As dew and rain, as light and air, A flame to purify the earth, And train them for their second birth,- Albion! on every human soul Might shine, where'er thy children roam, ON THE ROYAL INFANT,* STILLBORN, NOV. 5, 1817. A THRONE on earth awaited thee; Vain hope that throne thou must not fill; Thee may that nation ne'er behold; Thine ancient house is heirless still, Thy line shall never be unrolled. Yet while we mourn thy flight from earth, Thine was a destiny sublime; Caught up to Paradise in birth, The child of the Princess Charlotte. The Mother knew her offspring dead: Led by his natal star, she trod The path to heaven:-the meeting there, A TALE TOO TRUE. This poem, literally a summer-day's labour, was written on the 23rd July, 1796, at Scarborough, just after the Author had been liberated from York Castle, and forms a supplement to his "Prison Amusements," originally published under the assumed name of Paul Positive. ONE beautiful morning, when Paul was a child, The rogue played the truant, which shows he was wild, He came to a cottage that grew on the moor, No mushroom was ever so strong; 'T was snug as a mouse-trap; and close by the door A river ran rippling along. The cot was embosomed in rook-nested trees, Geese gabbled in concert with bagpiping bees, At the door sat a damsel, a sweet little girl, Her skin was lovely as mother-of-pearl, She sang as she knotted a garland of flowers, Paul stood like a gander, he stood like himself, She started and trembled, she blushed and she smiled, "Pray, what brought you hither, my dear little child? "Yes, yes!" stammered Paul, and he made a fine bow, Though the lofty-bred belles of St. James's, I trow, No matter, the dimple-cheeked damsel was pleased, Paul took the fine present, and tenderly squeezed, Then into the cottage she led the young fool, The lass's grim mother, who managed a school, Her eyes were as red as two lobsters when boiled, Her complexion the colour of straw; Though she grinned like a death's head whenever she smiled, She showed not a tooth in her jaw. Her body was shrivelled and dried like a kecks, Her dress was as mournful as mourning could be,- Most dismally stricken in years. The charms of her youth, if she ever had any, Were all under total eclipse; While the charms of her daughter, who truly had many, Thus, far in a wilderness, bleak and forlorn, All hoary and horrid, I've seen an old thorn, While a sweet-smiling snowdrop enamels its root, "Dear mother!" the damsel exclaimed with a sigh, The beldame then mounting her spectacles on, Paul fell down astounded, and only not dead, Like piping hot gingerbread outstretched he lay, While weeping her soul from her eyelids away, But when she perceived him alive once again, The captive, transported, forgot all his pain, All rapture and fondness, all folly and joy, "For shame!" quoth the nymph, though she looked the reverse, "Such nonsense I cannot approve; Too young we're to wed."-Paul said, “So much the worse; But are we too young, then, to love?" The lady replied in the language that speaks The language that blushes through eloquent cheeks, Our true lovers lived-for the fable saith true As merry as larks in their nest, Who are learning to sing while the hawk is in view, Through valleys and meadows they wandered by day, So liquidly glided their moments away, When they twittered their notes from the top of a hill, If November did not look like May, If rocks did not caper, nor rivers stand still, The asses at least did not bray. If the trees did not leap, nor the mountains advance, If sun, moon, and stars did not lead up a dance, But sometimes the beldame, cross, crazy, and old, For wisdom, she argued, could only be taught And she acted, as every good schoolmistress ought, Her school, by-the-bye, was the noblest on earth There many great folks, who were folios by birth, Her rod, like Death's scythe, in her levelling hand Kings, queens, popes, and heroes, the touch of her wand |