"For then my head would not be on, I should not have a leg to stand on." Come that's dispatch'd-what follows?-Stay Jack, clap the saddle upon Rose- THE POPLAR. R. HARRIS BARHAM Ar, here stands the Poplar, so tall and so stately, We think in the year eighteen hundred and ten. Yes, here is the G which proclaimed Georgiana; This should be the great D too, that once stood for Dobbin, Its once fair proportions, time, too, has been robbing; Alas! how the soul sentimental it vexes, That thus on our labors stern Chronos should frown. Should change our soft liquids to izzards and Xes, And turn true-love's alphabet all upside down! SPRING. A NEW VERSION. "Ham. The air bites shrewdly-it is very cold. THOMAS HOOD COME, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come!" The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name! Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, And be her tuneful laureates and upholders, Who do not feel as if they had a Spring Poured down their shoulders! Let others eulogize her floral shows; From me they can not win a single stanza. I know her blooms are in full blow-and so's The Influenza. Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale, Fair is the vernal quarter of the year! For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy An inflamination. Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, O! where's the Spring in a rheumatic leg, I limp in agony-I wheeze and cough; What wonder if in May itself I lack A peg for laudatory verse to hang on ?— Spring, mild and gentle !-yes, a Spring-heeled Jack To those he sprang on. In short, whatever panegyrics lie In fulsome odes too many to be cited, The tenderness of Spring is all my eye, And that is blighted! ODE. ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY. Аn me! those old familiar bounds! THOMAS HOOR That classic house, those classic grounds, My pensive thought recalls! What tender urchins now confine, What little captives now repine, Ay, that's the very house! I know And turned our table-beer! There I was birched! there I was bred! From Learning's woeful tree! The weary tasks I used to con! The hopeless leaves I wept upon !— The summoned class!-the awful bowm And wholesome anguish sheds! And Mrs. S***?-Doth she abet (Like Pallas in the palor) yet Some favored two or threeThe little Crichtons of the hour, Her muffin-medals that devour, And swill her prize-bohea? Ay, there's the playground! there's the lime, Who sits there now, and skims the cream Who struts the Randall of the walk? Who scoops the light canoe? What early genius buds apace? Where's Poynter? Harris? Bowers? Chase! Hal Baylis ? blithe Carew? Alack they're gone-a thousand ways! And some have perished young!— Jack Harris weds his second wife; And blithe Carew-is hung! Grave Bowers teaches A B C Poor Chase is with the worms! All are gone the olden breed ! New crops of mushroom boys succeeds, "And push us from our forms!" Lo! where they scramble forth, and shout, And leap, and skip, and mob about, At play where we have played! Some hop, some run (some fall), some twins Lo there what mixed conditions run! The nabob's pampered heir! Some brightly starred-some evil born- Good, bad, indifferent-none they lack! Look, here's a white, and there's a black! And there's a creole brown! Some laugh and sing, some mope and weep And wish their frugal sires would keep Their only sons at home; Some tease the future tense, and plan A foolish wish! There's one at hoop; The marble taw to speed! And one that curvets in and out, Would I were in his steed! |