IV. As I ride, as I ride, Ne'er has spur my swift horse plied, Shows where sweat has sprung and dried, How has vied stride with stride As I ride, as I ride, V. Could I loose what Fate has tied, All that's meant me satisfied NATIONALITY IN DRINKS. I. My heart sank with our Claret-flask, II. Our laughing little flask, compelled Through depth to depth more bleak and shady; As when, both arms beside her held, Feet straightened out, some gay French lady Is caught up from life's light and motion, And dropped into death's silent ocean! -UP jumped Tokay on our table, Dwarfish to see, but stout and able, Arms and accoutrements all in order; And fierce he looked North, then, wheeling South, Blew with his bugle a challenge to Drouth, Cocked his flap-hat with the tosspot-feather, And then, with an impudence nought could abash, And dexter-hand on his haunch abutting, -HERE'S to Nelson's memory! "Tis the second time that I, at sea, Am I his to command in prose or rhyme! And I save it, be it little or much : Here's one our Captain gives, and so Down at the word, by George, shall it go! He says that at Greenwich they point the beholder GARDEN FANCIES. I. THE FLOWER'S NAME. I. Here's the garden she walked across, Hinders the hinges and makes them wince! II. Down this side of the gravel-walk She went while her robe's edge brushed the box: And here she paused in her gracious talk To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox. Roses, ranged in valiant row, I will never think that she passed you by! She loves you, noble roses, I know; But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie! III. This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, IV. Roses, if I live and do well, I may bring her, one of these days, To fix you fast with as fine a spell, Fit you each with his Spanish phrase; But do not detain me now; for she lingers There, like sunshine over the ground, And ever I see her soft white fingers Searching after the bud she found. V. Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not, Twinkling the audacious leaves between, VI. Where I find her not, beauties vanish; Is there no method to tell her in Spanish June's twice June since she breathed it with me? Come, bud, show me the least of her traces, Treasure my lady's lightest footfall! - Ah, you may flout and turn up your facesRoses, you are not so fair after all! II. SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS. I. Plague take all your pedants, say I! Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land; Printed on paper and bound in leather, Last month in the white of a matin-prime, Just when the birds sang all together. II. Into the garden I brought it to read, And under the arbute and laurustine Read it, so help me grace in my need, From title-page to closing line. Chapter on chapter did I count, As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge; Added up the mortal amount; And then proceeded to my revenge. Yonder's a plum-tree with a crevice An owl would build in, were he but sage; For a lap of moss, like a fine pont-levis In a castle of the Middle Age, Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber; When he'd be private, there might he spend Hours alone in his lady's chamber: Into this crevice I dropped our friend. IV. Splash, went he, as under he ducked, -At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stagnate; Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate; Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf, Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis ; Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf V. Now, this morning, betwixt the moss And gum that locked our friend in limbo, A spider had spun his web across, And sat in the midst with arms akimbo: VI. Here you have it, dry in the sun, With all the binding all of a blister, Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks! Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow? Here's one stuck in his chapter six! VII. How did he like it when the live creatures Came in, each one, for his right of trover? - When the water-beetle with great blind deaf face Made of her eggs the stately deposit, And the newt borrowed just so much of the preface As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet? VIII. All that life and fun and romping, All that frisking and twisting and coupling, While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swamping And clasps were cracking and covers suppling! As if you had carried sour John Knox To the play-house at Paris, Vienna or Munich, Fastened him into a front-row box, And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic. IX. Come, old martyr! What, torment enough is it? |