "returns me sigh for sigh?"
In stately pride, by my bedside, High-born Helen's portrait's hung; Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays Are nightly to the portrait sung.
To that I weep, nor ever sleep, Complaining all night long to her-- _Helen, grown old, no longer cold,_ _Said,_ "You to all men I prefer."
* * * * *
A VISION OF REPENTANCE.
I saw a famous fountain, in my dream, Where shady pathways to a valley led; A weeping willow lay upon that stream, And all around the fountain brink were spread Wide-branching trees, with dark green leaf rich clad, Forming a doubtful twilight--desolate and sad.
The place was such, that whoso enter'd in, Disrobèd was of every earthly thought, And straight became as one that knew not sin, Or to the world's first innocence was brought; Enseem'd it now, he stood on holy ground, In sweet and tender melancholy wrapt around.
A most strange calm stole o'er my soothèd sprite; Long time I stood, and longer had I staid, When lo! I saw, saw by the sweet moonlight, Which came in silence o'er that silent shade, Where, near the fountain, SOMETHING like DESPAIR Made, of that weeping-willow, garlands for her hair.
And eke with painful fingers she inwove Many an uncouth stem of savage thorn-- "The willow garland, _that_ was for her love, And _these_ her bleeding temples would adorn." With sighs her heart nigh burst, salt tears fast fell, As mournfully she bended o'er that sacred well.
To whom when I addrest myself to speak, She lifted up her eyes, and nothing said; The delicate red came mantling o'er her cheek, And gath'ring up her loose attire, she fled To the dark covert of that woody shade, And in her goings seem'd a timid gentle maid.
Revolving in my mind what this should mean, And why that lovely lady plainèd so; Perplex'd in thought at that mysterious scene, And doubting if 'twere best to stay or go, I cast mine eyes in wistful gaze around, When from the shades came slow a small and plaintive sound.
* * * * *
"Psyche am I, who love to dwell In these brown shades, this woody dell, Where never busy mortal came, Till now, to pry upon my shame.
"At thy feet what dost thou see The waters of repentance be, Which, night and day, I must augment With tears, like a true penitent,
"If haply so my day of grace Be not yet past; and this lone place, O'ershadowy, dark, excludeth hence All thoughts but grief and penitence."
_"Why dost thou weep, thou gentle maid! And wherefore in this barren shade Thy hidden thoughts with sorrow feed? Can thing so fair repentance need?"_
"O! I have done a deed of shame, And tainted is my virgin fame, And stain'd the beauteous maiden white In which my bridal robes were dight."
_"And who the promised spouse? declare: And what those bridal garments were."_
"Severe and saintly righteousness Composed the clear white bridal dress; JESUS, the Son of Heaven's high King, Bought with his blood the marriage ring.
"A wretched sinful creature, I Deem'd lightly of that sacred tie, Gave to a treacherous WORLD my heart, And play'd the foolish wanton's part. Soon to these murky shades I came, To hide from the sun's light my shame. And still I haunt this woody dell, And bathe me in that healing well, Whose waters clear have influence From sin's foul stains the soul to cleanse; And, night and day, I them augment, With tears, like a true penitent, Until, due expiation made, And fit atonement fully paid, The Lord and Bridegroom me present, Where in sweet strains of high consent, God's throne before, the Seraphim Shall chant the ecstatic marriage hymn."
"Now Christ restore thee soon"--I said, And thenceforth all my dream was fled.
* * * * *
DIALOGUE BETWEEN A MOTHER AND CHILD.
CHILD O Lady, lay your costly robes aside. No longer may you glory in your pride.
MOTHER Wherefore to-day art singing in mine ear Sad songs were made so long ago, my dear? This day I am to be a bride, you know, Why sing sad songs, were made so long ago?
CHILD O mother, lay your costly robes aside, For you may never be another's bride. That line I learn'd not in the old sad song.
MOTHER I pray thee, pretty one, now hold thy tongue, Play with the bridemaids; and be glad, my boy, For thou shalt be a second father's joy.
CHILD. One father fondled me upon his knee. One father is enough, alone, for me.
* * * * *
QUEEN ORIANA'S DREAM.
On a bank with roses shaded, Whose sweet scent the violets aided, Violets whose breath alone Yields but feeble smell or none, (Sweeter bed Jove ne'er reposed on When his eyes Olympus closed on,) While o'erhead six slaves did hold Canopy of cloth o' gold, And two more did music keep, Which might Juno lull to sleep, Oriana, who was queen To the mighty Tamerlane, That was lord of all the land Between Thrace and Samarchand, While the noontide fervor beam'd, Mused himself to sleep, and _dream'd_.
Thus far, in magnific strain, A young poet soothed his vein, But he had nor prose nor numbers, To express a princess' slumbers.-- Youthful Richard had strange fancies, Was deep versed in old romances, And could talk whole hours upon The Great Cham and Prester John,-- Tell the field in which the Sophi From the Tartar won a trophy-- What he read with such delight of, Thought he could as eas'ly write of-- But his over-young invention Kept not pace with brave intention. Twenty suns did rise and set, And he could no further get; But, unable to proceed, Made a virtue out of need, And, his labors wiselier deem'd of, Did omit _what the queen dream'd of_.
* * * * *
A BALLAD.
NOTING THE DIFFERENCE OF RICH AND POOR, IN THE WAYS OF A RICH NOBLE'S PALACE AND A POOR WORKHOUSE.
_To the Tune of the "Old and Young Courtier."_
In a costly palace Youth goes clad in gold; In a wretched workhouse Age's limbs are cold: There they sit, the old men by a shivering fire, Still close and closer cowering, warmth is their desire.
In a costly palace, when the brave gallants dine, They have store of good venison, with old canary wine, With singing and music to heighten the cheer; Coarse bits, with grudging, are the pauper's best fare.
In a costly palace Youth is still carest By a train of attendants which laugh at my young Lord's jest; In a wretched workhouse the contrary prevails: Does Age begin to prattle?--no man heark'neth to his tales.
In a costly palace if the child with a pin Do but chance to prick a finger, straight the doctor is called in; In a wretched workhouse men are left to perish For want of proper cordials, which their old age might cherish.
In a costly palace Youth enjoys his lust; In a wretched workhouse Age, in corners thrust, Thinks upon the former days, when he was well to do, Had children to stand by him, both friends and kinsmen too.
In a costly palace Youth his temples hides With a new-devised peruke that reaches to his sides; In a wretched workhouse Age's crown is bare, With a few thin locks just to fence out the cold air.
In peace, as in war, 'tis our young gallants' pride, To walk, each one i' the streets, with a rapier by his side, That none to do them injury may have pretence; Wretched Age, in poverty, must brook offence.
* * * * *
HYPOCHONDRIACUS.
By myself walking, To myself talking, When as I ruminate On my untoward fate, Scarcely seem I Alone sufficiently, Black thoughts continually Crowding my privacy; They come unbidden, Like foes at a wedding, Thrusting their faces In better guests' places, Peevish and malecontent, Clownish, impertinent, Dashing the merriment: So in like fashions Dim cogitations Follow and haunt me, Striving to daunt me, In my heart festering, In my ears whispering, "Thy friends are treacherous, Thy foes are dangerous, Thy dreams ominous."
Fierce Anthropophagi, Spectra, Diaboli, What scared St. Anthony, Hobgoblins, Lemures, Dreams of Antipodes, Night-riding Incubi, Troubling the fantasy, All dire illusions Causing confusions; Figments heretical, Scruples fantastical, Doubts diabolical; Abaddon vexeth me, Mahu perplexeth me, Lucifer teareth me----
_Jesu! Maria! liberate nos ab his diris tentationibus Inimici._
* * * * *
A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
May the Babylonish curse Straight confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see In this word-perplexity, Or a fit expression find, Or a language to my mind, (Still the phrase is wide or scant) To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Or in any terms relate Half my love, or half my hate: For I hate, yet love, thee so, That, whichever thing I show, The plain truth will seem to be A constrain'd hyperbole, And the passion to proceed More from a mistress than a weed.
Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimèd lovers take 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath Faster than kisses or than death.
Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, That our worst foes cannot find us, And ill-fortune, that would thwart us. Shoots at rovers, shooting at us; While each man, through thy height'ning steam, Does like a smoking Etna seem, And all about us does express (Fancy and wit in richest dress) A Sicilian fruitfulness.
Thou through such a mist dost show us, That our best friends do not know us, And, for those allowèd features, Due to reasonable creatures, Liken'st us to fell Chimeras, Monsters that, who see us, fear us; Worse than Cerberus or Geryon, Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.
Bacchus we know, and we allow His tipsy rites. But what art thou, That but by reflex canst show What his deity can do, As the false Egyptian spell Aped the true Hebrew miracle Some few vapors thou may'st raise, The weak brain may serve to amaze, But to the reins and nobler heart Canst nor life nor heat impart.
Brother of Bacchus, later born, The old world was sure forlorn Wanting thee, that aidest more The god's victories than before All his panthers, and the brawls Of his piping Bacchanals. These, as stale, we disallow, Or judge of _thee_ meant; only thou His true Indian conquest art; And, for ivy round his dart, The reformèd god now weaves A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.
Scent to match thy rich perfume Chemic art did ne'er presume Through her quaint alembic strain, None so sov'reign to the brain. Nature, that did in thee excel, Framed again no second smell. Roses, violets, but toys For the smaller sort of boys, Or for greener damsels meant; Thou art the only manly scent.
Stinking'st of the stinking kind, Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind, Africa, that brags her foison, Breeds no such prodigious poison, Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite----
Nay, rather, Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Blisters on the tongue would hurt you. 'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee: None e'er prosper'd who defamed thee; Irony all, and feign'd abuse, Such as perplex'd lovers use, At a need, when, in despair To paint forth their fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more; Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe,-- Not that she is truly so, But no other way they know A contentment to express, Borders so upon excess, That they do not rightly wot Whether it be pain or not.
Or, as men, constrain'd to part With what's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow's at the height, Lose discrimination quite, And their hasty wrath let fall, To appease their frantic gall, On the darling thing whatever, Whence they feel it death to sever, Though it be, as they, perforce, Guiltless of the sad divorce.
For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. For thy sake, TOBACCO, I Would do anything but die, And but seek to extend my days Long enough to sing thy praise. But, as she, who once hath been A king's consort, is a queen Ever after, nor will bate Any tittle of her state, Though a widow, or divorced, So I, from thy converse forced, The old name and style retain, A right Katherine of Spain; And a seat, too,'mongst the joys Of the blest Tobacco Boys; Where, though I, by sour physician, Am debarr'd the full fruition Of thy favors, I may catch Some collateral sweets, and snatch Sidelong odors, that give life Like glances from a neighbor's wife; And still live in the by-places And the suburbs of thy graces; And in thy borders take delight, An unconquer'd Canaanite.
* * * * *
TO T. L. H.
A CHILD.
Model of thy parent dear, Serious infant worth a fear: In thy unfaltering visage well Picturing forth the son of TELL, When on his forehead, firm and good, Motionless mark, the apple stood; Guileless traitor, rebel mild, Convict unconscious, culprit child! Gates that close with iron roar Have been to thee thy nursery door; Chains that chink in cheerless cells Have been thy rattles and thy bells; Walls contrived for giant sin Have hemm'd thy faultless weakness in; Near thy sinless bed black Guilt Her discordant house hath built, And fill'd it with her monstrous brood-- Sights, by thee not understood-- Sights of fear, and of distress, That pass a harmless infant's guess
But the clouds, that overcast Thy young morning, may not last; Soon shall arrive the rescuing hour That yields thee up to Nature's power: Nature, that so late doth greet thee, Shall in o'erflowing measure meet thee. She shall recompense with cost For every lesson thou hast lost. Then wandering up thy sire's loved hill,[1] Thou shalt take thy airy fill Of health and pastime. _Birds shall sing For thy delight each May morning._ 'Mid new-yean'd lambkins thou shalt play, Hardly less a lamb than they. Then thy prison's lengthen'd bound Shall be the horizon skirting round: And, while thou fillest thy lap with flowers, To make amends for wintry hours, The breeze, the sunshine, and the place, Shall from thy tender brow efface Each vestige of untimely care, That sour restraint had graven there; And on thy every look impress A more excelling childishness.
So shall be thy days beguiled, THORNTON HUNT, my favorite child.
[Footnote 1: Hampstead.]
* * * * *
BALLAD.
FROM THE GERMAN.
The clouds are blackening, the storms threatening, And ever the forest maketh a moan: Billows are breaking, the damsel's heart acting, Thus by herself she singeth alone, Weeping right plenteously.
"The world is empty, the heart is dead surely, In this world plainly all seemeth amiss: To thy breast, holy one, take now thy little one, I have had earnest of all earth's bliss, Living right lovingly."
* * * * *
DAVID IN THE CAVE OF ADULLAM.
David and his three captains bold Kept ambush once within a hold. It was in Adullam's cave, Nigh which no water they could have, Nor spring, nor running brook was near To quench the thirst that parch'd them there. Then David, king of Israël, Straight bethought him of a well, Which stood beside the city gate, At Bethlem; where, before his state Of kingly dignity, he had Oft drunk his fill, a shepherd lad; But now his fierce Philistine foe Encamp'd before it he does know. Yet ne'er the less, with heat opprest, Those three bold captains he addrest; And wish'd that one to him would bring Some water from his native spring. His valiant captains instantly To execute his will did fly. The mighty Three the ranks broke through Of armed foes, and water drew For David, their beloved king, At his own sweet native spring. Back through their arm'd foes they haste, With the hard-earn'd treasure graced. But when the good king David found What they had done, he on the ground The water pour'd ... "Because," said he, "That it was at the jeopardy Of your three lives this thing ye did, That I should drink it, God forbid."
* * * * *
SALOME.
Once on a charger there was laid, And brought before a royal maid, As price of attitude and grace, A guiltless head, a holy face.
It was on Herod's natal day, Who o'er Judea's land held sway. He married his own brother's wife, Wicked Herodias. She the life Of John the Baptist long had sought, Because he openly had taught That she a life unlawful led, Having her husband's brother wed.
This was he, that saintly John, Who in the wilderness alone Abiding, did for clothing wear A garment made of camel's hair; Honey and locusts were his food, And he was most severely good. He preachèd penitence and tears, And waking first the sinner's fears, Prepared a path, made smooth a way, For his diviner Master's day.
Herod kept in princely state His birthday. On his throne he sate, After the feast, beholding her Who danced with grace peculiar; Fair Salome, who did excel All in that land for dancing well. The feastful monarch's heart was fired, And whatsoe'er thing she desired, Though half his kingdom it should be, He in his pleasure swore that he Would give the graceful Salome. The damsel was Herodias' daughter: She to the queen hastes, and besought her To teach her what great gift to name. Instructed by Herodias, came The damsel back: to Herod said, "Give me John the Baptist's head; And in a charger let it be Hither straightway brought to me." Herod her suit would fain deny, But for his oath's sake must comply.
When painters would by art express Beauty in unloveliness, Thee, Herodias' daughter, thee, They fittest subject take to be. They give thy form and features grace; But ever in thy beauteous face They show a steadfast cruel gaze, An eye unpitying; and amaze In all beholders deep they mark, That thou betrayest not one spark Of feeling for the ruthless deed, That did thy praiseful dance succeed. For on the head they make you look, As if a sullen joy you took, A cruel triumph, wicked pride, That for your sport a saint had died.
* * * * *
LINES
SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF TWO FEMALES BY LIONARDO DA VINCI.
The lady Blanch, regardless of all her lover's fears, To the Urs'line convent hastens, and long the Abbess hears, "O Blanch, my child, repent ye of the courtly life ye lead." Blanch look'd on a rose-bud and little seem'd to heed. She look'd on the rose-bud, she look'd round, and thought On all her heart had whisper'd, and all the Nun had taught. "I am worshipp'd by lovers, and brightly shines my fame, All Christendom resoundeth the noble Blanch's name. Nor shall I quickly wither like the rose-bud from the tree, My queen-like graces shining when my beauty's gone from me. But when the sculptured marble is rais'd o'er my head, And the matchless Blanch lies lifeless among the noble dead, This saintly lady Abbess hath made me justly fear, It nothing will avail me that I were worshipp'd here."
* * * * *
LINES
ON THE SAME PICTURE BEING REMOVED TO MAKE PLACE FOR A PORTRAIT OF A LADY BY TITIAN.
Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace? Come, fair and pretty, tell to me, Who, in thy lifetime, thou might'st be. Thou pretty art and fair, But with the lady Blanch thou never must compare. No need for Blanch her history to tell; Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well. But when I look on thee, I only know There lived a pretty maid some hundred years ago.
* * * * *
LINES
ON THE CELEBRATED PICTURE BY LIONARDO DA VINCI, CALLED THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS.
While young John runs to greet The greater Infant's feet, The Mother standing by, with trembling passion Of devout admiration, Beholds the engaging mystic play, and pretty adoration; Nor knows as yet the full event Of those so low beginnings, From whence we date our winnings, But wonders at the intent Of those new rites, and what that strange child-worship meant. But at her side An angel doth abide, With such a perfect joy As no dim doubts alloy, An intuition, A glory, an amenity, Passing the dark condition Of blind humanity, As if he surely knew All the blest wonder should ensue, Or he had lately left the upper sphere, And had read all the sovran schemes and divine riddles there.
* * * * *
ON THE SAME.
Maternal lady with the virgin grace, Heaven-born thy Jesus seemeth sure, And thou a virgin pure. Lady most perfect, when thy sinless face Men look upon, they wish to be A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee.
SONNETS.
* * * * * I.
TO MISS KELLY.
You are not, Kelly, of the common strain, That stoop their pride and female honor down To please that many-headed beast _the town_, And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for gain; By fortune thrown amid the actors' train, You keep your native dignity of thought; The plaudits that attend you come unsought, As tributes due unto your natural vein. Your tears have passion in them, and a grace Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow; Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot trace, That vanish and return we know not how-- And please the better from a pensive face, A thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.
II.
ON THE SIGHT OF SWANS IN KENSINGTON GARDEN.
Queen-bird that sittest on thy shining-nest, And thy young cygnets without sorrow hatchest, And thou, thou other royal bird, that watchest Lest the white mother wandering feet molest: Shrined are your offspring in a crystal cradle, Brighter than Helen's ere she yet had burst Her shelly prison. They shall be born at first Strong, active, graceful, perfect, swan-like able To tread the land or waters with security. Unlike poor human births, conceived in sin, In grief brought forth, both outwardly and in Confessing weakness, error, and impurity. Did heavenly creatures own succession's line, The births of heaven like to yours would shine.
III.
Was it some sweet device of Faëry That mock'd my steps with many a lonely glade, And fancied wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid? Have these things been? or what rare witchery, Impregning with delights the charmèd air, Enlighted up the semblance of a smile In those fine eyes? methought they spake the while Soft soothing things, which might enforce despair To drop the murdering knife, and let go by His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade Still court the footsteps of the fair-hair'd maid? Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh? While I forlorn do wander reckless where, And 'mid my wanderings meet no Anna there.
IV.
Methinks how dainty sweet it were, reclined Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie, Nor of the busier scenes we left behind Aught envying. And, O Anna! mild-eyed maid! Beloved! I were well content to play With thy free tresses all a summer's day, Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade. Or we might sit and tell some tender tale Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn, A tale of true love, or of friend forgot; And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail In gentle sort, on those who practise not Or love or pity, though of woman born.
V.
When last I roved these winding wood-walks green, Green winding walks, and shady pathways sweet, Oft-times would Anna seek the silent scene, Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat. No more I hear her footsteps in the shade: Her image only in these pleasant ways Meets me self-wandering, where in happier days I held free converse with the fair-hair'd maid. I pass'd the little cottage which she loved, The cottage which did once my all contain; It spake of days which ne'er must come again, Spake to my heart, and much my heart was moved. "Now fair befall thee, gentle maid!" said I, And from the cottage turn'd me with a sigh.
VI.
THE FAMILY NAME.
What reason first imposed thee, gentle name, Name that my father bore, and his sire's sire, Without reproach? we trace our stream no higher; And I, a childless man, may end the same. Perchance some shepherd on Lincolnian plains, In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks, Received thee first amid the merry mocks And arch allusions of his fellow swains. Perchance from Salem's holier fields return'd, With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord Took HIS meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd, Whate'er the fount whence thy beginnings came, No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name.
VII.
If from my lips some angry accents fell, Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind, 'Twas but the error of a sickly mind And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well, And waters clear, of Reason; and for me Let this my verse the poor atonement be-- My verse, which thou to praise wert ever inclined Too highly, and with a partial eye to see No blemish. Thou to me didst ever show Kindest affection; and would oft-times lend An ear to the desponding lovesick lay, Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay But ill the mighty debt of love I owe, Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.
VIII.
A timid grace sits trembling in her eye, As loath to meet the rudeness of men's sight, Yet shedding a delicious lunar light, That steeps in kind oblivious ecstasy The care-crazed mind, like some still melody: Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess Her gentle sprite: peace, and meek quietness, And innocent loves, and maiden purity: A look whereof might heal the cruel smart Of changèd friends, or fortune's wrongs unkind; Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart Of him who hates his brethren of mankind. Turn'd are those lights from me, who fondly yet Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret.
IX.
TO JOHN LAMB, ESQ., OF THE SOUTH-SEA-HOUSE.
John, you were figuring in the gay career Of blooming manhood with a young man's joy, When I was yet a little peevish boy-- Though time has made the difference disappear Betwixt our ages, which _then_ seem'd so great-- And still by rightful custom you retain Much of the old authoritative strain, And keep the elder brother up in state. O! you do well in this. 'Tis man's worst deed To let the "things that have been" run to waste, And in the unmeaning present sink the past: In whose dim glass even now I faintly read Old buried forms, and faces long ago, Which you, and I, and one more, only know.
X.
O! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind, That, rushing on its way with careless sweep, Scatters the ocean waves. And I could weep Like to a child. For now to my raised mind On wings of winds comes wild-eyed Fantasy, And her rude visions give severe delight. O wingèd bark! how swift along the night Pass'd thy proud keel! nor shall I let go by Lightly of that drear hour the memory, When wet and chilly on thy deck I stood, Unbonneted, and gazed upon the flood, Even till it seem'd a pleasant thing to die,-- To be resolv'd into th' elemental wave, Or take my portion with the winds that rave.
XI.
We were two pretty babes, the youngest she, The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween, And INNOCENCE her name. The time has been, We two did love each other's company: Time was, we two had wept to have been apart. But when by show of seeming good beguiled, I left the garb and manners of a child, And my first love for man's society, Defiling with the world my virgin heart-- My loved companion dropp'd a tear, and fled, And hid in deepest shades her awful head. Beloved, who shall tell me where thou art-- In what delicious Eden to be found-- That I may seek thee the wide world around?
BLANK VERSE
* * * * *
CHILDHOOD.
In my poor mind it is most sweet to muse Upon the days gone by; to act in thought Past seasons o'er, and be again a child; To sit in fancy on the turf-clad slope, Down which the child would roll; to pluck gay flowers, Make posies in the sun, which the child's hand (Childhood offended soon, soon reconciled,) Would throw away, and straight take up again, Then fling them to the winds, and o'er the lawn Bound with so playful and so light a foot, That the press'd daisy scarce declined her head.
* * * * *
THE GRANDAME.
On the green hill-top, Hard by the house of prayer, a modest roof, And not distinguish'd from its neighbor-barn, Save by a slender-tapering length of spire, The Grandame sleeps. A plain stone barely tells The name and date to the chance passenger. For lowly born was she, and long had eat, Well-earn'd, the bread of service:--hers was else A mountain spirit, one that entertain'd Scorn of base action, deed dishonorable, Or aught unseemly. I remember well Her reverend image; I remember, too, With what a zeal she served her master's house; And how the prattling tongue of garrulous age Delighted to recount the oft-told tale Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was, And wondrous skill'd in genealogies, And could in apt and voluble terms discourse Of births, of titles, and alliances; Of marriages, and intermarriages; Relationship remote, or near of kin; Of friends offended, family disgraced-- Maiden high-born, but wayward, disobeying Parental strict injunction, and regardless Of unmix'd blood, and ancestry remote, Stooping to wed with one of low degree. But these are not thy praises; and I wrong Thy honor'd memory, recording chiefly Things light or trivial. Better 'twere to tell, How with a nobler zeal, and warmer love, She served her _heavenly Master_. I have seen That reverend form bent down with age and pain, And rankling malady. Yet not for this Ceased she to praise her Maker, or withdrew Her trust in Him, her faith, an humble hope-- So meekly had she learn'd to bear her cross-- For she had studied patience in the school Of Christ; much comfort she had thence derived, And was a follower of the NAZARENE.
* * * * *
THE SABBATH BELLS.
The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard, Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims Tidings of good to Zion: chiefly when Their piercing tones fall _sudden_ on the ear Of the contemplant, solitary man, Whom thoughts abstruse or high have chanced to lure Forth from the walks of men, revolving oft, And oft again, hard matter, which eludes And baffles his pursuit--thought-sick and tired Of controversy, where no end appears, No clue to his research, the lonely man Half wishes for society again. Him, thus engaged, the Sabbath bells salute _Sudden!_ his heart awakes, his ears drink in The cheering music; his relenting soul Yearns after all the joys of social life, And softens with the love of human kind.
* * * * *
FANCY EMPLOYED ON DIVINE SUBJECTS.
The truant Fancy was a wanderer ever, A lone enthusiast maid. She loves to walk In the bright visions of empyreal light, By the green pastures, and the fragrant meads, Where the perpetual flowers of Eden blow; By crystal streams, and by the living waters, Along whose margin grows the wondrous tree Whose leaves shall heal the nations; underneath Whose holy shade a refuge shall be found From pain and want, and all the ills that wait On mortal life, from sin and death forever.
* * * * *
COMPOSED AT MIDNIGHT.
From broken visions of perturbèd rest I wake, and start, and fear to sleep again. How total a privation of all sounds, Sights, and familiar objects, man, bird, beast, Herb, tree, or flower, and prodigal light of heaven. 'Twere some relief to catch the drowsy cry Of the mechanic watchman, or the noise Of revel reeling home from midnight cups. Those are the meanings of the dying man, Who lies in the upper chamber; restless moans, And interrupted only by a cough Consumptive, torturing the wasted lungs. So in the bitterness of death he lies, And waits in anguish for the morning's light. What can that do for him, or what restore? Short taste, faint sense, affecting notices. And little images of pleasures past, Of health, and active life--health not yet slain, Nor the other grace of life, a good name, sold For sin's black wages. On his tedious bed He writhes, and turns him from the accusing light, And finds no comfort in the sun, but says "When night comes I shall get a little rest." Some few groans more, death comes, and there an end. 'Tis darkness and conjecture all beyond; Weak Nature fears, though Charity must hope, And Fancy, most licentious on such themes Where decent reverence well had kept her mute, Hath o'erstock'd hell with devils, and brought down By her enormous fablings and mad lies, Discredit on the gospel's serious truths And salutary fears. The man of parts, Poet, or prose declaimer, on his couch Lolling, like one indifferent, fabricates A heaven of gold, where he, and such as he, Their heads encompassed with crowns, their heels With fine wings garlanded, shall tread the stars Beneath their feet, heaven's pavement, far removed From damnèd spirits, and the torturing cries Of men, his breth'ren, fashion'd of the earth, As he was, nourish'd with the self-same bread, Belike his kindred or companions once-- Through everlasting ages now divorced, In chains and savage torments to repent Short years of folly on earth. Their groans unheard In heav'n, the saint nor pity feels, nor care, For those thus sentenced--pity might disturb The delicate sense and most divine repose Of spirits angelical. Blessed be God, The measure of his judgments is not fix'd By man's erroneous standard. He discerns No such inordinate difference and vast Betwixt the sinner and the saint, to doom Such disproportion'd fates. Compared with him, No man on earth is holy call'd: they best Stand in his sight approved, who at his feet Their little crowns of virtue cast, and yield To him of his own works the praise, his due.
A TRAGEDY.
* * * * *
CHARACTERS.
SIR WALTER WOODVIL. JOHN, } SIMON, }_his sons_.
LOVELL, } GRAY, }_Pretended friends of John_.
SANDFORD. _Sir Walter's old steward_. MARGARET. _Orphan Ward of_ Sir Walter. FOUR GENTLEMEN. _John's riotous companions_. SERVANTS.
SCENE--_for the most part at Sir Walter's mansion in_ DEVONSHIRE; _at other times in the Forest of_ SHERWOOD.
TIME--_soon after the_ RESTORATION.
* * * * *
ACT THE FIRST.
SCENE--_A Servants' Apartment in Woodvill Hall. Servants drinking--_
TIME, _the Morning_.
_A Song, by_ DANIEL.
"When the King enjoys his own again."
_Peter_. A delicate song. Where didst learn it, fellow?
_Dan_. Even there, where thou learnest thy oaths and thy politics--at our master's table.--Where else should a serving-man pick up his poor accomplishments?
_Mar_. Well spoken, Daniel. O rare Daniel! his oaths and his politics! excellent!
_Fran_. And where didst pick up thy knavery, Daniel?
_Peter_. That came to him by inheritance. His family have supplied the shire of Devon, time out of mind, with good thieves and bad serving-men. All of his race have come into the world without their conscience.
_Mar_. Good thieves, and bad serving-men! Better and better. I marvel what Daniel hath got to say in reply.
_Dan_. I marvel more when thou wilt say anything to the purpose, thou shallow serving-man, whose swiftest conceit carries thee no higher than to apprehend with difficulty the stale jests of us thy compeers. When was't ever known to club thy own particular jest among us?
_Mar_. Most unkind Daniel, to speak such biting things of me!
_Fran_. See--if he hath not brought tears into the poor fellow's eyes with the saltness of his rebuke.
_Dan_. No offence, brother Martin--I meant none. 'Tis true, Heaven gives gifts, and withholds them. It has been pleased to bestow upon me a nimble invention to the manufacture of a jest; and upon thee, Martin, an indifferent bad capacity to understand my meaning.
_Mar_. Is that all? I am content. Here's my hand.
_Fran_. Well, I like a little innocent mirth myself, but never could endure bawdry.
_Dan_. _Quot homines tot sententiæ._
_Mar_. And what is that?
_Dan_. 'Tis Greek, and argues difference of opinion.
_Mar_. I hope there is none between us.
_Dan_. Here's to thee, brother Martin. (_Drinks_.)
_Mar_. And to thee, Daniel. (_Drinks_.)
_Fran_. And to thee, Peter. (_Drinks_.)
_Peter_. Thank you, Francis. And here's to thee. (_Drinks_.)
_Mar_. I shall be fuddled anon.
_Dan_. And drunkenness I hold to be a very despicable vice.
_All_. O! a shocking vice. (_They drink round_.)
_Peter_. In as much as it taketh away the understanding.
_Dan_. And makes the eyes red.
_Peter_. And the tongue to stammer.
_Dan_. And to blab out secrets.
[_During this conversation they continue drinking_.
_Peter_. Some men do not know an enemy from a friend when they are drunk.
_Dan_. Certainly sobriety is the health of the soul.
_Mar_. Now I know I am going to be drunk.
_Dan_. How canst tell, dry-bones?
_Mar_. Because I begin to be melancholy. That's always a sign.
_Fran_. Take care of Martin, he'll topple off his seat else. [MARTIN _drops asleep_.
_Peter_. Times are greatly altered, since young master took upon himself the government of this household.
_All_. Greatly altered.
_Fran_. I think everything be altered for the better since His Majesty's blessed restoration.
_Peter_. In Sir Walter's days there was no encouragement given to good housekeeping.
_All_. None.
_Dan_. For instance, no possibility of getting drunk before two in the afternoon.
_Peter_. Every man his allowance of ale at breakfast--his quart!
_All_. A quart!! [_In derision._
_Dan_. Nothing left to our own sweet discretions.
_Peter_. Whereby it may appear, we were treated more like beasts than what we were--discreet and reasonable serving-men.
_All_. Like beasts.
_Mar_. (_Opening his eyes_.) Like beasts.
_Dan_. To sleep, wagtail!
_Fran_. I marvel all this while where the old gentleman has found means to secrete himself. It seems no man has heard of him since the day of the King's return. Can any tell why our young master, being favored by the court, should not have interest to procure his father's pardon?
_Dan_. Marry, I think 'tis the obstinacy of the old knight, that will not be beholden to the court for his safety.
_Mar_. Now that is wilful.
_Fran_. But can any tell me the place of his concealment?
_Peter_. That cannot I; but I have my conjectures.
_Dan_. Two hundred pounds, as I hear, to the man that shall apprehend him.
_Fran_. Well, I have my suspicions.
_Peter_. And so have I.
_Mar_. And I can keep a secret.
_Fran_. (_to PETER_.) Warwickshire, you mean. [_Aside._
_Peter_. Perhaps not.
_Fran_. Nearer, perhaps.
_Peter_. I say nothing.
_Dan_. I hope there is none in this company would be mean enough to betray him.
_All_. O Lord, surely not.
[_They drink to_ SIR WALTER'S _safety_.
_Fran_. I have often wondered how our master came to be excepted by name in the late Act of Oblivion.
_Dan_. Shall I tell the reason?
_All_. Ay, do.
_Dan_. 'Tis thought he is no great friend to the present happy establishment.
_All_. O! monstrous!
_Peter_. Fellow-servants, a thought strikes me.--Do we, or do we not, come under the penalties of the treason-act, by reason of our being privy to this man's concealment?
_All_. Truly a sad consideration.
[_To them enters_ SANDFORD _suddenly_.
_Sand_. You well-fed and unprofitable grooms, Maintain'd for state, not use; You lazy feasters at another's cost, That eat like maggots into an estate, And do as little work. Being indeed but foul excrescences, And no just parts in a well-order'd family; You base and rascal imitators, Who act up to the height your master's vices, But cannot read his virtues in your bond: Which of you, as I enter'd, spake of betraying? Was it you, or you, or thin-face, was it you?
_Mar_. Whom does he call thin-face?
_Sand_. No prating, loon, but tell me who he was, That I may brain the villain with my staff, That seeks Sir Walter's life! You miserable men, With minds more slavish than your slave's estate, Have you that noble bounty so forgot, Which took you from the looms, and from the ploughs, Which better had ye follow'd, fed ye, clothed ye, And entertain'd ye in a worthy service, Where your best wages was the world's repute, That thus ye seek his life, by whom ye live. Have you forgot, too, How often in old times Your drunken mirths have stunn'd day's sober ears, Carousing full cups to Sir Walter's health?-- Whom now ye would betray, but that he lies Out of the reach of your poor treacheries. This learn from me, Our master's secret sleeps with trustier tongues, Than will unlock themselves to carls like you. Go, get you gone, you knaves. Who stirs? this staff Shall teach you better manners else.
_All_. Well, we are going.
_Sand_. And quickly too, ye had better, for I see Young Mistress Margaret coming this way.
[_Exeunt all but_ SANDFORD
_Enter_ MARGARET, _as in a fright, pursued by a Gentleman, who, seeing_ SANDFORD, _retires muttering a curse_.
_Sand_. Good-morrow to my fair mistress. 'Twas a chance I saw you, lady, so intent was I On chiding hence these graceless serving-men, Who cannot break their fast at morning meals Without debauch and mistimed riotings. This house hath been a scene of nothing else But atheist riot and profane excess, Since my old master quitted all his rights here.
_Marg_. Each day I endure fresh insult from the scorn Of Woodvil's friends, the uncivil jests And free discourses of the dissolute men That haunt this mansion, making me their mirth.
_Sand_. Does my young master know of these affronts?
_Marg_. I cannot tell. Perhaps he has not been told. Perhaps he might have seen them if he would. I have known him more quick-sighted. Let that pass. All things seem changed, I think. I had a friend, (I can't but weep to think him alter'd too,) These things are best forgotten; but I knew A man, a young man, young, and full of honor, That would have pick'd a quarrel for a straw, And fought it out to the extremity, E'en with the dearest friend he had alive, On but a bare surmise, a possibility, That Margaret had suffer'd an affront. Some are too tame, that were too splenetic once.
_Sand_. 'Twere best he should be _told_ of these affronts.
_Marg_. I am the daughter of his father's friend, Sir Walter's orphan ward. I am not his servant-maid, that I should wait The opportunity of a gracious hearing. Enquire the times and seasons when to put My peevish prayer up at young Woodvil's feet, And sue to him for slow redress, who was Himself a suitor late to Margaret. I am somewhat proud: and Woodvil taught me pride. I was his favorite once, his playfellow in infancy, And joyful mistress of his youth. None once so pleasant in his eyes as Margaret. His conscience, his religion, Margaret was, His dear heart's confessor, a heart within that heart, And all dear things summ'd up in her alone. As Margaret smil'd or frown'd John liv'd or died; His dress, speech, gesture, studies, friendships, all Being fashion'd to her liking. His flatteries taught me first this self-esteem, His flatteries and caresses, while he loved. The world esteem'd her happy, who had won His heart, who won all hearts; And ladies envied me the love of Woodvil.
_Sand_. He doth affect the courtier's life too much, Whose art is to forget, And that has wrought this seeming change in him, That was by nature noble. 'Tis these court-plagues, that swarm about our house, Have done the mischief, making his fancy giddy With images of state, preferment, place, Tainting his generous spirits with ambition.
_Marg_. I know not how it is; A cold protector is John grown to me. The mistress, and presumptive wife, of Woodvil Can never stoop so low to supplicate A man, her equal, to redress those wrongs, Which he was bound first to prevent; But which his own neglects have sanctioned rather, Both sancion'd and provok'd: a mark'd neglect, And strangeness fastening bitter on his love, His love, which long has been upon the wane. For me, I am determined what to do: To leave this house this night, and lukewarm John, And trust for food to the earth and Providence.
_Sand_. O lady, have a care Of these indefinite and spleen-bred resolves. You know not half the dangers that attend Upon a life of wand'ring, which your thoughts now, Feeling the swellings of a lofty anger, To your abused fancy, as 'tis likely, Portray without its terrors, painting _lies_ And representments of fallacious liberty;-- You know not what it is to leave the roof that shelters you.
_Marg_. I have thought on every possible event, The dangers and discouragements you speak of, Even till my woman's heart hath ceased to fear them, And cowardice grows enamor'd of rare accidents; Nor am I so unfurnish'd, as you think, Of practicable schemes.
_Sand_. Now God forbid; think twice of this, dear lady.
_Marg_. I pray you spare me, Mr. Sandford. And once for all believe, nothing can shake my purpose.
_Sand_. But what course have you thought on?
_Marg_. To seek Sir Walter in the forest of Sherwood. I have letters from young Simon, Acquainting me with all the circumstances Of their concealment, place, and manner of life, And the merry hours they spend in the green haunts Of Sherwood, nigh which place they have ta'en a house In the town of Nottingham, and pass for foreigners, Wearing the dress of Frenchmen.-- All which I have perused with so attent And child-like longings, that to my doting ears Two sounds now seem like one, One meaning in two words, Sherwood and Liberty. And, gentle Mr. Sandford, 'Tis you that must provide now The means of my departure, which for safety Must be in boy's apparel.
_Sand_. Since you will have it so (My careful age trembles at all may happen), I will engage to furnish you. I have the keys of the wardrobe, and can fit you With garments to your size. I know a suit Of lively Lincoln green, that shall much grace you In the wear, being glossy fresh, and worn but seldom. Young Stephen Woodvil wore them while he lived. I have the keys of all this house and passages, And ere daybreak will rise and let you forth. What things soe'er you have need of I can furnish you; And will provide a horse and trusty guide, To bear you on your way to Nottingham.
_Marg_. That once this day and night were fairly past! For then I'll bid this house and love farewell; Farewell, sweet Devon; farewell, lukewarm John; For with the morning's light will Margaret be gone. Thanks, courteous Mr. Sandford.--
[_Exeunt divers ways._
ACT THE SECOND.
SCENE.--_An Apartment in Woodvil Hall._
JOHN WOODVIL--_alone_. (_Reading parts of a letter_).
"When Love grows cold, and indifference has usurped upon old Esteem, it is no marvel if the world begin to account _that_ dependence, which hitherto has been esteemed honorable shelter. The course I have taken, (in leaving this house, not easily wrought thereunto,) seemed to me best for the once-for-all releasing of yourself (who in times past have deserved well of me) from the now daily, and not-to-be-endured tribute of forced love, and ill-dissembled reluctance of affection. "MARGARET."
Gone! gone! my girl? so hasty, Margaret! And never a kiss at parting? shallow loves, And likings of a ten days' growth, use courtesies, And show red eyes at parting. Who bids "Farewell!" In the same tone he cries "God speed you, sir?" Or tells of joyful victories at sea, Where he hath ventures; does not rather muffle His organs to emit a leaden sound, To suit the melancholy dull "farewell," Which they in Heaven not use?-- So peevish, Margaret? But 'tis the common error of your sex When our idolatry slackens, or grows less, (As who of woman born can keep his faculty Of Admiration, being a decaying faculty, Forever strain'd to the pitch? or can at pleasure Make it renewable, as some appetites are, As, namely, Hunger, Thirst!--) this being the case, They tax us with neglect, and love grown cold, Coin plainings of the perfidy of men, Which into maxims pass, and apothegms To be retail'd in ballads.-- I know them all. They are jealous when our larger hearts receive More guests than one. (Love in a woman's heart Being all in one.) For me, I am sure I have room here For more disturbers of my sleep than one. Love shall have part, but love shall not have all. Ambition, Pleasure, Vanity, all by turns, Shall lie in my bed, and keep me fresh and waking; Yet Love not be excluded. Foolish wench, I could have loved her twenty years to come, And still have kept my liking. But since 'tis so, Why, fare thee well, old playfellow! I'll try To squeeze a tear for old acquaintance' sake. I shall not grudge so much----
_To him enters_ LOVEL.
_Lovel_. Bless us, Woodvil! what is the matter? I protest, man, I thought you had been weeping.
_Wood_. Nothing is the matter; only the wench has forced some water into my eyes, which will quickly disband.
_Lovel_. I cannot conceive you.
_Wood_. Margaret is flown.
_Lovel_. Upon what pretence?
_Wood_. Neglect on my part: which it seems she has had the wit to discover, maugre all my pains to conceal it.
_Lovel_. Then, you confess the charge?
_Wood_. To say the truth, my love for her has of late stopped short on this side idolatry.
_Lovel_. As all good Christians' should, I think.
_Wood_. I am sure, I could have loved her still within the limits of warrantable love.
_Lovel_. A kind of brotherly affection, I take it.
_Wood_. We should have made excellent man and wife in time.
_Lovel_. A good old couple, when the snows fell, to crowd about a sea-coal fire, and talk over old matters.
_Wood_. While each should feel, what neither cared to acknowledge, that stories oft-repeated may, at last, come to lose some of their grace by the repetition.
_Lovel_. Which both of you may yet live long enough to discover. For, take my word for it, Margaret is a bird that will come back to you without a lure.
_Wood_. Never, never, Lovel. Spite of my levity, with tears I confess it, she was a lady of most confirmed honor, of an unmatchable spirit, and determinate in all virtuous resolutions; not hasty to anticipate an affront, nor slow to feel, where just provocation was given.
_Lovel_. What made you neglect her, then?
_Wood_. Mere levity and youthfulness of blood, a malady incident to young men; physicians call it caprice. Nothing else. He that slighted her knew her value: and 'tis odds, but, for thy sake, Margaret, John will yet go to his grave a bachelor.
[_A noise heard, as of one drunk and singing._
_Lovel_. Here comes one, that will quickly dissipate these humors.
_Enter one drunk._
_Drunken Man_. Good-morrow to you, gentlemen. Mr. Lovel, I am your humble servant. Honest Jack Woodvil, I will get drunk with you to-morrow.
_Wood_. And why to-morrow, honest Mr. Freeman?
_Drunken Man_. I scent a traitor in that question. A beastly question. Is it not his Majesty's birthday? the day of all days in the year, on which King Charles the Second was graciously pleased to be born. (_Sings._) "Great pity 'tis such days as those should come but once a year."
_Lovel_. Drunk in a morning! foh! how he stinks!
_Drunken Man_. And why not drunk in a morning? canst tell, bully?
_Wood_. Because, being the sweet and tender infancy of the day, methinks, it should ill endure such early blightings.
_Drunken Man_. I grant you, 'tis in some sort the youth and tender nonage of the day. Youth is bashful, and I give it a cup to encourage it. (_Sings._) "Ale that will make Grimalkin prate."--At noon I drink for thirst, at night for fellowship, but, above all, I love to usher in the bashful morning under the auspices of a freshening stoop of liquor. (_Sings._) "Ale in a Saxon rumkin then, makes valor burgeon in tall men."--But, I crave pardon. I fear I keep that gentleman from serious thoughts. There be those that wait for me in the cellar.
_Wood_. Who are they?
_Drunken Man_. Gentlemen, my good friends, Cleveland, Delaval, and Truby. I know by this time they are all clamorous for me.
[_Exit singing._
_Wood._ This keeping of open house acquaints a man with strange companions.
_Enter, at another door, Three calling for_ HARRY FREEMAN.
Harry Freeman, Harry Freeman. He is not here. Let us go look for him. Where is Freeman? Where is Harry?
[_Exeunt the Three, calling for_ FREEMAN.
_Wood._ Did you ever see such gentry? (_laughing._) These are they that fatten on ale and tobacco in a morning, drink burnt brandy at noon to promote digestion, and piously conclude with quart bumpers after supper to prove their loyalty.
_Lovel_. Come, shall we adjourn to the Tennis Court?
_Wood_. No, you shall go with me into the gallery, where I will show you the _Vandyke_ I have purchased. "The late King taking leave of his children."
_Lovel_. I will but adjust my dress, and attend you.
[_Exit_ LOVEL.
_John Wood_. (_alone._) Now universal England getteth drunk For joy, that Charles, her monarch, is restored: And she, that sometime wore a saintly mask, The stale-grown vizor from her face doth pluck, And weareth now a suit of morris bells, With which she jingling goes through all her towns and villages. The baffled factions in their houses skulk; The commonwealthsman, and state machinist. The cropt fanatic, and fifth-monarchy-man, Who heareth of these visionaries now? They and their dreams have ended. Fools do sing, Where good men yield God thanks; but politic spirits, Who live by observation, note these changes Of the popular mind, and thereby serve their ends. Then why not I? What's Charles to me, or Oliver, But as my own advancement hangs on one of them? I to myself am chief.----I know, Some shallow mouths cry out, that I am smit With the gauds and show of state, the point of place, And trick of precedence, the ducks, and nods Which weak minds pay to rank. 'Tis not to sit In place of worship at the royal masques, Their pastimes, plays, and Whitehall banquetings, For none of these, Nor yet to be seen whispering with some great one, Do I affect the favors of the court. I would be great, for greatness hath great _power_, And that's the fruit I reach at.-- Great spirits ask great play-room. Who could sit, With these prophetic swellings in my breast, That prick and goad me on, and never cease, To the fortunes something tells me I was born to? Who, with such monitors within to stir him, Would sit him down, with lazy arms across, A unit, a thing without a name in the state, A something to be govern'd, not to govern, A fishing, hawking, hunting, country gentleman? [_Exit._
SCENE.--_Sherwood Forest._
SIR WALTER WOODVIL. SIMON WOODVIL. (_Disguised as Frenchmen._)
_Sir W_. How fares my boy, Simon, my youngest born, My hope, my pride, young Woodvil, speak to me? Some grief untold weighs heavy at thy heart: I know it by thy alter'd cheer of late. Thinkest thy brother plays thy father false? It is a mad and thriftless prodigal, Grown proud upon the favors of the court; Court manners, and court fashions, he affects, And in the heat and uncheck'd blood of youth, Harbors a company of riotous men, All hot, and young, court-seekers, like himself, Most skilful to devour a patrimony; And these have eat into my old estates, And these have drain'd thy father's cellars dry; But these so common faults of youth not named, (Things which themselves outgrow, left to themselves,) I know no quality that stains his honor. My life upon his faith and noble mind, Son John could never play thy father false.
_Simon_. I never thought but nobly of my brother, Touching his honor and fidelity. Still I could wish him charier of his person, And of his time more frugal, than to spend In riotous living, graceless society, And mirth unpalatable, hours better employ'd (With those persuasive graces nature lent him) In fervent pleadings for a father's life.
_Sir W_. I would not owe my life to a jealous court, Whose shallow policy I know it is, On some reluctant acts of prudent mercy, (Not voluntary, but extorted by the times, In the first tremblings of new-fixed power, And recollection smarting from old wounds,) On these to build a spurious popularity. Unknowing what free grace or mercy mean, They fear to punish, therefore do they pardon. For this cause have I oft forbid my son, By letters, overtures, open solicitings, Or closet tamperings, by gold or fee, To beg or bargain with the court for my life.
_Simon_. And John has ta'en you, father, at your word, True to the letter of his paternal charge.
_Sir W_. Well, my good cause, and my good conscience, boy, Shall be for sons to me, if John prove false. Men die but once, and the opportunity Of a noble death is not an every-day fortune: It is a gift which noble spirits pray for.
_Simon_. I would not wrong my brother by surmise; I know him generous, full of gentle qualities, Incapable of base compliances, No prodigal in his nature, but affecting This show of bravery for ambitious ends. He drinks, for 'tis the humor of the court, And drink may one day wrest the secret from him, And pluck you from your hiding-place in the sequel.
_Sir W_. Fair death shall be my doom, and foul life his. Till when, we'll live as free in this green forest, As yonder deer, who roam unfearing treason: Who seem the aborigines of this place, Or Sherwood theirs by tenure.
_Simon_. 'Tis said, that Robert Earl of Huntingdon, Men call'd him Robin Hood, an outlaw bold, With a merry crew of hunters here did haunt, Not sparing the king's venison. May one believe The antique tale?
_Sir W_. There is much likelihood, Such bandits did in England erst abound, When polity was young. I have read of the pranks Of that mad archer, and of the tax he levied On travellers, whatever their degree, Baron, or knight, whoever pass'd these woods, Layman, or priest, not sparing the bishop's mitre For spiritual regards; nay, once 'tis said, He robb'd the king himself.
_Simon_. A perilous man (_smiling_).
_Sir W_. How quietly we live here, Unread in the world's business, And take no note of all its slippery changes. 'Twere best we make a world among ourselves, A little world, Without the ills and falsehoods of the greater; We two being all the inhabitants of ours, And kings and subjects both in one.
_Simon_. Only the dangerous errors, fond conceits, Which make the business of that greater world, Must have no place in ours: As, namely, riches, honors, birth, place, courtesy, Good fame and bad, rumors and popular noises, Books, creeds, opinions, prejudices national, Humors particular, Soul-killing lies, and truths that work small good, Feuds, factions, enmities, relationships, Loves, hatreds, sympathies, antipathies, And all the intricate stuff quarrels are made of.
MARGARET _enters in boy's apparel_.
_Sir W_. What pretty boy have we here?
_Marg_. _Bon jour, messieurs_. Ye have handsome English faces,
I should have ta'en ye else for other two, I came to seek in the forest.
_Sir W_. Who are they?
_Marg_. A gallant brace of Frenchmen, curl'd monsieurs, That men say, haunt these woods, affecting privacy, More than the manner of their countrymen.
_Simon_. We have here a wonder. The face is Margaret's face.
_Sir W_. The face is Margaret's, but the dress the same My Stephen sometime wore. [_To_ Margaret. Suppose us them; whom do men say we are? Or know you what you seek?
_Marg_. A worthy pair of exiles, Two whom the politics of state revenge, In final issue of long civil broils, Have houseless driven from your native France, To wander idle in these English woods, Where now ye live; most part Thinking on home and all the joys of France, Where grows the purple vine.
_Sir W_. These woods, young stranger, And grassy pastures, which the slim deer loves, Are they less beauteous than the land of France, Where grows the purple vine?
_Marg_. I cannot tell. To an indifferent eye both show alike. 'Tis not the scene, But all familiar objects in the scene, Which now ye miss, that constitute a difference. Ye had a country, exiles, ye have none now; Friends had ye, and much wealth, ye now have nothing; Our manners, laws, our customs, all are foreign to you, I know ye loathe them, cannot learn them readily; And there is reason, exiles, ye should love Our English earth less than your land of France, Where grows the purple vine; where all delights grow Old custom has made pleasant.
_Sir W_. You, that are read So deeply in our story, what are you?
_Marg_. A bare adventurer; in brief a woman, That put strange garments on, and came thus far To seek an ancient friend: And having spent her stock of idle words, And feeling some tears coming, Hastes now to clasp Sir Walter Woodvil's knees, And beg a boon for Margaret; his poor ward.
[_Kneeling_.
_Sir W_. Not at my feet, Margaret; not at my feet.
_Marg_. Yes, till her suit is answered.
_Sir W_. Name it.
_Marg_. A little boon, and yet so great a grace, She fears to ask it.
_Sir W_. Some riddle, Margaret?
_Marg_. No riddle, but a plain request.
_Sir W_. Name it.
_Marg_. Free liberty of Sherwood, And leave to take her lot with you in the forest.
_Sir W_. A scant petition, Margaret; but take it, Seal'd with an old man's tears.-- Rise, daughter of Sir Rowland.
[_Addressing them both_.
O you most worthy, You constant followers of a man proscribed, Following poor misery in the throat of danger; Fast servitors to crazed and penniless poverty, Serving poor poverty without hope of gain; Kind children of a sire unfortunate; Green clinging tendrils round a trunk decay'd, Which needs must bring on you timeless decay; Fair living forms to a dead carcass joined;-- What shall I say? Better the dead were gather'd to the dead, Than death and life in disproportion meet.-- Go, seek your fortunes, children.--
_Simon_. Why, whither should we go?
_Sir W_. _You_ to the court, where now your brother John Commits a rape on Fortune.
_Simon_. Luck to John! A light-heel'd strumpet when the sport is done.
_Sir W_. _You_ to the sweet society of your equals, Where the world's fashion smiles on youth and beauty.
_Marg_. Where young men's flatteries cozen young maids' beauty. There pride oft gets the vantage hand of duty, There sweet humility withers.
_Simon_. Mistress Margaret, How fared my brother John, when you left Devon?
_Marg_. John was well, sir.
_Simon_. 'Tis now nine months almost, Since I saw home. What new friends has John made? Or keeps he his first love?--I did suspect Some foul disloyalty. Now do I know, John has proved false to her, for Margaret weeps. It is a scurvy brother.
_Sir W_. Fie upon it. All men are false, I think. The date of love Is out, expired; its stories all grown stale, O'erpast, forgotten, like an antique tale Of Hero and Leander.
_Simon_. I have known some men that are too general-contemplative for the narrow passion. I am in some sort a _general_ lover.
_Marg_. In the name of the boy God, who plays at hoodman blind with the Muses, and cares not whom he catches: what is it _you_ love?
_Simon_. Simply, all things that live, From the crook'd worm to man's imperial form, And God-resembling likeness. The poor fly, That makes short holiday in the sunbeam, And dies by some child's hand. The feeble bird With little wings, yet greatly venturous In the upper sky. The fish in th' other element, That knows no touch of eloquence. What else? Yon tall and elegant stag, Who paints a dancing shadow of his horns In the water, where he drinks.
_Marg_. I myself love all these things, yet so as with a difference:--for example, some animals better than others, some men rather than other men; the nightingale before the cuckoo, the swift and graceful palfrey before the slow and asinine mule. Your humor goes to confound all qualities. What sports do you use in the forest?--
_Simon_. Not many; some few, as thus:-- To see the sun to bed, and to arise, Like some hot amorist with glowing eyes, Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him, With all his fires and travelling glories round him. Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest, Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast, And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep. Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness, Nought doing, saying little, thinking less, To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air, Go eddying round; and small birds, how they fare, When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn, Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn; And how the woods berries and worms provide Without their pains, when earth has nought beside To answer their small wants. To view the graceful deer come tripping by, Then stop, and gaze, then turn, they know not why, Like bashful younkers in society. To mark the structure of a plant or tree, And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.
_Marg_. (_smiling_.) And, afterwards, them paint in simile.
_Sir W_. Mistress Margaret will have need of some refreshment. Please you, we have some poor viands within.
_Marg_. Indeed I stand in need of them.
_Sir W_. Under the shade of a thick-spreading tree, Upon the grass, no better carpeting, We'll eat our noontide meal; and, dinner done, One of us shall repair to Nottingham, To seek some safe night-lodging in the town, Where you may sleep, while here with us you dwell, By day, in the forest, expecting better times, And gentler habitations, noble Margaret.
_Simon_. _Allons_, young Frenchman----
_Marg_. _Allons_, Sir Englishman. The time has been
I've studied love-lays in the English tongue, And been enamor'd of rare poesy: Which now I must unlearn. Henceforth, Sweet mother-tongue, old English speech, adieu; For Margaret has got new name and language new.
[_Exeunt_.
* * * * *
ACT THE THIRD.
SCENE.--_An Apartment of State in Woodvil Hall_.
_Cavaliers drinking_.
JOHN WOODVIL, LOVEL, GRAY, _and four more_.
_John_. More mirth, I beseech you, gentlemen--Mr. Gray, you are not merry.--
_Gray_. More wine, say I, and mirth shall ensue in course. What! we have not yet above three half-pints a man to answer for. Brevity is the soul of drinking, as of wit. Despatch, I say. More wine. (_Fills_.)
_1st Gent_. I entreat you, let there be some order, some method, in our drinkings. I love to lose my reason with my eyes open, to commit the deed of drunkenness with forethought and deliberation. I love to feel the fumes of the liquor gathering here, like clouds.
_2nd Gent_. And I am for plunging into madness at once. Damn order, and method, and steps, and degrees, that he speaks of. Let confusion have her legitimate work.
_Lovel_. I marvel why the poets, who, of all men, methinks, should possess the hottest livers, and most empyreal fancies, should affect to see such virtues in cold water.
_Gray_. Virtue in cold water! ha! ha! ha!
_John_. Because your poet-born hath an internal wine, richer than lippara or canaries, yet uncrushed from any grapes of earth, unpressed in mortal wine-presses.
3_rd Gent_. What may be the name of this wine?
_John_. It hath as many names as qualities. It is denominated indifferently, wit, conceit, invention, inspiration, but its most royal and comprehensive name is _fancy_.
3_rd Gent_. And where keeps he this sovereign liquor?
_John_. Its cellars are in the brain, whence your true poet deriveth intoxication at will; while his animal spirits, catching a pride from the quality and neighborhood of their noble relative, the brain, refuse to be sustained by wines and fermentations of earth.
3_rd Gent_. But is your poet-born always tipsy with this liquor?
_John_. He hath his stoopings and reposes; but his proper element is the sky, and in the suburbs of the empyrean.
3_rd Gent_. Is your wine-intellectual so exquisite? henceforth, I, a man of plain conceit, will, in all humility, content my mind with canaries.
4_th Gent_. I am for a song or a catch. When will the catches come on, the sweet wicked catches?
_John_. They cannot be introduced with propriety before midnight. Every man must commit his twenty bumpers first. We are not yet well roused. Frank Lovel, the glass stands with you.
_Lovel_. Gentlemen, the Duke. (_Fills_.)
_All_. The Duke. (_They drink_.)
_Gray_. Can any tell, why his Grace, being a Papist--
_John_. Pshaw! we will have no questions of state now. Is not this his Majesty's birthday?
_Gray_. What follows?
_John_. That every man should sing, and be joyful, and ask no questions.
2_nd Gent_. Damn politics, they spoil drinking.
3_rd Gent_. For certain, 'tis a blessed monarchy.
2_nd Gent_. The cursed fanatic days we have seen! The times have been when swearing was out of fashion.
3_rd Gent_. And drinking.
1_st Gent_. And wenching.
_Gray_. The cursed yeas and forsooths, which we have heard uttered, when a man could not rap out an innocent oath, but straight the air was thought to be infected.
_Lovel_. 'Twas a pleasant trick of the saint, which that trim puritan _Swear-not-at-all Smooth-speech_ used, when his spouse chid him with an oath for committing with his servant-maid, to cause his house to be fumigated with burnt brandy, and ends of scripture, to disperse the devil's breath, as he termed it.
_All_. Ha! ha! ha!
_Gray_. But 'twas pleasanter, when the other saint _Resist-the-devil-and-he-will-flee-from-thee Pureman_ was overtaken in the act, to plead an illusio visûs, and maintain his sanctity upon a supposed power in the adversary to counterfeit the shapes of things.
_All_. Ha! ha! ha!
_John_. Another round, and then let every man devise what trick he can in his fancy, for the better manifesting our loyalty this day.
_Gray_. Shall we hang a puritan?
_John_. No, that has been done already in Coleman Street.
2_nd Gent_. Or fire a conventicle?
_John_. That is stale too.
3_rd Gent_. Or burn the Assembly's catechism?
4_th Gent_. Or drink the king's health, every man standing upon his head naked?
_John (to Lovel)_. We have here some pleasant madness.
3_rd Gent_. Who shall pledge me in a pint bumper, while we drink to the king upon our knees?
_Lovel_. Why on our knees, Cavalier?
_John_ (_smiling_). For more devotion, to be sure. (_To a servant_.) Sirrah, fetch the gilt goblets.
[_The goblets are brought. They drink the King's health, kneeling. A shout of general approbation following the first appearance of the goblets._
_John_. We have here the unchecked virtues of the grape. How the vapors curl upwards! It were a life of gods to dwell in such an element: to see, and hear, and talk brave things. Now fie upon these casual potations. That a man's most exalted reason should depend upon the ignoble fermenting of a fruit, which sparrows pluck at as well as we.
_Gray_ (_aside to Lovel_). Observe how he is ravished.
_Lovel_. Vanity and gay thoughts of wine do meet in him and engender madness.
[_While the rest are engaged in a wild kind of talk_, JOHN _advances to the front of the stage, and soliloquizes_.
_John_. My spirits turn to fire, they mount so fast. My joys are turbulent, my hopes show like fruition. These high and gusty relishes of life, sure, Have no allayings of mortality in them. I am too hot now, and o'ercapable, For the tedious processes, and creeping wisdom, Of human acts, and enterprises of a man. I want some seasonings of adversity, Some strokes of the old mortifier Calamity, To take these swellings down, divines call vanity.
1_st Gent_. Mr. Woodvil, Mr. Woodvil.
2_nd Gent_. Where is Woodvil?
_Gray_. Let him alone. I have seen him in these lunes before. His abstractions must not taint the good mirth.
_John_ (_continuing to soliloquize_). O for some friend, now, To conceal nothing from, to have no secrets. How fine and noble a thing is confidence, How reasonable, too, and almost godlike! Fast cement of fast friends, band of society, Old natural go-between in the world's business, Where civil life and order, wanting this cement, Would presently rush back Into the pristine state of singularity, And each man stand alone.
(_A servant enters_.)
_Servant_. Gentlemen, the fireworks are ready.
1_st Gent_. What be they?
_Lovel_. The work of London artists, which our host has provided in honor of this day.
2_nd Gent_. 'Sdeath, who would part with his wine for a rocket?
_Lovel_. Why truly, gentlemen, as our kind host has been at the pains to provide this spectacle, we can do no less than be present at it. It will not take up much time. Every man may return fresh and thirsting to his liquor.
_3rd Gent_. There's reason in what he says.
_2d Gent_. Charge on then, bottle in hand. There's husbandry in that.
[_They go out, singing. Only_ LOVEL _remains, who observes_ WOODVIL.
_John_ (_still talking to himself_). This Lovel here's of a tough honesty, Would put the rack to the proof. He is not of that sort Which haunt my house, snorting the liquors, And when their wisdoms are afloat with wine, Spend vows as fast as vapors, which go off Even with the fumes, their fathers. He is one, Whose sober morning actions Shame not his o'ernight's promises; Talks little, flatters less, and makes no promises; Why this is he, whom the dark-wisdom'd fate Might trust her counsels of predestination with, And the world be no loser. Why should I fear this man? [_Seeing_ LOVEL. Where is the company gone?
_Lovel_. To see the fireworks, where you will be expected to follow. But I perceive you are better engaged.
_John_. I have been meditating this half hour, On all the properties of a brave friendship, The mysteries that are in it, the noble uses, Its limits withal, and its nice boundaries. _Exempli gratiâ_, how far a man May lawfully forswear himself for his friend; What quantity of lies, some of them brave ones, He may lawfully incur in a friend's behalf! What oaths, blood-crimes, hereditary quarrels, Night brawls, fierce words, and duels in the morning, He need not stick at, to maintain his friend's honor, or his cause.
_Lovel_. I think many men would die for their friends.
_John_. Death! why,'tis nothing. We go to it for sport, To gain a name or purse, or please a sullen humor, When one has worn his fortune's livery threadbare, Or his spleen'd mistress frowns. Husbands will venture on it, To cure the hot fits and cold shakings of jealousy. A friend, sir, must do more.
_Lovel_. Can he do more than die?
_John_. To serve a friend this he may do. Pray, mark me. Having a law within (great spirits feel one) He cannot, ought not, to be bound by any Positive laws or ord'nances extern, But may reject all these: by the law of friendship He may do so much, be they, indifferently, Penn'd statutes, or the land's unwritten usages, As public fame, civil compliances, Misnamed honor, trust in matter of secrets, All vows and promises, the feeble mind's religion, (Binding our morning knowledge to approve What last night's ignorance spake;) The ties of blood withal, and prejudice of kin. Sir, these weak terrors Must never shake me. I know what belongs To a worthy friendship. Come, you shall have my confidence.
_Lovel_. I hope you think me worthy.
_John_. You will smile to hear now-- Sir Walter never has been out of the island.
_Lovel_. You amaze me.
_John_. That same report of his escape to France Was a fine tale, forged by myself-- Ha! ha! I knew it would stagger him.
_Lovel_. Pray, give me leave. Where has he dwelt, how lived, how lain conceal'd? Sure I may ask so much.
_John_. From place to place, dwelling in no place long, My brother Simon still hath borne him company, ('Tis a brave youth, I envy him all his virtues). Disguised in foreign garb, they pass for Frenchmen, Two Protestant exiles from the Limousin Newly arrived. Their dwelling's now at Nottingham, Where no soul knows them.
_Lovel_. Can you assign any reason why a gentleman of Sir Walter's known prudence should expose his person so lightly?
_John_. I believe, a certain fondness, A childlike cleaving to the land that gave him birth, Chains him like fate.
_Lovel_. I have known some exiles thus To linger out the term of the law's indulgence, To the hazard of being known.
_John_. You may suppose sometimes They use the neighb'ring Sherwood for their sport, Their exercise and freer recreation.-- I see you smile. Pray now, be careful.
_Lovel_. I am no babbler, sir; you need not fear me.
_John_. But some men have been known to talk in their sleep, And tell fine tales that way.
_Lovel_. I have heard so much. But, to say truth, I mostly sleep alone.
_John_. Or drink, sir? do you never drink too freely? Some men will drink, and tell you all their secrets.
_Lovel_. Why do you question me, who know my habits?
_John_. I think you are no sot No tavern-troubler, worshipper of the grape; But all men drink sometimes, And veriest saints at festivals relax, The marriage of a friend, or a wife's birthday.
_Lovel_. How much, sir, may a man with safety drink? [_Smiling_.
_John_. Sir, three half-pints a day is reasonable; I care not if you never exceed that quantity.
_Lovel_. I shall observe it; On holidays two quarts.
_John_. Or, stay; you keep no wench?
_Lovel_. Ha!
_John_. No painted mistress for your private hours? You keep no whore, sir?
_Lovel_. What does he mean?
_John_. Who for a close embrace, a toy of sin, And amorous praising of your worship's breath, In rosy junction of four melting lips, Can kiss out secrets from you?
_Lovel_. How strange this passionate behavior shows in you Sure, you think me some weak one.
_John_. Pray pardon me some fears. You have now the pledge of a dear father's life. I am a son--would fain be thought a loving one; You may allow me some fears: do not despise me, If, in a posture foreign to my spirit, And by our well-knit friendship, I conjure you, Touch not Sir Walter's life. [_Kneels._ You see these tears. My father's an old man. Pray let him live.
_Lovel_. I must be bold to tell you, these new freedoms Show most unhandsome in you.
_John_ (_rising_). Ha! do you say so? Sure, you are not grown proud upon my secret! Ah! now I see it plain. He would be babbling. No doubt a garrulous and hard-faced traitor-- But I'll not give you leave. [_Draws._
_Lovel_. What does this madman mean?
_John_. Come, sir; here is no subterfuge; You must kill me, or I kill you.
_Lovel_ (_drawing_). Then self-defence plead my excuse. Have at you, sir. [_They fight._
_John_. Stay, sir. I hope you have made your will. If not,'tis no great matter. A broken cavalier has seldom much He can bequeath; an old worn peruke, A snuffbox with a picture of Prince Rupert, A rusty sword he'll swear was used at Naseby, Though it ne'er came within ten miles of the place; And if he's very rich, A cheap edition of the _Icon Basilike_, Is mostly all the wealth he dies possest of. You say few prayers, I fancy;--
So to it again. [_They fight again._ LOVEL _is disarmed._
_Lovel_. You had best now take my life. I guess you mean it.
_John_ (_musing_). No:--Men will say I fear'd him, if I kill'd him. Live still, and be a traitor in thy wish, But never act thy thought, being a coward. That vengeance, which thy soul shall nightly thirst for, And this disgrace I've done you cry aloud for, Still have the will without the power to execute. So now I leave you, Feeling a sweet security. No doubt My secret shall remain a virgin for you! [_Goes out, smiling in scorn_.
_Lovel_ (_rising_). For once you are mistaken in your man. The deed you wot of shall forthwith be done, A bird let loose, a secret out of hand, Returns not back. Why, then 'tis baby policy To menace him who hath it in his keeping. I will go look for Gray; Then, northward ho! such tricks as we shall play Have not been seen, I think, in merry Sherwood, Since the days of Robin Hood, that archer good.
ACT THE FOURTH.
SCENE.--_An Apartment in Woodvil Hall_.
JOHN WOODVIL. (_Alone_.)
A weight of wine lies heavy on my head, The unconcocted follies of last night. Now all those jovial fancies, and bright hopes, Children of wine, go off like dreams. This sick vertigo here Preacheth of temperance, no sermon better. These black thoughts, and dull melancholy, That stick like burrs to the brain, will they ne'er leave me? Some men are full of choler, when they are drunk; Some brawl of matter foreign to themselves; And some, the most resolved fools of all, Have told their dearest secrets in their cups.
SCENE.--_The Forest_.
SIR WALTER. SIMON. LOVEL. GRAY.
_Lovel_. Sir, we are sorry we cannot return your French salutation.
_Gray_. Nor otherwise consider this garb you trust to than as a poor disguise.
_Lovel_. Nor use much ceremony with a traitor.
_Gray_. Therefore, without much induction of superfluous words, I attach you, Sir Walter Woodvil, of High Treason, in the King's name.
_Lovel_. And of taking part in the great Rebellion against our late lawful Sovereign, Charles the First.
_Simon_. John has betrayed us, father.
_Lovel_. Come, sir, you had best surrender fairly. We know you, sir.
_Simon_. Hang ye, villains, ye are two better known than trusted. I have seen those faces before. Are ye not two beggarly retainers, trencher-parasites, to John? I think ye rank above his footmen. A sort of bed and board worms--locusts that infest our house; a leprosy that long has hung upon its walls and princely apartments, reaching to fill all the corners of my brother's once noble heart.
_Gray_. We are his friends.
_Simon_. Fie, sir, do not weep. How these rogues will triumph! Shall I whip off their heads, father?
[_Draws_.
_Lovel_. Come, sir, though this show handsome in you, being his son, yet the law must have its course.
_Simon_. And if I tell ye the law shall not have its course, cannot ye be content? Courage, father; shall such things as these apprehend a man? Which of ye will venture upon me?--Will you, Mr. Constable self-elect? or you, sir, with a pimple on your nose, got at Oxford by hard drinking, your only badge of loyalty?
_Gray_. 'Tis a brave youth--I cannot strike at him.
_Simon_. Father, why do you cover your face with your hands? Why do you fetch your breath so hard? See, villains, his heart is burst! O villains, he cannot speak. One of you run for some water; quickly, ye knaves; will ye have your throats cut?
[_They both slink off_.
How is it with you, Sir Walter? Look up, sir, the villains are gone. He hears me not, and this deep disgrace of treachery in his son hath touched him even to the death. O most distuned and distempered world, where sons talk their aged fathers into their graves! Garrulous and diseased world, and still empty, rotten and hollow _talking_ world, where good men decay, states turn round in an endless mutability, and still for the worse; nothing is at a stay, nothing abides but vanity, chaotic vanity.--Brother, adieu!
There lies the parent stock which gave us life, Which I will see consign'd with tears to earth. Leave thou the solemn funeral rites to me, Grief and a true remorse abide with thee.
[_Bears in the body_.
SCENE.--_Another Part of the Forest_.
_Marg_. (_alone_.) It was an error merely, and no crime, An unsuspecting openness in youth, That from his lips the fatal secret drew, Which should have slept like one of nature's mysteries, Unveil'd by any man. Well, he is dead! And what should Margaret do in the forest? O ill-starr'd John! O Woodvil, man enfeoff'd to despair! Take thy farewell of peace. O never look again to see good days, Or close thy lids in comfortable nights, Or ever think a happy thought again, If what I have heard be true.-- Forsaken of the world must Woodvil live, If he did tell these men. No tongue must speak to him, no tongue of man Salute him, when he wakes up in a morning; Or bid "good-night" to John. Who seeks to live In amity with thee, must for thy sake Abide the world's reproach. What then? Shall Margaret join the clamors of the world Against her friend? O undiscerning world, That cannot from misfortune separate guilt, No, not in thought! O never, never, John. Prepared to share the fortunes of her friend _For better or for worse_, thy Margaret comes, To pour into thy wounds a healing love, And wake the memory of an ancient friendship. And pardon me, thou spirit of Sir Walter, Who, in compassion to the wretched living, Have but few tears to waste upon the dead.
SCENE.--_Woodvil Hall._
SANDFORD. MARGARET. (_As from a Journey_.)
_Sand_. The violence of the sudden mischance hath so wrought in him, who by nature is allied to nothing _less_ than a self-debasing humor of dejection, that I have never seen anything more changed and spirit-broken. He hath, with a peremptory resolution, dismissed the partners of his riots and late hours, denied his house and person to their most earnest solicitings, and will be seen by none. He keeps ever alone, and his grief (which is solitary) does not so much seem to possess and govern in him, as it is by Him, with a wilfulness of most manifest affection, entertained and cherished.
_Marg_. How bears he up against the common rumor?
_Sand_. With a strange indifference, which, whosoever dives not into the niceness of his sorrow might mistake for obdurate and insensate. Yet are the wings of his pride forever clipt; and yet a virtuous predominance of filial grief is so ever uppermost, that you may discover his thoughts less troubled with conjecturing what living opinions will say, and judge of his deeds, than absorbed and buried with the dead, whom his indiscretion made so.
_Marg_. I knew a greatness ever to be resident in him, to which the admiring eyes of men should look up even in the declining and bankrupt state of his pride. Fain would I see him, fain talk with him; but that a sense of respect, which is violated, when without deliberation we press into the society of the unhappy, checks and holds me back. How, think you, he would bear my presence?
_Sand_. As of an assured friend, whom in the forgetfulness of his fortunes he past by. See him you must; but not to-night. The newness of the sight shall move the bitterest compunction and the truest remorse; but afterwards, trust me, dear lady, the happiest effects of a returning peace, and a gracious comfort, to him, to you, and all of us.
_Marg_. I think he would not deny me. He hath ere this received farewell letters from his brother, who hath taken a resolution to estrange himself, for a time, from country, friends, and kindred, and to seek occupation for his sad thoughts in travelling in foreign places, where sights remote and extern to himself may draw from him kindly and not painful ruminations.
_Sand_. I was present at the receipt of the letter. The contents seemed to affect him, for a moment, with a more lively passion of grief than he has at any time outwardly shown. He wept with many tears (which I had not before noted in him), and appeared to be touched with the sense as of some unkindness; but the cause of their sad separation and divorce quickly recurring, he presently returned to his former inwardness of suffering.
_Marg_. The reproach of his brother's presence at this hour would have been a weight more than could be sustained by his already oppressed and sinking spirit. Meditating upon these intricate and widespread sorrows, hath brought a heaviness upon me, as of sleep. How goes the night?--
_Sand_. An hour past sunset. You shall first refresh your limbs (tired with travel) with meats and some cordial wine, and then betake your no less wearied mind to repose.
_Marg_. A good rest to us all.
_Sand._ Thanks, lady.
ACT THE FIFTH.
JOHN WOODVIL. (_dressing_).
_John_. How beautiful (_handling his mourning_) And comely do these mourning garments show! Sure Grief hath set his sacred impress here, To claim the world's respect! they note so feelingly By outward types the serious man within.-- Alas! what part or portion can I claim In all the decencies of virtuous sorrow, Which other mourners use? as namely, This black attire, abstraction from society, Good thoughts, and frequent sighs, and seldom smiles, A cleaving sadness native to the brow, All sweet condolements of like-grieved friends, (That steal away the sense of loss almost,) Men's pity and good offices Which enemies themselves do for us then, Putting their hostile disposition off, As we put off our high thoughts and proud looks.
[_Pauses, and observes the pictures_.
These pictures must be taken down: The portraitures of our most ancient family For nigh three hundred years! How have I listen'd, To hear Sir Walter, with an old man's pride, Holding me in his arms, a prating boy, And pointing to the pictures where they hung, Repeat by course their worthy histories, (As Hugh de Widville, Walter, first of the name, And Anne the handsome, Stephen, and famous John: Telling me, I must be his famous John.) But that was in old times. Now, no more Must I grow proud upon our house's pride. I rather, I, by most unheard-of crimes, Have backward tainted all their noble blood, Razed out the memory of an ancient family, And quite reversed the honors of our house. Who now shall sit and tell us anecdotes? The secret history of his own times, And fashions of the world when he was young: How England slept out three-and-twenty years, While Carr and Villiers ruled the baby king: The costly fancies of the pedant's reign, Balls, feastings, huntings, shows in allegory, And Beauties of the court of James the First.
MARGARET _enters_.
_John_. Comes Margaret here to witness my disgrace? O, lady, I have suffer'd loss, And diminution of my honor's brightness. You bring some images of old times, Margaret, That should be now forgotten.
_Marg_. Old times should never be forgotten, John. I came to talk about them with my friend.
_John_. I did refuse you, Margaret, in my pride.
_Marg_. If John rejected Margaret in his pride, (As who does not, being splenetic, refuse Sometimes old playfellows,) the spleen being gone, The offence no longer lives. O Woodvil, those were happy days, When we two first began to love. When first, Under pretence of visiting my father, (Being then a stripling night upon my age,) You came a-wooing to his daughter, John. Do you remember, With what a coy reserve and seldom speech, (Young maidens must be chary of their speech,) I kept the honors of my maiden pride? I was your favorite then.
_John_. O Margaret, Margaret! These your submissions to my low estate, And cleavings to the fates of sunken Woodvil, Write bitter things 'gainst my unworthiness. Thou perfect pattern of thy slander'd sex, Whom miseries of mine could never alienate, Nor change of fortune shake; whom injuries, And slights (the worst of injuries) which moved Thy nature to return scorn with like scorn, Then when you left in virtuous pride this house, Could not so separate, but now in this My day of shame, when all the world forsake me, You only visit me, love, and forgive me.
_Marg_. Dost yet remember the green arbor. John, In the south gardens of my father's house, Where we have seen the summer sun go down, Exchanging true love's vows without restraint? And that old wood, you call'd your wilderness, And vow'd in sport to build a chapel in it, There dwell
"Like hermit poor In pensive place obscure."
And tell your Ave Maries by the curls (Dropping like golden beads) of Margaret's hair; And make confession seven times a day Of every thought that stray'd from love and Margaret; And I your saint the penance should appoint-- Believe me, sir, I will not now be laid Aside, like an old fashion.
_John._ O lady, poor and abject are my thoughts; My pride is cured, my hopes are under clouds, I have no part in any good man's love, In all earth's pleasures portion have I none, I fade and wither in my own esteem, This earth holds not alive so poor a thing as I am. I was not always thus. [_Weeps_.
_Marg_. Thou noble nature, Which lion-like didst awe the inferior creatures, Now trampled on by beasts of basest quality, My dear heart's lord, life's pride, soul-honor'd John! Upon her knees (regard her poor request) Your favorite, once beloved Margaret, kneels.
_John_. What would'st thou, lady, ever honor'd Margaret?
_Marg_. That John would think more nobly of himself, More worthily of high Heaven; And not for one misfortune, child of chance, No crime, but unforeseen, and sent to punish The less offence, with image of the greater, Thereby to work the soul's humility, (Which end hath happily not been frustrate quite,) O not for one offence mistrust Heaven's mercy, Nor quit thy hope of happy days to come-- John yet has many happy days to live; To live and make atonement.
_John_. Excellent lady, Whose suit hath drawn this softness from my eyes, Not the world's scorn, nor falling off of friends, Could ever do. Will you go with me, Margaret?
_Marg_. (_rising_). Go whither, John?
_John_. Go in with me And pray for the peace of our unquiet minds?
_Marg_. That I will, John.
[_Exeunt_.
SCENE.--_An inner Apartment_.
JOHN _is discovered kneeling_.--MARGARET _standing over him_.
_John_ (_rises_). I cannot bear To see you waste that youth and excellent beauty, ('Tis now the golden time of the day with you,) In tending such a broken wretch as I am.
_Marg_. John will break Margaret's heart, if he speak so. O sir, sir, sir, you are too melancholy, And I must call it caprice. I am somewhat bold Perhaps in this. But you are now my patient, (You know you gave me leave to call you so,) And I must chide these pestilent humors from you.
_John_. They are gone.-- Mark, love, how cheerfully I speak! I can smile too, and I almost begin To understand what kind of creature Hope is.
_Marg_. Now this is better, this mirth becomes you, John.
_John_. Yet tell me, if I overact my mirth, (Being but a novice, I may fall into that error.) That were a sad indecency, you know.
_Marg_. Nay, never fear. I will be mistress of your humors, And you shall frown or smile by the book. And herein I shall be most peremptory, Cry, "This shows well, but that inclines to levity; This frown has too much of the Woodvil in it, But that fine sunshine has redeem'd it quite."
_John_. How sweetly Margaret robs me of myself!
_Marg_. To give you in your stead a better self! Such as you were, when these eyes first beheld You mounted on your sprightly steed, White Margery, Sir Rowland my father's gift, And all my maidens gave my heart for lost. I was a young thing then, being newly come Home from my convent education, where Seven years I had wasted in the bosom of France: Returning home true protestant, you call'd me Your little heretic nun. How timid-bashful Did John salute his love, being newly seen! Sir Rowland term'd it a rare modesty, And praised it in a youth.
_John_. Now Margaret weeps herself.
(_A noise of bells heard_.)
_Marg_. Hark the bells, John.
_John_. Those are the church-bells of St. Mary Ottery.
_Marg_. I know it.
_John_. St. Mary Ottery, my native village In the sweet shire of Devon. Those are the bells.
_Marg._ Wilt go to church, John?
_John._ I have been there already.
_Marg._ How canst say thou hast been there already? The bells are only now ringing for morning service, And hast thou been at church already?
_John._ I left my bed betimes, I could not sleep, And when I rose, I look'd (as my custom is) From my chamber window, where I can see the sun rise; And the first object I discern'd Was the glistering spire of St. Mary Ottery.
_Marg._ Well, John.
_John._ Then I remember'd 'twas the sabbath day. Immediately a wish arose in my mind, To go to church and pray with Christian people. And then I check'd myself, and said to myself, "Thou hast been a heathen, John, these two years past, (Not having been at church in all that time,) And is it fit, that now for the first time Thou shouldst offend the eyes of Christian people With a murderer's presence in the house of prayer? Thou wouldst but discompose their pious thoughts, And do thyself no good: for how couldst thou pray, With unwash'd hands, and lips unused to the offices?" And then I at my own presumption smiled; And then I wept that I should smile at all, Having such cause of grief! I wept outright: Tears like a river flooded all my face, And I began to pray, and found I could pray; And still I yearn'd to say my prayers in the church. "Doubtless (said I) one might find comfort in it." So stealing down the stairs, like one that fear'd detection, Or was about to act unlawful business At that dead time of dawn, I flew to the church, and found the doors wide open. (Whether by negligence I knew not, Or some peculiar grace to me vouchsafed, For all things felt like mystery.)
_Marg_. Yes.
_John_. So entering in, not without fear, I passed into the family pew, And covering up my eyes for shame, And deep perception of unworthiness, Upon the little hassock knelt me down, Where I so oft had kneel'd, A docile infant by Sir Walter's side; And, thinking so, I wept a second flood More poignant than the first; But afterwards was greatly comforted. It seem'd the guilt of blood was passing from me Even in the act and agony of tears, And all my sins forgiven.
THE WITCH;
A DRAMATIC SKETCH OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
* * * * *
CHARACTERS.
OLD SERVANT _in the Family of_ SIR FRANCIS FAIRFORD. STRANGER.
* * * * *
_Servant_. One summer night Sir Francis, as it chanced, Was pacing to and fro in the avenue That westward fronts our house, Among those aged oaks, said to have been planted Three hundred years ago, By a neighb'ring prior of the Fairford name. Being o'ertasked in thought, he heeded not The importunate suit of one who stood by the gate, And begg'd an alms. Some say he shoved her rudely from the gate With angry chiding; but I can never think (Our master's nature hath a sweetness in it) That he could use a woman, an old woman, With such discourtesy; but he refused her-- And better had he met a lion in his path Than that old woman that night; For she was one who practised the black arts, And serv'd the devil, being since burnt for witchcraft. She look'd at him as one that meant to blast him, And with a frightful noise, ('Twas partly like a woman's voice, And partly like the hissing of a snake,) She nothing said but this (Sir Francis told the words):--
A mischief, mischief, mischief, And a nine-times killing curse, By day and by night, to the caitiff wight, Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door, And shuts up the womb of his purse. And still she cried--
A mischief, And a ninefold withering curse: For that shall come to thee that will undo thee, Both all that thou fearest and worse.
So saying, she departed, Leaving Sir Francis like a man, beneath Whose feet a scaffolding was suddenly falling; So he described it.
_Stranger_. A terrible curse! What follow'd?
_Servant_. Nothing immediate, but some two months after, Young Philip Fairford suddenly fell sick, And none could tell what ail'd him; for he lay, And pined, and pined, till all his hair fell off, And he, that was full-flesh'd, became as thin As a two-months' babe that has been starved in the nursing. And sure I think He bore his death-wound like a little child; With such rare sweetness of dumb melancholy He strove to clothe his agony in smiles, Which he would force up in his poor pale cheeks, Like ill-timed guests that had no proper dwelling there; And, when they ask'd him his complaint, he laid His hand upon his heart to show the place, Where Susan came to him a-nights, he said, And prick'd him with a pin.-- And thereupon Sir Francis call'd to mind The beggar-witch that stood by the gateway And begg'd an alms.
_Stranger_. But did the witch confess?
_Servant_. All this and more at her death.
_Stranger_. I do not love to credit tales of magic. Heaven's music, which is Order, seems unstrung, And this brave world (The mystery of God) unbeautified, Disorder'd, marr'd, where such strange things are acted.
ALBUM VERSES,
WITH A FEW OTHERS.
DEDICATION.
* * * * *
TO THE PUBLISHER.
DEAR MOXON,
I do not know to whom a Dedication of these Trifles is more properly due than to yourself. You suggested the printing of them. You were desirous of exhibiting a specimen of the _manner_ in which Publications, intrusted to your future care, would appear. With more propriety, perhaps, the "Christmas," or some other of your own simple, unpretending Compositions, might have served this purpose. But I forget--you have bid a long adieu to the Muses. I had on my hands sundry Copies of Verses written for _Albums_--
Those books kept by modern young Ladies for show Of which their plain Grandmothers nothing did know--
or otherwise floating about in Periodicals; which you have chosen in this manner to embody. I feel little interest in their publication. They are simply--_Advertisement Verses_.
It is not for me, nor you, to allude in public to the kindness of our honored Friend, under whose auspices you are become a Publisher. May that fine-minded Veteran in Verse enjoy life long enough to see his patronage justified? I venture to predict that your habits of industry, and your cheerful spirit, will carry you through the world.
I am, Dear Moxon,
Your Friend and sincere Well-Wisher,
CHARLES LAMB.
ENFIELD, _1st June_, 1839.
ALBUM VERSES
WITH A FEW OTHERS.
* * * * *
IN THE AUTOGRAPH BOOK OF MRS. SERGEANT W----.
* * * * *
Had I a power, Lady, to my will, You should not want Hand Writings. I would fill Your leaves with Autographs--resplendent names Of Knights and Squires of old, and courtly Dames, Kings, Emperors, Popes. Next under these should stand The hands of famous Lawyers--a grave band-- Who in their Courts of Law or Equity Have best upheld Freedom and Property. These should moot cases in your book, and vie To show their reading and their Sergeantry. But I have none of these; nor can I send The notes by Bullen to her Tyrant penn'd In her authentic hand; nor in soft hours Lines writ by Rosamund in Clifford's bowers. The lack of curious Signatures I moan, And want the courage to subscribe my own.
* * * * *
TO DORA W----.
ON BEING ASKED BY HER FATHER TO WRITE IN HER ALBUM.
An Album is a Banquet: from the store, In his intelligential Orchard growing, Your Sire might heap your board to overflowing: One shaking of the Tree--'twould ask no more To set a Salad forth, more rich than that Which Evelyn[1] in his princely cookery fancied: Or that more rare, by Eve's neat hands enhanced, Where, a pleased guest, the Angelic Virtue sat. But like the all-grasping Founder of the Feast, Whom Nathan to the sinning king did tax, From his less wealthy neighbors he exacts; Spares his own flocks, and takes the poor man's beast. Obedient to his bidding, lo, I am, A zealous, meek, _contributory_ LAMB.
[Footnote 1: Acetaria, a Discourse of Sallets, by J. E. 1706.]
* * * * *
IN THE ALBUM OF A CLERGYMAN'S LADY.
An Album is a Garden, not for show Planted, but use; where wholesome herbs should grow. A Cabinet of curious porcelain, where No fancy enters, but what's rich or rare. A Chapel, where mere ornamental things Are pure as crowns of saints, or angels' wings. A List of living friends; a holier Room For names of some since mouldering in the tomb, Whose blooming memories life's cold laws survive; And, dead elsewhere, they here yet speak and live. Such, and so tender, should an Album be; And, Lady, such I wish this book to thee.
* * * * *
IN THE ALBUM OF EDITH S----.
In Christian world MARY the garland wears! REBECCA sweetens on a Hebrew's ear; Quakers for pure PRISCILLA are more clear; And the light Gaul by amorous NINON swears. Among the lesser lights how LUCY shines! What air of fragrance ROSAMOND throws round! How like a hymn doth sweet CECILIA sound! Of MARTHAS, and of ABIGAILS, few lines Have bragg'd in verse. Of coarsest household stuff Should homely JOAN be fashion'd. But can You BARBARA resist, or MARIAN? And is not CLARE for love excuse enough? Yet, by my faith in numbers, I profess, These all, than Saxon EDITH, please me less.
* * * * *
IN THE ALBUM OF ROTHA Q----.
A passing glance was all I caught of thee, In my own Enfield haunts at random roving. Old friends of ours were with thee, faces loving; Time short: and salutations cursory, Though deep, and hearty. The familiar Name Of you, yet unfamiliar, raised in me Thoughts--what the daughter of that Man should be, Who call'd our Wordsworth friend. My thoughts did frame A growing Maiden, who, from day to day Advancing still in stature, and in grace, Would all her lonely Father's griefs efface, And his paternal cares with usury pay. I still retain the phantom, as I can; And call the gentle image--Quillinan.
* * * * *
IN THE ALBUM OF CATHERINE ORKNEY.
CANADIA! boast no more the toils Of hunters for the furry spoils; Your whitest ermines are but foils To brighter Catherine Orkney.
That such a flower should ever burst From climes with rigorous winter curst!-- We bless you, that so kindly nurst This flower, this Catherine Orkney.
We envy not your proud display Of lake--wood--vast Niagara; Your greatest pride we've borne away. How spared you Catherine Orkney?
That Wolfe on Heights of Abraham fell, To your reproach no more we tell: Canadia, you repaid us well With rearing Catherine Orkney.
O Britain, guard with tenderest care The charge allotted to your share: You've scarce a native maid so fair, So good, as Catherine Orkney.
* * * * *
IN THE ALBUM OF LUCY BARTON.
Little Book, surnamed of _white_, Clean as yet, and fair to sight, Keep thy attribution right.
Never disproportion'd scrawl; Ugly blot, that's worse than all; On thy maiden clearness fall!
In each letter, here design'd, Let the reader emblem'd find Neatness of the owner's mind.
Gilded margins count a sin, Let thy leaves attraction win By the golden rules within;
Sayings fetch'd from sages old; Laws which Holy Writ unfold, Worthy to be graved in gold:
Lighter fancies not excluding: Blameless wit, with nothing rude in, Sometimes mildly interluding
Amid strains of graver measure: Virtue's self hath oft her pleasure In sweet Muses' groves of leisure.
Riddles dark, perplexing sense; Darker meanings of offence; What but _shades_--be banish'd hence.
Whitest thoughts in whitest dress, Candid meanings, best express Mind of quiet Quakeress.
* * * * *
IN THE ALBUM OF MRS. JANE TOWERS.
Lady Unknown, who crav'st from me Unknown The trifle of a verse these leaves to grace, How shall I find fit matter? with what face Address a face that ne'er to me was shown? Thy looks, tones, gesture, manners, and what not, Conjecturing, I wander in the dark. I know thee only Sister to Charles Clarke! But at that name my cold muse waxes hot, And swears that thou art such a one as he, Warm, laughter-loving, with a touch of madness, Wild, glee-provoking, pouring oil of gladness From frank heart without guile. And, if thou be The pure reverse of this, and I mistake-- Demure one, I will like thee for his sake.
* * * * *
IN THE ALBUM OF MISS ----.
I.
Such goodness in your face doth shine, With modest look without design, That I despair, poor pen of mine Can e'er express it. To give it words I feebly try; My spirits fail me to supply Befitting language for't, and I Can only bless it!
II.
But stop, rash verse! and don't abuse A bashful Maiden's ear with news Of her own virtues. She'll refuse Praise sung so loudly. Of that same goodness you admire, The best part is, she don't aspire To praise--nor of herself desire To think too proudly.
* * * * *
IN MY OWN ALBUM.
Fresh clad from heaven in robes of white, A young probationer of light, Thou wert, my soul, an album bright,
A spotless leaf; but thought, and care, And friend and foe, in foul or fair, Have "written strange defeatures" there;
And Time with heaviest hand of all, Like that fierce writing on the wall, Hath stamp'd sad dates--he can't recall;
And error gilding worst designs-- Like speckled snake that strays and shines-- Betrays his path by crooked lines;
And vice hath left his ugly blot; And good resolves, a moment hot, Fairly began--but finish'd not;
And fruitless, late remorse doth trace-- Like Hebrew lore a backward pace-- Her irrecoverable race.
Disjointed numbers; sense unknit Huge reams of folly, shreds of wit; Compose the mingled mass of it.
My scalded eyes no longer brook Upon this ink-blurr'd thing to look-- Go, shut the leaves, and clasp the book.
MISCELLANEOUS.
* * * * *
ANGEL HELP[1]
[Footnote 1: Suggested by a drawing in the possession of Charles Aders, Esq., in which is represented the legend of a poor female Saint; who, having spun past midnight, to maintain a bedrid mother, has fallen asleep from fatigue, and Angels are finishing her work. In another part of the chamber, an angel is tending a lily, the emblem of purity.]
This rare tablet doth include Poverty with sanctitude. Past midnight this poor maid hath spun, And yet the work is not half done, Which must supply from earnings scant A feeble bedrid parent's want. Her sleep-charged eyes exemption ask, And Holy hands take up the task; Unseen the rock and spindle ply, And do her earthly drudgery. Sleep, saintly poor one! sleep, sleep on; And, waking, find thy labors done. Perchance she knows it by her dreams; Her eye hath caught the golden gleams, Angelic presence testifying, That round her everywhere are flying; Ostents from which she may presume, That much of heaven is in the room. Skirting her own bright hair they run, And to the sunny add more sun: Now on that aged face they fix, Streaming from the Crucifix; The flesh-clogg'd spirit disabusing, Death-disarming sleeps infusing, Prelibations, foretastes high, And equal thoughts to live or die. Gardener bright from Eden's bower, Tend with care that lily flower; To its leaves and root infuse Heaven's sunshine, Heaven's dews. 'Tis a type, and 'tis a pledge, Of a crowning privilege. Careful as that lily flower, This maid must keep her precious dower; Live a sainted maid, or die Martyr to virginity.
* * * * *
ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN.
I saw where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature's work. A flow'ret crushed in the bud, A nameless piece of Babyhood, Was in her cradle-coffin lying; Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: So soon to exhange the imprisoning womb For darker closets of the tomb! She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then straight up shut For the long dark: ne'er more to see Through glasses of mortality. Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below? Shall we say, that Nature blind Check'd her hand, and changed her mind, Just when she had exactly wrought A finish'd pattern without fault? Could she flag, or could she tire, Or lack'd she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry, That babe or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock, And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd; and the pain, When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, 'reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimed life? The economy of Heaven is dark; And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark, Why Human Buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral, That has his day; while shrivell'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbed use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years. Mother's prattle, mother's kiss, Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss. Rites, which custom does impose, Silver bells and baby clothes; Coral redder than those lips, Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never tuned for thee; Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them, Loving hearts were they which gave them. Let not one be missing; nurse, See them laid upon the hearse Of infant slain by doom perverse. Why should kings and nobles have Pictured trophies to their grave; And we, churls, to thee deny Thy pretty toys with thee to lie, A more harmless vanity?
* * * * *
THE CHRISTENING.
Array'd--a half-angelic sight-- In vests of pure Baptismal white, The mother to the Font doth bring The little helpless nameless thing, With hushes soft and mild caressing, At once to get--a name and blessing. Close by the babe the Priest doth stand, The Cleansing Water at his hand, Which must assoil the soul within From every stain of Adam's sin. The Infant eyes the mystic scenes, Nor knows what all this wonder means; And now he smiles, as if to say "I am a Christian made this day;" Now frighted clings to Nurse's hold, Shrinking from the water cold, Whose virtues, rightly understood, Are, as Bethesda's waters, good. Strange words--The World, The Flesh, The Devil-- Poor Babe, what can it know of evil? But we must silently adore Mysterious truths, and not explore. Enough for him, in after-times, When he shall read these artless rhymes, If, looking back upon this day With quiet conscience, he can say-- "I have in part redeem'd the pledge Of my Baptismal privilege; And more and more will strive to flee All which my Sponsors kind did then renounce for me."
* * * * *
THE YOUNG CATECHIST[1]
[Footnote 1: A picture by Henry Meyer, Esq.]
While this tawny Ethiop prayeth, Painter, who is she that stayeth By, with skin of whitest lustre, Sunny locks, a shining cluster, Saint-like seeming to direct him To the Power that must protect him? Is she of the Heaven-born Three, Meek Hope, strong Faith, sweet Charity; Or some Cherub?--
They you mention Far transcend my weak invention. 'Tis a simple Christian child, Missionary young and mild, From her stock of Scriptural knowledge, Bible-taught without a college, Which by reading she could gather Teaches him to say OUR FATHER To the common Parent, who Color not respects, nor hue. White and black in Him have part, Who looks not to the skin, but heart.
* * * * *
TO A YOUNG FRIEND,
ON HER TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY.
Crown me a cheerful goblet, while I pray A blessing on thy years, young Isola; Young, but no more a child. How swift have flown To me thy girlish times, a woman grown Beneath my heedless eyes! in vain I rack My fancy to believe the almanac, That speaks thee Twenty-One. Thou shouldst have still Remain'd a child, and at thy sovereign will Gambol'd about our house, as in times past. Ungrateful Emma, to grow up so fast, Hastening to leave thy friends!--for which intent, Fond Runagate, be this thy punishment: After some thirty years, spent in such bliss As this earth can afford, where still we miss Something of joy entire, may'st thou grow old As we whom thou hast left! That wish was cold. O far more aged and wrinkled, till folks say, Looking upon thee reverend in decay, "This Dame, for length of days, and virtues rare, With her respected Grandsire may compare." Grandchild of that respected Isola, Thou shouldst have had about thee on this day Kind looks of Parents, to congratulate Their Pride grown up to woman's grave estate. But they have died, and left thee, to advance Thy fortunes how thou may'st, and owe to chance The friends which nature grudged. And thou wilt find, Or make such, Emma, if I am not blind To thee and thy deservings. That last strain Had too much sorrow in it. Fill again Another cheerful goblet, while I say "Health, and twice health, to our lost Isola."
* * * * *
SHE IS GOING.
For their elder Sister's hair Martha does a wreath prepare Of bridal rose, ornate and gay; To-morrow is the wedding-day. She is going.
Mary, youngest of the three, Laughing idler, full of glee, Arm in arm does fondly chain her, Thinking, poor trifler, to detain her-- But she's going.
Vex not, maidens, nor regret Thus to part with Margaret. Charms like yours can never stay Long within doors; and one day You'll be going.
SONNETS.
* * * * *
HARMONY IN UNLIKENESS.
By Enfield lanes, and Winchmore's verdant hill, Two lovely damsels cheer my lonely walk: The fair Maria, as a vestal, still; And Emma brown, exuberant in talk. With soft and Lady speech the first applies The mild correctives that to grace belong To her redundant friend, who her defies With jest, and mad discourse, and bursts of song. O differing Pair, yet sweetly thus agreeing, What music from your happy discord rises, While your companion hearing each, and seeing, Nor this nor that, but both together, prizes; This lesson teaching, which our souls may strike, That harmonies may be in things unlike!
* * * * *
WRITTEN AT CAMBRIDGE.
I was not train'd in Academic bowers, And to those learned streams I nothing owe Which copious from those twin fair founts do flow; Mine have been anything but studious hours. Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers, Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap; My brow seems tightening with the Doctor's cap, And I walk _gowned_; feel unusual powers. Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech, Old Ramus' ghost is busy at my brain; And my skull teems with notions infinite. Be still, ye reeds of Camus, while I teach Truths, which transcend the searching Schoolmen's vein, And half had stagger'd that stout Stagirite.
* * * * *
TO A CELEBRATED FEMALE PERFORMER IN "THE BLIND BOY."
Rare artist! who with half thy tools, or none, Canst execute with ease thy curious art, And press thy powerful'st meanings on the heart, Unaided by the eye, expression's throne! While each blind sense, intelligential grown Beyond its sphere, performs the effect of sight: Those orbs alone, wanting their proper might,. All motionless and silent seem to moan The unseemly negligence of nature's hand, That left them so forlorn. What praise is thine, O mistress of the passions; artist fine! Who dost our souls against our sense command, Plucking the horror from a sightless face, Lending to blank deformity a grace.
* * * * *
WORK.
Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down To the ever-haunting importunity Of business in the green fields, and the town-- To plough, loom, anvil, spade--and oh! most sad To that dry drudgery at the--desk's dead wood? Who but the Being unblest, alien from good, Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings, That round and round incalculably reel-- For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel-- In that red realm from which are no returnings: Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye He, and his thoughts, keep pensive working-day.
* * * * *
LEISURE.
They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke, That like a mill-stone on man's mind doth press, Which only works and business can redress: Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke. But might I, fed with silent meditation, Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation-- _Improbus Labor_, which my spirits hath broke-- I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit: Fling in more days than went to make the gem That crown'd the white top of Methusalem: Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit, Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky, The heaven-sweet burden of eternity.
* * * * *
DEUS NOBIS HÆC OTIA FECIT.
* * * * *
TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.
Rogers, of all the men that I have known But slightly, who have died, your Brother's loss Touch'd me most sensibly. There came across My mind an image of the cordial tone Of your fraternal meetings, where a guest I more than once have sat; and grieve to think, That of that threefold cord one precious link By Death's rude hand is sever'd from the rest. Of our old gentry he appear'd a stem-- A Magistrate who, while the evil-doer He kept in terror, could respect the Poor, And not for every trifle harass them, As some, divine and laic, too oft do. This man's a private loss, and public too.
* * * * *
THE GYPSY'S MALISON.
"Suck, baby, suck! mother's love grows by giving; Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting; Black manhood comes, when riotous guilty living Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.
"Kiss, baby, kiss! mother's lips shine by kisses; Choke the warm breath that else would fall in blessings; Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses Tend thee the kiss that poisons 'mid caressings.
"Hang, baby, hang! mother's love loves such forces, Strain the fond neck that bends still to thy clinging; Black manhood comes, when violent lawless courses Leave thee a spectacle in rude air swinging."
So sang a wither'd Beldam energetical, And bann'd the ungiving door with lips prophetical.
COMMENDATORY VERSES, ETC.
* * * * *
TO J. S. KNOWLES, ESQ. ON HIS TRAGEDY OF VIRGINIUS.
Twelve years ago I knew thee, Knowles, and then Esteemed you a perfect specimen Of those fine spirits warm-soul'd Ireland sends, To teach us colder English how a friend's Quick pulse should beat. I knew you brave, and plain, Strong-sensed, rough-witted, above fear or gain; But nothing further had the gift to espy. Sudden you reappear. With wonder I Hear my old friend (turn'd Shakspeare) read a scene Only to _his_ inferior in the clean Passes of pathos: with such fence-like art-- Ere we can see the steel, 'tis in our heart. Almost without the aid language affords, Your piece seems wrought. That huffing medium, _words_, (Which in the modern Tamburlaines quite sway Our shamed souls from their bias) in your play We scarce attend to. Hastier passion draws Our tears on credit: and we find the cause Some two hours after, spelling o'er again Those strange few words at ease, that wrought the pain. Proceed, old friend; and, as the year returns, Still snatch some new old story from the urns Of long-dead virtue. We, that knew before Your worth, may admire, we cannot love you more.
* * * * *
TO THE AUTHOR OF POEMS,
PUBLISHED UNDER THE NAME OF BARRY CORNWALL.
Let hate, or grosser heats, their foulness mask Under the vizor of a borrow'd name; Let things eschew the light deserving blame: No cause hast thou to blush for thy sweet task. "Marcian Colonna" is a dainty book; And thy "Sicilian Tale" may boldly pass; Thy "Dream" 'bove all, in which, as in a glass, On the great world's antique glories we may look. No longer then, as "lowly substitute, Factor, or PROCTER, for another's gains," Suffer the admiring world to be deceived; Lest thou thyself, by self of fame bereaved, Lament too late the lost prize of thy pains, And heavenly tunes piped through an alien flute.
* * * * *
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK."
I like you, and your book, ingenuous Hone! In whose capacious all-embracing leaves The very marrow of tradition's shown; And all that history--much that fiction--weaves.
By every sort of taste your work is graced. Vast stores of modern anecdote we find, With good old story quaintly interlaced-- The theme as various as the reader's mind.
Rome's lie-fraught legends you so truly paint-- Yet kindly,--that the half-turn'd Catholic Scarcely forbears to smile at his own saint, And cannot curse the candid heretic.
Rags, relics, witches, ghosts, fiends, crowd your page; Our fathers' mummeries we well-pleased behold, And, proudly conscious of a purer age, Forgive some fopperies in the times of old.
Verse-honoring Phoebus, Father of bright _Days_, Must needs bestow on you both good and many, Who, building trophies of his Children's praise, Run their rich Zodiac through, not missing any.
Dan Phoebus loves your book--trust me, friend Hone-- The title only errs, he bids me say: For while such art, wit, reading, there are shown, He swears,'tis not a work of _every day_.
* * * * *
TO T. STOTHARD, ESQ. ON HIS ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POEMS OF MR. ROGERS.
Consummate Artist, whose undying name With classic Rogers shall go down to fame, Be this thy crowning work! In my young days How often have I, with a child's fond gaze, Pored on the pictur'd wonders[1] thou hadst done: Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison! All Fielding's, Smollett's heroes, rose to view; I saw, and I believed the phantoms true. But, above all, that most romantic tale[2] Did o'er my raw credulity prevail, Where Glums and Gawries wear mysterious things, That serve at once for jackets and for wings. Age, that enfeebles other men's designs, But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines. In several ways distinct you make us feel-- _Graceful_ as Raphael, as Watteau _genteel_. Your lights and shades, as Titianesque, we praise; And warmly wish you Titian's length of days.
[Footnote 1: Illustrations of the British Novelists.]
[Footnote 2: Peter Wilkins.]
* * * * *
TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE.
What makes a happy wedlock? What has fate Not given to thee in thy well-chosen mate? Good sense--good humor;--these are trivial things, Dear M----, that each trite encomiast sings. But she hath these, and more. A mind exempt From every low-bred passion, where contempt, Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found A harbor yet; an understanding sound; Just views of right and wrong; perception full Of the deform'd, and of the beautiful, In life and manners; wit above her sex, Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks; Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth, To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth; A noble nature, conqueror in the strife Of conflict with a hard discouraging life, Strengthening the veins of virtue, past the power Of those whose days have been one silken hour, Spoil'd fortune's pamper'd offspring; a keen sense Alike of benefit, and of offence, With reconcilement quick, that instant springs From the charged heart with nimble angel wings; While grateful feelings, like a signet sign'd By a strong hand, seemed burn'd into her mind. If these, dear friend, a dowry can confer Richer than land, thou hast them all in her; And beauty, which some hold the chiefest boon, Is in thy bargain for a make-weight thrown.
* * * * *
[In a leaf of a quarto edition of the "Lives of the Saints, written in Spanish by the learned and reverend father, Alfonso Villegas, Divine, of the Order of St. Dominick, set forth in English by John Heigham, Anno 1630," bought at a Catholic book-shop in Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, I found, carefully inserted, a painted flower, seemingly coeval with the book itself; and did not, for some time, discover that it opened in the middle, and was the cover to a very humble draught of a St. Anne, with the Virgin and Child; doubtless the performance of some poor but pious Catholic, whose meditations it assisted.]
O lift with reverent hand that tarnish'd flower, That shrines beneath her modest canopy Memorials dear to Romish piety; Dim specks, rude shapes, of Saints! in fervent hour The work perchance of some meek devotee, Who, poor in worldly treasures to set forth The sanctities she worshipp'd to their worth, In this imperfect tracery might see Hints, that all Heaven did to her sense reveal. Cheap gifts best fit poor givers. We are told Of the lone mite, the cup of water cold, That in their way approved the offerer's zeal. True love shows costliest, where the means are scant; And, in their reckoning, they _abound_, who _want_.
* * * * *
THE SELF-ENCHANTED.
I had a sense in dreams of a beauty rare, Whom Fate had spell-bound, and rooted there, Stooping, like some enchanted theme, Over the marge of that crystal stream, Where the blooming Greek, to Echo blind, With Self-love fond, had to waters pined, Ages had waked, and ages slept, And that bending posture still she kept: For her eyes she may not turn away, 'Till a fairer object shall pass that way-- 'Till an image more beauteous this world can show, Than her own which she sees in the mirror below. Pore on, fair Creature! forever pore, Nor dream to be disenchanted more: For vain is expectance, and wish in vain, 'Till a new Narcissus can come again.
TO LOUISA M----, WHOM I USED TO CALL "MONKEY."
Louisa, serious grown and mild, I knew you once a romping child, Obstreperous much and very wild. Then you would clamber up my knees, And strive with every art to tease, When every art of yours could please. Those things would scarce be proper now, But they are gone, I know not how, And woman's written on your brow. Time draws his finger o'er the scene; But I cannot forget between The Thing to me you once have been; Each sportive sally, wild escape,-- The scoff, the banter, and the jape,-- And antics of my gamesome Ape.
TRANSLATIONS.
FROM THE LATIN OF VINCENT BOURNE.
* * * * *
I.
THE BALLAD SINGERS.
Where seven fair Streets to one tall Column[1] draw, Two Nymphs have ta'en their stand, in hats of straw; Their yellower necks huge beads of amber grace, And by their trade they're of the Sirens' race: With cloak loose-pinn'd on each, that has been red, But long with dust and dirt discolored Belies its hue; in mud behind, before, From heel to middle leg becrusted o'er. One a small infant at the breast does bear; And one in her right hand her tuneful ware, Which she would vend. Their station scarce is taken, When youths and maids flock round. His stall forsaken, Forth comes a Son of Crispin, leathern-capt, Prepared to buy a ballad, if one apt To move his fancy offers. Crispin's sons Have, from uncounted time, with ale and buns, Cherish'd the gift of _Song_, which sorrow quells; And, working single in their low-rooft cells, Oft cheat the tedium of a winter's night With anthems warbled in the Muses' spight.-- Who now hath caught the alarm? the Servant Maid, Hath heard a buzz at distance; and, afraid To miss a note, with elbows red comes out. Leaving his forge to cool, Pyracmon stout Thrusts in his unwash'd visage. _He_ stands by, Who the hard trade of Porterage does ply With stooping shoulders. What cares he? he sees The assembled ring, nor heeds his tottering knees, But pricks his ears up with the hopes of song. So, while the Bard of Rhodope his wrong Bewail'd to Proserpine on Thracian strings, The tasks of gloomy Orcus lost their stings, And stone-vext Sysiphus forgets his load. Hither and thither from the sevenfold road Some cart or wagon crosses, which divides The close-wedged audience; but, as when the tides To ploughing ships give way, the ship being past, They reunite, so these unite as fast. The older Songstress hitherto hath spent Her elocution in the argument Of their great Song in _prose_; to wit, the woes Which Maiden true to faithless Sailor owes-- Ah! "_Wandering He!_"--which now in loftier _verse_ Pathetic they alternately rehearse. All gaping wait the event. This Critic opes His right ear to the strain. The other hopes To catch it better with his left. Long trade It were to tell, how the deluded maid A victim fell. And now right greedily All hands are stretching forth the songs to buy, That are so tragical; which She, and She, Deals out, and _sings the while_; nor can there be A breast so obdurate here, that will hold back His contribution from the gentle rack Of Music's pleasing torture. Irus' self, The staff-propt Beggar, his thin gotten pelf Brings out from pouch, where squalid farthings rest, And boldly claims his ballad with the best. An old Dame only lingers. To her purse The penny sticks. At length, with harmless curse, "Give me," she cries. "I'll paste it on my wall, While the wall lasts, to show what ills befall Fond hearts, seduced from Innocency's way; How Maidens fall, and Mariners betray."
[Footnote 1: Seven Dials]
* * * * *
II.
TO DAVID COOK,
OF THE PARISH OF ST. MARGARET'S, WESTMINSTER, WATCHMAN.
For much good-natured verse received from thee, A loving verse take in return from me. "Good-morrow to my masters," is your cry; And to our David "twice as good," say I. Not Peter's monitor, shrill Chanticleer, Crows the approach of dawn in notes more clear, Or tells the hours more faithfully. While night Fills half the world with shadows of affright, You with your lantern, partner of your round, Traverse the paths of Margaret's hallow'd bound. The tales of ghosts which old wives' ears drink up, The drunkard reeling home from tavern cup, Nor prowling robber, your firm soul appall; Arm'd with thy faithful staff, thou slight'st them all. But if the market gard'ner chance to pass, Bringing to town his fruit, or early grass, The gentle salesman you with candor greet, And with reit'rated "good-mornings" meet. Announcing your approach by formal bell, Of nightly weather you the changes tell; Whether the Moon shines, or her head doth steep In rain-portending clouds. When mortals sleep In downy rest, you brave the snows and sleet Of winter; and in alley, or in street, Relieve your midnight progress with a verse. What though fastidious Phoebus frown averse On your didactic strain--indulgent Night With caution hath seal'd up both ears of Spite, And critics sleep while you in staves do sound The praise of long-dead Saints, whose Days abound In wintry months; but Crispin chief proclaim: Who stirs not at that Prince of Cobblers' name? Profuse in loyalty some couplets shine, And wish long days to all the Brunswick line! To youths and virgins they chaste lessons read; Teach wives and husbands how their lives to lead; Maids to be cleanly, footmen free from vice: How death at last all ranks doth equalize; And, in conclusion, pray good years befall, With store of wealth, your "worthy masters all." For this and other tokens of good will On boxing-day may store of shillings fill Your Christmas purse; no householder give less, When at each door your blameless suit you press: And what you wish to us (it is but reason) Receive in turn--the compliments o' th' season!
* * * * *
III.
ON A SEPULCHRAL STATUE OF AN INFANT SLEEPING.
Beautiful Infant, who dost keep Thy posture here, and sleep'st a marble sleep, May the repose unbroken be, Which the fine Artist's hand hath lent to thee, While thou enjoy'st along with it That which no art, or craft, could ever hit, Or counterfeit to mortal sense, The heaven-infusèd sleep of Innocence!
* * * * *
IV.
EPITAPH ON A DOG. Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie, That wont to tend my old blind master's steps, His guide and guard; nor, while my service lasted, Had he occasion for that staff, with which He now goes picking out his path in fear Over the highways and crossings, but would plant, Safe in the conduct of my friendly string, A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide Of passers-by in thickest confluence flow'd: To whom with loud and passionate laments From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd. Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there, The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. I meantime at his feet obsequious slept; Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear Prick'd up at his least motion, to receive At his kind hand my customary crumbs, And common portion in his feast of scraps; Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent With our long day and tedious beggary. These were my manners, this my way of life, Till age and slow disease me overtook, And sever'd from my sightless master's side. But lest the grace of so good deeds should die, Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost, This slender tomb of turf hath Irus rear'd, Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand, And with short verse inscribed it, to attest, In long and lasting union to attest, The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog.
* * * * *
V.
THE RIVAL BELLS.
A tuneful challenge rings from either side Of Thames' fair banks. Thy twice six Bells, St. Bride, Peal swift and shrill; to which more slow reply The deep-toned eight of Mary Overy. Such harmony from the contention flows, That the divided ear no preference knows: Betwixt them both disparting Music's State, While one exceeds in number, one in weight.
* * * * *
VI.
NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA.
Great Newton's self, to whom the world's in debt, Owed to School-Mistress sage his Alphabet; But quickly wiser than his Teacher grown, Discover'd properties to her unknown; Of A _plus_ B, or _minus_, learn'd the use, Known Quantities from unknown to educe; And made--no doubt to that old dame's surprise-- The Christ-Cross-Row his ladder to the skies. Yet, whatsoe'er Geometricians say, Her lessons were his true PRINCIPIA!
* * * * *
VII.
THE HOUSEKEEPER.
The frugal snail, with fore-cast of repose, Carries his house with him, where'er he goes; Peeps out--and if there comes a shower of rain, Retreats to his small domicile amain. Touch but a tip of him, a horn--'tis well-- He curls up in his sanctuary shell. He's his own landlord, his own tenant; stay Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day. Himself he boards and lodges; both invites, And feasts, himself; sleeps with himself o' nights. He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure Chattels; himself is his own furniture, And his sole riches. Wheresoe'er he roam-- Knock when you will--he's sure to be at home.
* * * * *
VIII.
ON A DEAF AND DUMB ARTIST.[1]
[Footnote 1: Benjamin Ferrers--Died A. D. 1732.]
And hath thy blameless life become A prey to the devouring tomb? A more mute silence hast thou known, A deafness deeper than thine own, While Time was? and no friendly Muse, That mark'd thy life, and knows thy dues, Repair with quickening verse the breach. And write thee into light and speech? The Power, that made the Tongue, restrain'd Thy lips from lies, and speeches feign'd; Who made the Hearing, without wrong Did rescue thine from Siren's song. He let thee _see_ the ways of men, Which thou with pencil, not with pen, Careful Beholder, down didst note, And all their motley actions quote, Thyself unstain'd the while. From look Or gesture reading, more than _book_, In letter'd pride thou took'st no part, Contented with the Silent Art, Thyself as silent. Might I be As speechless, deaf, and good, as He!
* * * * *
IX.
THE FEMALE ORATORS.
Nigh London's famous Bridge, a Gate more famed Stands, or once stood, from old Belinus named, So judged Antiquity; and therein wrongs A name, allusive strictly to _two Tongues_[1] Her School hard by the Goddess Rhetoric opes, And _gratis_ deals to Oyster-wives her Tropes. With Nereid green, green Nereid disputes, Replies, rejoins, confutes, and still confutes. One her coarse sense by metaphors expounds, And one in literalities abounds; In mood and figure these keep up the din: Words multiply, and every word tells in. Her hundred throats here bawling Slander strains; And unclothed Venus to her tongue gives reins In terms, which Demosthenic force outgo, And baldest jests of foul-mouth'd Cicero. Right in the midst great Atè keeps her stand, And from her sovereign station taints the land. Hence Pulpits rail; grave Senates learn to jar; Quacks scold; and Billingsgate infects the Bar.
[Footnote 1: _Bilinguis_ in the Latin.]
* * * * *
PINDARIC ODE TO THE TREAD-MILL.
I.
Inspire my spirit, Spirit of De Foe, That sang the Pillory, In loftier strains to show A more sublime Machine Than that, where thou wert seen, With neck outstretcht and shoulders ill awry, Courting coarse plaudits from vile crowds below-- A most unseemly show!
II.
In such a place Who could expose thy face, Historiographer of deathless Crusoe! That paint'st the strife And all the naked ills of savage life, Far above Rousseau? Rather myself had stood In that ignoble wood, Bare to the mob, on holiday or high-day. If nought else could atone For waggish libel, I swear on bible, I would have spared him for thy sake alone, Man Friday!
III.
Our ancestors' were sour days, Great Master of Romance! A milder doom had fallen to thy chance In our days: Thy sole assignment Some solitary confinement, (Not worth thy care a carrot,) Where in world-hidden cell Thou thy own Crusoe might have acted well, Only without the parrot; By sure experience taught to know, Whether the qualms thou mak'st him feel were truly such or no.
IV.
But stay! methinks in statelier measure-- A more companionable pleasure-- I see thy steps the mighty Tread-Mill trace, (The subject of my song, Delay'd however long,) And some of thine own race, To keep thee company, thou bring'st with thee along. There with thee go, Link'd in like sentence, With regulated pace and footing slow, Each old acquaintance, Rogue--harlot--thief--that live to future ages; Through many a labor'd tome, Rankly embalm'd in thy too natural pages. Faith, friend De Foe, thou art quite at home! Not one of thy great offspring thou dost lack, From pirate Singleton to pilfering Jack. Here Flandrian Moll her brazen incest brags; Vice-stript Roxana, penitent in rags, There points to Amy, treading equal chimes, The faithful handmaid to her faithless crimes.
V.
Incompetent my song to raise, To its just height thy praise, Great Mill! That by thy motion proper (No thanks to wind, or sail, or working rill), Grinding that stubborn corn, the Human will, Turn'st out men's consciences, That were begrimed before, as clean and sweet As flour from purest wheat, Into thy hopper. All reformation short of thee but nonsense is, Or human, or divine.
VI.
Compared with thee, What are the labors of that Jumping Sect, Which feeble laws connive at rather than respect? Thou dost not bump, Or jump, But _walk_ men into virtue; betwixt crime And slow repentance giving breathing time, And leisure to be good; Instructing with discretion demi-reps How to direct their steps.
VII.
Thou best Philosopher made out of wood! Not that which framed the tub, Where sat the Cynic cub, With nothing in his bosom sympathetic; But from those groves derived, I deem, Where Plato nursed his dream Of immortality; Seeing that clearly Thy system all is merely Peripatetic. Thou to thy pupils dost such lessons give Of how to live With temperance, sobriety, morality, (A new art,) That from thy school, by force of virtuous deeds, Each Tyro now proceeds A "Walking Stewart!"
* * * * *
GOING OR GONE.
I.
Fine merry franions, Wanton companions, My days are ev'n banyans With thinking upon ye! How Death, that last stinger, Finis-writer, end-bringer, Has laid his chill finger, Or is laying on ye.
II.
There's rich Kitty Wheatley, With footing it featly That took me completely, She sleeps in the Kirk House; And poor Polly Perkin, Whose Dad was still firking The jolly ale firkin, She's gone to the Work-house;
III.
Fine Gard'ner, Ben Carter (In ten counties no smarter) Has ta'en his departure For Proserpine's orchards: And Lily, postilion, With cheeks of vermilion, Is one of a million That fill up the church-yards;
IV.
And, lusty as Dido, Fat Clemitson's widow Flits now a small shadow By Stygian hid ford; And good Master Clapton Has thirty years napt on, The ground he last hapt on, Entomb'd by fair Widford;
V.
And gallant Tom Dockwra, Of Nature's finest crockery, Now but thin air and mockery, Lurks by Avernus, Whose honest grasp of hand Still, while his life did stand, At friend's or foe's command, Almost did burn us.
VI.
Roger de Coverley Not more good man than he; Yet has he equally Push'd for Cocytus, With drivelling Worral, And wicked old Dorrell, 'Gainst whom I've a quarrel, Whose end might affright us!--
VII.
Kindly hearts have I known; Kindly hearts, they are flown; Here and there if but one Linger yet uneffaced, Imbecile tottering elves, Soon to be wreck'd on shelves, These scarce are half themselves, With age and care crazed.
VIII.
But this day Fanny Hutton Her last dress has put on; Her fine lessons forgotten, She died, as the dunce died; And prim Betsey Chambers, Decay'd in her members, No longer remembers Things, as she once did;
IX.
And prudent Miss Wither Not in jest now doth _wither_, And soon must go--whither Nor I well, nor you know; And flaunting Miss Waller, _That_ soon must befall her, Whence none can recall her, Though proud once as Juno!
* * * * *
FREE THOUGHTS ON SEVERAL EMINENT COMPOSERS.
Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart, Just as the whim bites; for my part, I do not care a farthing candle For either of them, or for Handel.-- Cannot a man live free and easy, Without admiring Pergolesi? Or through the world with comfort go, That never heard of Doctor Blow? So help me heaven, I hardly have; And yet I eat, and drink, and shave, Like other people, if you watch it, And know no more of stave or crotchet, Than did the primitive Peruvians; Or those old ante-queer-diluvians That lived in the unwash'd world with Jubal, Before that dirty blacksmith Tubal By stroke on anvil, or by summ'at, Found out, to his great surprise, the gamut. I care no more for Cimarosa, Than he did for Salvator Rosa, Being no painter; and bad luck Be mine, if I can bear that Gluck! Old Tycho Brahe, and modern Herschel, Had something in them; but who's Purcel? The devil, with his foot so cloven, For aught I care, may take Beethoven; And, if the bargain does not suit, I'll throw him Weber in to boot. There's not the splitting of a splinter To choose twixt him last named, and Winter. Of Doctor Pepusch old queen Dido Knew just as much, God knows, as I do. I would not go four miles to visit Sebastian Bach; (or Batch, which is it?) No more I would for Bononcini. As for Novello, or Rossini, I shall not say a word to grieve 'em, Because they're living; so I leave 'em.
THE WIFE'S TRIAL;
OR,
THE INTRUDING WIDOW.
A Dramatic poem.
FOUNDED ON MR. CRABBE'S TALE OF "THE CONFIDANT."
* * * * *
CHARACTERS.
MR. SELBY, _A Wiltshire Gentleman._ KATHERINE, _Wife to Selby_. LUCY, _Sister to Selby_. MRS. FRAMPTON, _A Widow_.
SERVANTS.
SCENE--_At Mr. Selby's House, or in the grounds adjacent_.
* * * * *
SCENE--_A Library_.
MR. SELBY. KATHERINE.
_Selby_. Do not too far mistake me, gentlest wife; I meant to chide your virtues, not yourself, And those too with allowance. I have not Been blest by thy fair side with five white years Of smooth and even wedlock, now to touch With any strain of harshness on a string Hath yielded me such music. 'Twas the quality Of a too grateful nature in my Katherine, That to the lame performance of some vows, And common courtesies of man to wife, Attributing too much, hath sometimes seem'd To esteem as favors, what in that blest union Are but reciprocal and trivial dues, As fairly yours as mine: 'twas this I thought Gently to reprehend.
_Kath._ In friendship's barter The riches we exchange should hold some level, And corresponding worth. Jewels for toys Demand some thanks thrown in. You look me, sir, To that blest haven of my peace, your bosom, An orphan founder'd in the world's black storm. Poor, you have made me rich; from lonely maiden, Your cherish'd and your full-accompanied wife.
_Selby._ But to divert the subject: Kate too fond, I would not wrest your meanings; else that word Accompanied, and full-accompanied too, Might raise a doubt in some men, that their wives Haply did think their company too long; And over-company, we know by proof, Is worse than no attendance.
_Kath._ I must guess, You speak this of the Widow--
_Selby._ 'Twas a bolt At random shot; but if it hit, believe me, I am most sorry to have wounded you Through a friend's side. I know not how we have swerved From our first talk. I was to caution you Against this fault of a too grateful nature: Which, for some girlish obligations past, In that relenting season of the heart, When slightest favors pass for benefits Of endless binding, would entail upon you An iron slavery of obsequious duty To the proud will of an imperious woman.
_Kath_. The favors are not slight to her I owe.
_Selby_. Slight or not slight, the tribute she exacts Cancels all dues-- [_A voice within_. even now I hear her call you In such a tone, as lordliest mistresses Expect a slave's attendance. Prithee, Kate. Let her expect a brace of minutes or so. Say you are busy. Use her by degrees To some less hard exactions.
_Kath_. I conjure you, Detain me not. I will return--
_Selby_. Sweet wife, Use thy own pleasure-- [_Exit_ KATHERINE. but it troubles me. A visit of three days, as was pretended, Spun to ten tedious weeks, and no hint given When she will go! I would this buxom Widow Were a thought handsomer! I'd fairly try My Katherine's constancy; make desperate love In seeming earnest; and raise up such broils, That she, not I, should be the first to warn The insidious guest depart.
_Reënter_ KATHERINE.
So soon return'd! What was our Widow's will?
_Kath_. A trifle, sir.
_Selby_. Some toilet service--to adjust her head, Or help to stick a pin in the right place--
_Kath_. Indeed 'twas none of these.
_Selby._ Or new vamp up The tarnish'd cloak she came in. I have seen her Demand such service from thee, as her maid, Twice told to do it, would blush angry-red, And pack her few clothes up. Poor fool! fond slave! And yet my dearest Kate!--This day at least (It is our wedding-day) we spend in freedom, And will forget our Widow. Philip, our coach-- Why weeps my wife? You know, I promised you An airing o'er the pleasant Hampshire downs To the blest cottage on the green hill-side, Where first I told my love. I wonder much, If the crimson parlor hath exchanged its hue For colors not so welcome. Faded though it be, It will not show less lovely than the tinge Of this faint red, contending with the pale, Where once the full-flush'd health gave to this cheek An apt resemblance to the fruit's warm side, That bears my Katherine's name.-- Our carriage, Philip.
_Enter a Servant._
Now, Robin, what make you here?
_Servant._ May it please you, The coachman has driven out with Mrs. Frampton.
_Selby._ He had no orders--
_Servant._ None, sir, that I know of, But from the lady, who expects some letter At the next Post Town.
_Selby._ Go, Robin. [_Exit Servant._ How is this?
_Kath._ I came to tell you so, but fear'd your anger--
_Selby._ It was ill done though of this Mistress Frampton, This forward Widow. But a ride's poor loss Imports not much. In to your chamber, love, Where you with music may beguile the hour, While I am tossing over dusty tomes, Till our most reasonable friend returns.
_Kath_. I am all obedience. [_Exit_ KATHERINE.
_Selby_. Too obedient, Kate, And to too many masters. I can hardly On such a day as this refrain to speak My sense of this injurious friend, this pest, This household evil, this close-clinging fiend, In rough terms to my wife. 'Death, my own servants Controll'd above me! orders countermanded! What next? [_Servant enters and announces the Sister._
_Enter_ LUCY.
Sister! I know you are come to welcome This day's return. 'Twas well done.
_Lucy_. You seem ruffled. In years gone by this day was used to be The smoothest of the year. Your honey turn'd So soon to gall?
_Selby_. Gall'd am I, and with cause, And rid to death, yet cannot get a riddance, Nay, scarce a ride, by this proud Widow's leave.
_Lucy_. Something you wrote me of a Mistress Frampton.
_Selby_. She came at first a meek admitted guest, Pretending a short stay; her whole deportment Seem'd as of one obliged. A slender trunk, The wardrobe of her scant and ancient clothing, Bespoke no more. But in few days her dress, Her looks, were proudly changed. And now she flaunts it In jewels stolen or borrow'd from my wife; Who owes her some strange service, of what nature I must be kept in ignorance. Katherine's meek And gentle spirit cowers beneath her eye, As spell-bound by some witch.
_Lucy_. Some mystery hangs on it. How bears she in her carriage towards yourself?
_Selby_. As one who fears, and yet not greatly cares For my displeasure. Sometimes I have thought, A secret glance would tell me she could love, If I but gave encouragement. Before me She keeps some moderation; but is never Closeted with my wife, but in the end I find my Katherine in briny tears. From the small chamber, where she first was lodged, The gradual fiend by spacious wriggling arts Has now ensconced herself in the best part Of this large mansion; calls the left wing her own; Commands my servants, equipage.--I hear Her hated tread. What makes she back so soon?
_Enter_ MRS. FRAMPTON.
_Mrs. F._ O, I am jolter'd, bruised, and shook to death, With your vile Wiltshire roads. The villain Philip Chose, on my conscience, the perversest tracks, And stoniest hard lanes in all the county, Till I was fain get out, and so walk back, My errand unperform'd at Andover.
_Lucy_. And I shall love the knave forever after. [_Aside_.
_Mrs. F._ A friend with you!
_Selby_. My eldest sister, Lucy, Come to congratulate this returning morn.-- Sister, my wife's friend, Mistress Frampton.
_Mrs. F._ Pray, Be seated; for your brother's sake, you are welcome. I had thought this day to have spent in homely fashion With the good couple, to whose hospitality I stand so far indebted. But your coming Makes it a feast.
_Lucy._ She does the honors naturally-- [_Aside._
_Selby._ As if she were the mistress of the house.-- [_Aside._
_Mrs. F._ I love to be at home with loving friends. To stand on ceremony with obligations, Is to restrain the obliger. That old coach, though, Of yours jumbles one strangely.
_Selby._ I shall order An equipage soon, more easy to you, madam--
_Lucy._ To drive her and her pride to Lucifer, I hope he means. [_Aside._
_Mrs. F._ I must go trim myself; this humbled garb Would shame a wedding-feast. I have your leave For a short absence?--and your Katherine--
_Selby._ You'll find her in her closet--
_Mrs. F._ Fare you well, then. [_Exit._
_Selby._ How like you her assurance?
_Lucy._ Even so well, That if this Widow were my guest, not yours, She should have coach enough, and scope to ride. My merry groom should in a trice convey her To Sarum Plain, and set her down at Stonehenge, To pick her path through those antiques at leisure; She should take sample of our Wiltshire flints. O, be not lightly jealous! nor surmise, That to a wanton bold-faced thing like this Your modest shrinking Katherine could impart Secrets of any worth, especially Secrets that touch'd your peace. If there be aught, My life upon't,'tis but some girlish story Of a First Love; which even the boldest wife Might modestly deny to a husband's ear, Much more your timid and too sensitive Katherine.
_Selby_. I think it is no more; and will dismiss My further fears, if ever I have had such.
_Lucy_. Shall we go walk? I'd see your gardens, brother; And how the new trees thrive, I recommended. Your Katherine is engaged now--
_Selby_. I'll attend you.
[_Exeunt_.
SCENE.--_Servants' Hall_.
HOUSEKEEPER, PHILIP, _and others, laughing_.
_Housekeeper_. Our Lady's guest, since her short ride, seems ruffled, And somewhat in disorder. Philip, Philip, I do suspect some roguery. Your mad tricks Will some day cost you a good place, I warrant.
_Philip_. Good Mistress Jane, our serious housekeeper, And sage Duenna to the maids and scullions, We must have leave to laugh; our brains are younger, And undisturb'd with care of keys and pantries. We are wild things.
_Butler_. Good Philip, tell us all.
_All_. Ay, as you live, tell, tell--
_Philip_. Mad fellows, you shall have it. The Widow's bell rang lustily and loud--
_Butler_. I think that no one can mistake her ringing.
_Waiting-maid_. Our Lady's ring is soft sweet music to it, More of entreaty hath it than command.
_Philip_. I lose my story, if you interrupt me thus. The bell, I say, rang fiercely; and a voice More shrill than bell, call'd out for "Coachman Philip!"
I straight obey'd, as 'tis my name and office, "Drive me," quoth she, "to the next market-town, Where I have hope of letters." I made haste: Put to the horses, saw her safely coach'd, And drove her--
_Waiting-maid_. By the straight high-road to Andover, I guess--
_Philip_. Pray, warrant things within your knowledge, Good Mistress Abigail; look to your dressings, And leave the skill in horses to the coachman.
_Butler_. He'll have his humor; best not interrupt him.
_Philip_. 'Tis market-day, thought I; and the poor beasts, Meeting such droves of cattle and of people, May take a fright; so down the lane I trundled, Where Goodman Dobson's crazy mare was founder'd, And where the flints were biggest, and ruts widest, By ups and downs, and such bone-cracking motions We flounder'd on a furlong, till my madam, In policy, to save the few joints left her, Betook her to her feet, and there we parted.
_All_. Ha! ha! ha!
_Butler_. Hang her, 'tis pity such as she should ride.
_Waiting-maid_. I think she is a witch; I have tired myself out With sticking pins in her pillow; still she scapes them--
_Butler_. And I with helping her to mum for claret, But never yet could cheat her dainty palate.
_Housekeeper_. Well, well, she is the guest of our good Mistress, And so should be respected. Though, I think, Our master cares not for her company, He would ill brook we should express so much By rude discourtesies, and short attendance, Being but servants. (_A Bell rings furiously._) 'Tis her bell speaks now; Good, good, bestir yourselves: who knows who's wanted?
_Butler_. But 'twas a merry trick of Philip coachman. [_Exeunt_.
* * * * *
SCENE.--_Mrs. Selby's Chamber_.
MRS. FRAMPTON, KATHERINE, _working_.
_Mrs. F._ I am thinking, child, how contrary our fates Have traced our lots through life.--Another needle, This works untowardly.--An heiress born To splendid prospects, at our common school I was as one above you all, not of you; Had my distinct prerogatives; my freedoms, Denied to you. Pray, listen--
_Kath_. I must hear, What you are pleased to speak--how my heart sinks here! [_Aside_.
_Mrs. F_. My chamber to myself, my separate maid, My coach, and so forth.--Not that needle, simple one, With the great staring eye fit for a Cyclops! Mine own are not so blinded with their griefs, But I could make a shift to thread a smaller. A cable or a camel might go through this, And never strain for the passage.
_Kath_. I will fit you---- Intolerable tyranny! [_Aside_.
_Mrs. F_. Quick, quick; You were not once so slack.--As I was saying, Not a young thing among ye, but observed me Above the mistress. Who but I was sought to In all your dangers, all your little difficulties, Your girlish scrapes? I was the scape-goat still, To fetch you off; kept all your secrets, some, Perhaps, since then--
_Kath_. No more of that, for mercy, If you'd not have me, sinking at your feet, Cleave the cold earth for comfort. [_Kneels_.
_Mrs. F._ This to me? This posture to your friend had better suited The orphan Katherine in her humble school-days To the _then_ rich heiress, than the wife of Selby, Of wealthy Mr. Selby, To the poor widow Frampton, sunk as she is. Come, come, 'Twas something, or 'twas nothing, that I said; I did not mean to fright you, sweetest bedfellow! You once were so, but Selby now engrosses you. I'll make him give you up a night or so; In faith I will: that we may lie, and talk Old tricks of school-days over.
_Kath._ Hear me, madam--
_Mrs. F._ Not by that name. Your friend--
_Kath._ My truest friend, And savior of my honor!
_Mrs. F._ This sounds better; You still shall find me such.
_Kath._ That you have graced Our poor house with your presence hitherto, Has been my greatest comfort, the sole solace Of my forlorn and hardly guess'd estate. You have been pleased To accept some trivial hospitalities, In part of payment of a long arrear I owe to you, no less than for my life.
_Mrs. F._ You speak my services too large.
_Kath._ Nay, less; For what an abject thing were life to me Without your silence on my dreadful secret! And I would wish the league we have renew'd Might be perpetual--
_Mrs. F._ Have a care, fine madam! [_Aside._
_Kath._ That one house still might hold us. But my husband Has shown himself of late--
_Mrs. F._ How, Mistress Selby?
_Kath._ Not, not impatient. You misconstrue him. He honors, and he loves, nay, he must love The friend of his wife's youth. But there are moods, In which--
_Mrs. F._ I understand you;--in which husbands, And wives that love, may wish to be alone, To nurse the tender fits of new-born dalliance, After a five years' wedlock.
_Kath._ Was that well, Or charitably put? do these pale cheeks Proclaim a wanton blood? This wasting form Seem a fit theatre for Levity To play his love-tricks on; and act such follies, As even in Affection's first bland Moon Have less of grace than pardon in best wedlocks? I was about to say, that there are times, When the most frank and sociable man May surfeit on most loved society, Preferring loneness rather--
_Mrs. F._ To my company--
_Kath._ Ay, yours, or mine, or any one's. Nay, take Not this unto yourself. Even in the newness Of our first married loves 'twas sometimes so. For solitude, I have heard my Selby say, Is to the mind as rest to the corporal functions; And he would call it oft, the _day's soft sleep._
_Mrs. F._ What is your drift? and whereto tends this speech, Rhetorically labor'd?
_Kath._ That you would Abstain but from our house a month, a week; I make request but for a single day.
_Mrs. F._ A month, a week, a day! A single hour Is every week, and month, and the long year, And all the years to come! My footing here, Slipt once, recovers never. From the state Of gilded roofs, attendance, luxuries, Parks, gardens, sauntering walks, or wholesome rides, To the bare cottage on the withering moor, Where I myself am servant to myself, Or only waited on by blackest thoughts-- I sink, if this be so. No; here I sit.
_Kath_. Then I am lost forever!
[_Sinks at her feet--curtain drops._
SCENE--_An Apartment contiguous to the last._
SELBY, _as if listening_.
_Selby_. The sounds have died away. What am I changed to? What do I here, list'ning like to an abject, Or heartless wittol, that must hear no good, If he hear aught? "This shall to the ear of your husband." It was the Widow's word. I guess'd some mystery, And the solution with a vengeance comes. What can my wife have left untold to me, That must be told by proxy? I begin To call in doubt the course of her life past Under my very eyes. She hath not been good, Not virtuous, not discreet; she hath not outrun My wishes still with prompt and meek observance. Perhaps she is not fair, sweet-voiced; her eyes Not like the dove's; all this as well may be, As that she should entreasure up a secret In the peculiar closet of her breast, And grudge it to my ear. It is my right To claim the halves in any truth she owns, As much as in the babe I have by her; Upon whose face henceforth I fear to look, Lest I should fancy in its innocent brow Some strange shame written.
_Enter_ LUCY.
Sister, an anxious word with you. From out the chamber, where my wife but now Held talk with her encroaching friend, I heard (Not of set purpose heark'ning, but by chance) A voice of chiding, answer'd by a tone Of replication, such as the meek dove Makes, when the kite has clutch'd her. The high Widow Was loud and stormy. I distinctly heard One threat pronounced--"Your husband shall know all." I am no listener, sister; and I hold A secret, got by such unmanly shift, The pitiful'st of thefts; but what mine ear, I not intending it, receives perforce, I count my lawful prize. Some subtle meaning Lurks in this fiend's behavior; which, by force, Or fraud I must make mine.
_Lucy_. The gentlest means Are still the wisest. What, if you should press Your wife to a disclosure?
_Selby_. I have tried All gentler means; thrown out low hints, which, though Merely suggestions still, have never fail'd To blanch her cheek with fears. Roughlier to insist, Would be to kill, where I but meant to heal.
_Lucy_. Your own description gave that Widow out As one not much precise, nor over-coy, And nice to listen to a suit of love. What if you feign'd a courtship, putting on, (To work the secret from her easy faith,) For honest ends, a most dishonest seeming?
_Selby_. I see your drift, and partly meet your counsel. But must it not in me appear prodigious, To say the least, unnatural, and suspicious, To move hot love, where I have shown cool scorn, And undissembled looks of blank aversion?
_Lucy_. Vain woman is the dupe of her own charms, And easily credits the resistless power, That in besieging beauty lies, to cast down The slight-built fortress of a casual hate.
_Selby_. I am resolved--
_Lucy_. Success attend your wooing!
_Selby_. And I'll about it roundly, my wise sister. [_Exeunt_.
SCENE.--_The Library_.
MR. SELBY. MRS. FRAMPTON.
_Selby_. A fortunate encounter, Mistress Frampton. My purpose was, if you could spare so much From your sweet leisure, a few words in private.
_Mrs. F._ What mean his alter'd tones? These looks to me, Whose glances yet he has repell'd with coolness? Is the wind changed? I'll veer about with it, And meet him in all fashions. [_Aside_. All my leisure, Feebly bestow'd upon my kind friends here, Would not express a tithe of the obligements I every hour incur.
_Selby_. No more of that. I know not why, my wife hath lost of late Much of her cheerful spirits.
_Mrs. F._ It was my topic To-day; and every day, and all day long, I still am chiding with her. "Child," I said, And said it pretty roundly--it may be I was too peremptory--we elder school-fellows, Presuming on the advantage of a year Or two, which, in that tender time, seem'd much, In after years, much like to elder sisters, Are prone to keep the authoritative style, When time has made the difference most ridiculous--
_Selby_. The observation's shrewd.
_Mrs. F._ "Child," I was saying, "If some wives had obtain'd a lot like yours," And then perhaps I sigh'd, "they would not sit In corners moping, like to sullen moppets, That want their will, but dry their eyes, and look Their cheerful husbands in the face," perhaps I said, their Selbys, "with proportion'd looks Of honest joy."
_Selby_. You do suspect no jealousy?
_Mrs. F._ What is his import? Whereto tends his Speech? [_Aside_. Of whom, or what, should she be jealous, sir?
_Selby_. I do not know, but women have their fancies; And underneath a cold indifference, Or show of some distaste, husbands have mask'd A growing fondness for a female friend, Which the wife's eye was sharp enough to see, Before the friend had wit to find it out. You do not quit us soon?
_Mrs. F._ 'Tis as I find; Your Katherine profits by my lessons, sir.-- Means this man honest? Is there no deceit? [_Aside._
_Selby_. She cannot choose.--Well, well, I have been thinking, And if the matter were to do again--
_Mrs. F._ What matter, sir?
_Selby._ This idle bond of wedlock; These sour-sweet briars, fetters of harsh silk; I might have made, I do not say a better, But a more fit choice in a wife.
_Mrs. F._ The parch'd ground, In hottest Julys, drinks not in the showers More greedily than I his words! [_Aside_.
_Selby_. My humor Is to be frank and jovial; and that man Affects me best, who most reflects me in My most free temper.
_Mrs. F._ Were you free to choose, As jestingly I'll put the supposition, Without a thought reflecting on your Katherine, What sort of Woman would you make your choice?
_Selby_. I like your humor and will meet your jest. She should be one about my Katherine's age; But not so old, by some ten years, in gravity, One that would meet my mirth, sometimes outrun it: No muling, pining moppet, as you said, Nor moping maid that I must still be teaching The freedoms of a wife all her life after: But one that, having worn the chain before, (And worn it lightly, as report gave out,) Enfranchised from it by her poor fool's death, Took it not so to heart that I need dread To die myself, for fear a second time To wet a widow's eye.
_Mrs. F._ Some widows, sir, Hearing you talk so wildly, would be apt To put strange misconstruction on your words, As aiming at a Turkish liberty, Where the free husband hath his several mates, His Penseroso, his Allegro wife, To suit his sober or his frolic fit.
_Selby_. How judge you of that latitude?
_Mrs. F._ As one, In European customs bred, must judge. Had I Been born a native of the liberal East, I might have thought as they do. Yet I knew A married man that took a second wife, And (the man's circumstances duly weigh'd, With all their bearings) the considerate world Nor much approved, nor much condemn'd the deed.
_Selby_. You move my wonder strangely. Pray, proceed.
_Mrs. F._ An eye of wanton liking he had placed Upon a Widow, who liked him again, But stood on terms of honorable love, And scrupled wronging his most virtuous wife-- When to their ears a lucky rumor ran, That this demure and saintly-seeming wife Had a first husband living; with the which Being question'd, she but faintly could deny. "A priest indeed there was; some words had pass'd, But scarce amounting to a marriage rite. Her friend was absent; she supposed him dead; And, seven years parted, both were free to choose."
_Selby_. What did the indignant husband? Did he not With violent handlings stigmatize the cheek Of the deceiving wife, who had entail'd Shame on their innocent babe?
_Mrs. F._ He neither tore His wife's locks nor his own; but wisely weighing His own offence with hers in equal poise, And woman's weakness 'gainst the strength of man, Came to a calm and witty compromise. He coolly took his gay-faced widow home, Made her his second wife; and still the first Lost few or none of her prerogatives. The servants call'd her mistress still; she kept The keys, and had the total ordering Of the house affairs; and, some slight toys excepted, Was all a moderate wife would wish to be.
_Selby_. A tale full of dramatic incident!-- And if a man should put it in a play, How should he name the parties?
_Mrs. F._ The man's name Through time I have forgot--the widow's too;-- But his first wife's first name, her maiden one, Was--not unlike to _that_ your Katherine bore, Before she took the honor'd style of Selby.
_Selby_. A dangerous meaning in your riddle lurks. One knot is yet unsolved; that told, this strange And most mysterious drama ends. The name Of that first husband--
_Enter_ LUCY.
_Mrs. F._ Sir, your pardon-- The allegory fits your private ear. Some half hour hence, in the garden's secret walk, We shall have leisure. [_Exit_.
_Selby_. Sister, whence come you?
_Lucy_. From your poor Katherine's chamber, where she droops In sad presageful thoughts, and sighs, and weeps, And seems to pray by turns. At times she looks As she would pour her secret in my bosom-- Then starts, as I have seen her, at the mention Of some immodest act. At her request, I left her on her knees.
_Selby_. The fittest posture; For great has been her fault to Heaven and me. She married me with a first husband living, Or not known not to be so, which, in the judgment Of any but indifferent honesty, Must be esteem'd the same. The shallow Widow, Caught by my art, under a riddling veil Too thin to hide her meaning, hath confess'd all. Your coming in broke off the conference, When she was ripe to tell the fatal _name_ That seals my wedded doom.
_Lucy_. Was she so forward To pour her hateful meanings in your ear At the first hint?
_Selby_. Her newly flatter'd hopes Array'd themselves at first in forms of doubt; And with a female caution she stood off Awhile, to read the meaning of my suit, Which with such honest seeming I enforced, That her cold scruples soon gave way; and now She rests prepared, as mistress, or as wife, To seize the place of her betrayèd friend-- My much offending, but more suffering, Katherine.
_Lucy_. Into what labyrinth of fearful shapes My simple project has conducted you-- Were but my wit as skilful to invent A clue to lead you forth!--I call to mind A letter, which your wife received from the Cape, Soon after you were married, with some circumstances Of mystery too.
_Selby_. I well remember it. That letter did confirm the truth (she said) Of a friend's death, which she had long fear'd true, But knew not for a fact. A youth of promise She gave him out--a hot adventurous spirit-- That had set sail in quest of golden dreams, And cities in the heart of Central Afric; But named no names, nor did I care to press My question further, in the passionate grief She show'd at the receipt. Might this be he?
_Lucy_. Tears were not all. When that first shower was past, With clasp'd hands she raised her eyes to Heav'n, As if in thankfulness for some escape, Or strange deliverance, in the news implied, Which sweeten'd that sad news.
_Selby_. Something of that I noted also--
_Lucy_. In her closet once, Seeking some other trifle, I espied A ring, in mournful characters deciphering The death of "Robert Halford, aged two And twenty." Brother, I am not given To the confident use of wagers, which I hold Unseemly in a woman's argument; But I am strangely tempted now to risk A thousand pounds out of my patrimony, (And let my future husband look to it, If it be lost,) that this immodest Widow Shall name the name that tallies with that ring.
_Selby_. That wager lost, I should be rich indeed-- Rich in my rescued Kate--rich in my honor, Which now was bankrupt. Sister, I accept Your merry wager, with an aching heart For very fear of winning. 'Tis the hour That I should meet my Widow in the walk, The south side of the garden. On some pretence Lure forth my Wife that way, that she may witness Our seeming courtship. Keep us still in sight, Yourselves unseen; and by some sign I'll give, (A finger held up, or a kerchief waved,) You'll know your wager won--then break upon us, As if by chance.
_Lucy_. I apprehend your meaning--
_Selby_. And may you prove a true Cassandra here, Though my poor acres smart for't, wagering sister. [_Exeunt_.
* * * * *
SCENE.--_Mrs. Selby's chamber._
MRS. FRAMPTON. KATHERINE.
_Mrs. F._ Did I express myself in terms so strong?
_Kath._ As nothing could have more affrighted me.
_Mrs. F._ Think it a hurt friend's jest, in retribution Of a suspected cooling hospitality. And, for my staying here, or going hence, (Now I remember something of our argument,) Selby and I can settle that between us. You look amazed. What if your husband, child, Himself has courted me to stay?
_Kath._ You move My wonder and my pleasure equally.
_Mrs. F._ Yes, courted me to stay, waived all objections, Made it a favor to yourselves; not me, His troublesome guest, as you surmised. Child, child, When I recall his flattering welcome, I Begin to think the burden of my presence Was--
_Kath_. What, for Heaven--
_Mrs. F._ A little, little spice Of jealousy--that's all--an honest pretext, No wife need blush for. Say that you should see, (As oftentimes we widows take such freedoms, Yet still on this side virtue,) in a jest Your husband pat me on the cheek, or steal A kiss, while you were by,--not else, for virtue's sake.
_Kath._ I could endure all this, thinking my husband Meant it in sport--
_Mrs. F._ But if in downright earnest (Putting myself out of the question here) Your Selby, as I partly do suspect, Own'd a divided heart--
_Kath._ My own would break--
_Mrs. F._ Why, what a blind and witless fool it is, That will not see its gains, its infinite gains--
_Kath._ Gain in a loss. Or mirth in utter desolation!
_Mrs. F._ He doating on a face--suppose it mine, Or any other's tolerably fair-- What need you care about a senseless secret?
_Kath._ Perplex'd and fearful woman! I in part Fathom your dangerous meaning. You have broke The worse than iron band, fretting the soul, By which you held me captive. Whether my husband _Is_ what you gave him out, or your fool'd fancy But dreams he is so, either way I am free.
_Mrs. F._ It talks it bravely, blazons out its shame; A very heroine while on its knees; Rowe's Penitent, an absolute Calista?
_Kath._ Not to thy wretched self these tears are falling; But to my husband, and offended Heaven, Some drops are due--and then I sleep in peace, Relieved from frightful dreams, my dreams though sad [_Exit._
_Mrs. F._ I have gone too far. Who knows but in this mood She may forestall my story, win on Selby By a frank confession?--and the time draws on For our appointed meeting. The game's desperate, For which I play. A moment's difference May make it hers or mine. I fly to meet him. [_Exit._
* * * * *
SCENE.--_A garden._
MR. SELBY. MRS. FRAMPTON.
_Selby._ I am not so ill a guesser, Mrs. Frampton, Not to conjecture, that some passages In your unfinish'd story, rightly interpreted, Glanced at my bosom's peace; You knew my wife?
_Mrs. F._ Even from her earliest school-days--What of that? Or how is she concern'd in my fine riddles, Framed for the hour's amusement!
_Selby_. By my _hopes_ Of my new interest conceived in you, And by the honest passion of my heart, Which not obliquely I to you did hint; Come from the clouds of misty allegory, And in plain language let me hear the worst. Stand I disgraced, or no?
_Mrs. F._ Then, by _my_ hopes Of my new interest conceived in you, And by the kindling passion in _my_ breast, Which through my riddles you had almost read, Adjured so strongly, I will tell you all. In her school years, then bordering on fifteen, Or haply not much past, she loved a youth--
_Selby._ My most ingenuous Widow--
_Mrs. F._ Met him oft By stealth, where I still of the party was--
_Selby._ Prime confidant to all the school, I warrant, And general go-between-- [_Aside._
_Mrs. F._ One morn he came In breathless haste. "The ship was under sail, Or in few hours would be, that must convey Him and his destinies to barbarous shores, Where, should he perish by inglorious hands, It would be consolation in his death To have call'd his Katherine _his_."
_Selby._ Thus far the story Tallies with what I hoped. [_Aside._
_Mrs. F._ Wavering between The doubt of doing wrong, and losing him; And my dissuasions not o'er hotly urged, Whom he had flatter'd with the bridemaid's part;--
_Selby._ I owe my subtle Widow, then, for this. [_Aside._
_Mrs. F._ Briefly, we went to church. The ceremony Scarcely was huddled over, and the ring Yet cold upon her finger, when they parted-- He to his ship; and we to school got back, Scarce miss'd, before the dinner-bell could ring.
_Selby._ And from that hour--
_Mrs. F._ Nor sight, nor news of him, For aught that I could hear, she e'er obtain'd.
_Selby._ Like to a man that hovers in suspense Over a letter just received, on which The black seal hath impress'd its ominous token, Whether to open it or no, so I Suspended stand, whether to press my fate Further, or check ill curiosity, That tempts me to more loss.--The name, the name Of this fine youth?
_Mrs. F._ What boots it, if 'twere told?
_Selby._ Now, by our loves, And by my hopes of happier wedlocks, some day To be accomplish'd, give me his name!
_Mrs. F._ 'Tis no such serious matter. It was--Huntingdon.
_Selby._ How have three little syllables pluck'd from me A world of countless hopes!-- [_Aside._ Evasive Widow.
_Mrs. F._ How, sir!--I like not this. [_Aside._
_Selby._ No, no, I meant Nothing but good to thee. That other woman, How shall I call her but evasive, false, And treacherous?--by the trust I place in thee, Tell me, and tell me truly, was the name As you pronounced it?
_Mrs. F._ Huntingdon--the name, Which his paternal grandfather assumed, Together with the estates of a remote Kinsman: but our high-spirited youth--
_Selby._ Yes--
_Mrs. F._ Disdaining For sordid pelf to truck the family honors, At risk of the lost estates, resumed the old style, And answer'd only to the name of--
_Selby._ What--
_Mrs. F._ Of Halford--
_Selby._ A Huntingdon to Halford changed so soon! Why, then I see, a witch hath her good spells, As well as bad, and can by a backward charm Unruffle the foul storm she has just been raising. [_Aside. He makes the signal._
My frank, fair-spoken Widow! let this kiss, Which yet aspires no higher, speak my thanks, Till I can think on greater.
_Enter_ LUCY _and_ KATHERINE.
_Mrs. F._ Interrupted!
_Selby._ My sister here! and see, where with her comes My serpent gliding in an angel's form, To taint the new-born Eden of our joys. Why should we fear them? We'll not stir a foot, Nor coy it for their pleasures. [_He courts the Widow._
_Lucy (to Katherine)._ This your free, And sweet ingenuous confession, binds me Forever to you; and it shall go hard, But it shall fetch you back your husband's heart, That now seems blindly straying; or, at worst, In me you have still a sister.--Some wives, brother, Would think it strange to catch their husbands thus Alone with a trim widow; but your Katherine Is arm'd, I think, with patience.
_Kath._ I am fortified With knowledge of self-faults to endure worse wrongs, If they be wrongs, than he can lay upon me; Even to look on, and see him sue in earnest, As now I think he does it but in seeming, To that ill woman.
_Selby._ Good words, gentle Kate, And not a thought irreverent of our Widow. Why, 'twere unmannerly at any time, But most uncourteous on our wedding-day, When we should show most hospitable.--Some wine! [_Wine is brought._
I am for sports. And now I do remember, The old Egyptians at their banquets placed A charnel sight of dead men's skulls before them, With images of cold mortality, To temper their fierce joys when they grew rampant. I like the custom well: and ere we crown With freer mirth the day, I shall propose, In calmest recollection of our spirits, We drink the solemn "Memory of the Dead,"--
_Mrs. F._ Or the supposed dead-- [_Aside to him._
_Selby._ Pledge me, good, wife-- [_She fills._ Nay, higher yet, till the brimm'd cup swell o'er,
_Kath._ I catch the awful import of your words; And, though I could accuse you of unkindness, Yet as your lawful and obedient wife, While that name lasts (as I perceive it fading, Nor I much longer may have leave to use it) I calmly take the office you impose; And on my knees, imploring their forgiveness, Whom I in heaven or earth may have offended, Exempt from starting tears, and woman's weakness, I pledge you, sir--the Memory of the Dead! [_She drinks kneeling._
_Selby._ 'Tis gently and discreetly said, and like My former loving Kate.
_Mrs. F._ Does he relent? [_Aside._
_Selby._ That ceremony past, we give the day To unabated sport. And, in requital Of certain stories and quaint allegories, Which my rare Widow hath been telling to me To raise my morning mirth, if she will lend Her patient hearing, I will here recite A Parable; and, the more to suit her taste, The scene is laid in the East.
_Mrs. F._ I long to hear it. Some tale, to fit his wife. [_Aside._
_Kath._ Now, comes my TRIAL.
_Lucy._ The hour of your deliverance is at hand, If I presage right. Bear up, gentlest sister.
_Selby._ "The Sultan Haroun"--Stay--O now I have it-- "The Caliph Haroun in his orchards had A fruit-tree, bearing such delicious fruits, That he reserved them for his proper gust; And through the Palace it was Death proclaim'd To any one that should purloin the same."
_Mrs. F._ A heavy penance for so light a fault--
_Selby._ Pray you, be silent, else you put me out. "A crafty page, that for advantage watch'd, Detected in the act a brother page, Of his own years, that was his bosom friend; And thenceforth he became that other's lord, And like a tyrant he demean'd himself, Laid forced exactions on his fellow's purse; And when that poor means fail'd, held o'er his head Threats of impending death in hideous forms; Till the small culprit on his nightly couch Dream'd of strange pains, and felt his body writhe In tortuous pangs around the impaling stake."
_Mrs. F._ I like not this beginning--
_Selby._ Pray you, attend. "The Secret, like a night-hag, rid his sleeps, And took the youthful pleasures from his days, And chased the youthful smoothness from his brow, That from a rose-cheek'd boy he waned and waned To a pale skeleton of what he was; And would have died, but for one lucky chance."
_Kath._ Oh!
_Mrs. F._ Your wife--she faints--some cordial--smell to this.
_Selby._ Stand off. My sister best will do that office.
_Mrs. F._ Are all his tempting speeches come to this? [_Aside._
_Selby._ What ail'd my wife?
_Kath._ A warning faintness, sir, Seized on my spirits, when you came to where You said "a lucky chance." I am better now: Please you go on.
_Selby._ The sequel shall be brief.
_Kath._ But, brief, or long, I feel my fate hangs on it. [_Aside._
_Selby._ "One morn the Caliph, in a covert hid, Close by an arbor where the two boys talk'd, (As oft, we read, that Eastern sovereigns Would play the eavesdropper, to learn the truth. Imperfectly received from mouths of slaves,) O'erheard their dialogue; and heard enough To judge aright the cause, and know his cue. The following day a Cadi was despatch'd To summon both before the judgment-seat; The lickerish culprit, almost dead with fear, And the informing friend, who readily, Fired with fair promises of large reward, And Caliph's love, the hateful truth disclosed."
_Mrs. F._ What did the Caliph to the offending boy, That had so grossly err'd?
_Selby._ His sceptred hand He forth in token of forgiveness stretch'd, And clapp'd his cheeks, and courted him with gifts, And he became once more his favorite page.
_Mrs. F._ But for that other--
_Selby._ He dismissed him straight, From dreams of grandeur, and of Caliph's love, To the bare cottage on the withering moor. Where friends, turn'd fiends, and hollow confidants, And widows, hide, who in a husband's ear Pour baneful truths, but tell not all the truth; And told him not that Robin Halford died Some moons before _his_ marriage-bells were rung. Too near dishonor hast thou trod, dear wife, And on a dangerous cast our fates were set; But Heav'n, that will'd our wedlock to be blest, Hath interposed to save it gracious too. Your penance is--to dress your cheek in smiles, And to be once again my merry Kate.-- Sister, your hand. Your wager won makes me a happy man, Though poorer, Heav'n knows, by a thousand pounds. The sky clears up after a dubious day. Widow, your hand. I read a penitence In this dejected brow; and in this shame Your fault is buried. You shall in with us, And, if it please you, taste our nuptial fare: For, till this moment, I can joyful say, Was never truly Selby's Wedding Day.