We parted-months and years rolled by, Our meeting was all mirth and laughter! There had been many other lodgers; But only Mistress-something-Rogers! The political satire is equally good-humored, equally charaeteristic, and equally clever, perhaps cleverer-if that can bethan these specimens. Some of the objects of that keen and pungent verse still remain alive, though many are, like the author, removed from this transitory scene. I abstain, therefore, from inserting what might by possibility cause pain. The following cavalier version of the great fight of Marston Moor is transcribed from the author's own manuscript, apparently the first sketch. It is wonderful how little that fertile and fluent pen found to alter or to amend. To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas, the clarion's note is high! Up rose the Lady Alice, from her brief and broken prayer, As she said, "It is your lady's gift, unfurl it in the van!" "It shall flutter, noble wench, where the best and boldest ride, When they see my lady's gewgaw flaunt proudly on their wing, 'Tis noon. The ranks are broken, along the royal line They fly, the braggarts of the court! the bullies of the Rhine! The knight is left alone, his steel-cap cleft in twain, His good buff jerkin crimsoned o'er with many a gory stain; Yet still he waves his banner, and cries amid the rout, "For Church and King, fair gentlemen! spur on, and fight it out!" And now he wards a Roundhead's pike, and now he hums a stave, And now he quotes a stage-play, and now he fells a knave. God aid thee now, Sir Nicholas! thou hast no thought of fear; The rebels hem thee in, and at every cut and thrust, "Down, down," they cry, "with Belial! down with him to the dust." The Lady Alice sits with her maidens in her bower, The gray-haired warder watches from the castle's topmost tower; "What news? what news, old Hubert ?"-" The battle's lost and won; The royal troops are melting, like mists before the sun! And a wounded man approaches;-I'm blind, and can not see, Yet sure I am that sturdy step, my master's step must be !" "I've brought thee back thy banner, wench, from as rude and red a fray, "Sweet! we will fill our money-bags, and freight a ship for France, I pass some poems that have been greatly praised, "The Red Fishermen," "Lilian," and "The Troubadour," to come to the charades the charming charades—which, in their form of short narrative poems, he may be said to have invented. I insert a few taken almost at random from his brilliant collection : I. I graced Don Pedro's revelry, All dressed in fire and feather; He flung the slave who moved the lid, He vowed a vow, that noble knight, To make his only sport the fight, To ride through mountains, where my First To leave the gates of fair Madrid, And dare the gates of Hades ;- II. Morning is beaming o'er brake and bower; Lo! where my Second in gorgeous array, With an arching neck and a glancing eye. Spread is the banquet and studied the song, And the maidens strew flowers,-but where is my Whole ? Look to the hill!-is he climbing its side? The next is a surname, and one of the most beautiful compliments ever offered to a great poet. I add a few more of these graceful pleasantries: IV. He talked of daggers and of darts, Of passions and of pains, Of weeping eyes and wounded hearts, He said, though love was kin to grief, He said, though many rued belief, But still the lady shook her head, My Whole was all that he had said, He said my First whose silent car Vailed in a vapor faint and far Through the unfathomed sky, And then he set a cypress wreath Upon his raven hair, And drew his rapier from its sheath,- And said his life blood's purple glow But still the lady shook her head, V. My First came forth in booted state, And smiled to feel my Second's weight, "And here's a gaoler sweet," quoth he, "You can not bribe or cozen; To keep one ward in custody Wise men will forge a dozen.” But daybreak saw a lady guide With a handsome cavalier beside, And "blessings on the bonds," quoth he, "Which wrinkled age imposes, If woman must a prisoner be, Her chain should be of roses." |