AN AUTOGRAPH. WHAT is the trifle which you would demand? That pride of rhyme, that pert, pen-jerking joy, SONG. ROSE, and violet, and pansy, Apt and bold the fields to rove, See the pansy; Seek her not in secret grove. Rose of summer, lovely creature! Who did ever look on thee, But beheld the very feature Which he most was glad to see,— Fairest, dearest, Whosoe'er the dear may be? Long ago, when I was roaming, In a shady path I met, Dim and blue as summer gloaming, Far apart from all the rest, Meek and lowly, Her, my own dear violet. THE OLD ARM-CHAIR: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. HIGH was my lineage, many an age ago 5 "That never echo'd to the woodman's stroke, In boundless contiguity of shade," Possess'd the destined seats of wealth and trade. The dappled deer, the sullen shaggy bear, The tall elk, bursting from its bosky lair, 10 And all the natural tribes of earth and air, All, all, familiar with the gnarled tree, Did homage to my sire's antiquity. Had he possess'd a human heart and speech As sage to know and eloquent to teach 15 As his dark brethren of Dodona, then What tales could he have told of beasts and men! VOL. II. R Of Giant Albion, and his peer in fame, That to far-jutting Cornwall * left his name,- The boast of many a Welsh long pedigree, And many a king and chief, forgotten long, 20 Embalm'd in Geoffrey's prose and Spenser's laureate song: But mute he was, unable to divine The lamentable lot of old Locrine; Nor aught of Camber † or of Albinact 25 Could he relate, nor of poor Lear distract, Though once, I think, that Lear was fain to house 30 With groaning fibre and with quivering leaf. The long lanes that they make in close defiles Of intermingled underwood for miles, 35 So, when the hairy myriads of the North Cornwall. The Giants Albion and Corineus are memorised by † Camber gave name to Cambria and Cumberland; Albinact to Albania, the poetic name of Scotland. 45 And Caledonia pour'd from cavern'd rocks, From all her crankling bays and sinuous lochs, And not to heal, but aggravate the sore, How long he flourish'd, how at last he fell! Was it his doom in shallow bark to bow His knotty strength, and form a pirate's prow? Or board smooth-rubb'd for lavish festival? Or iron-headed ram, to smite the tottering wall? Ah no! He was a dedicated tree From the first germ of his nativity. 60 65 |